From The Conversation… In the immediate hours after the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump on July 13, 2024, social media users posted the same videos, images and eyewitness accounts but used them as evidence for different rumors or theories that aligned with their political preferences. Among the deluge of rumors, one TikTok creator narrated […]
From Alex Lewis writing for PRNews… For brands with a mission, the success of PR and marketing often rests on uniting people behind a common cause, such as climate change or gender equality. But in these polarizing times, political views shape people’s attitudes to purpose-related issues. Rather than bringing people together, research shows that highlighting the seriousness […]
From The New York Times… A story can entertain and inform; it can also deceive and manipulate. Perhaps few stories are as seductive as the ones we tell ourselves about ourselves — those reasonable, principled creatures so many of us presume ourselves to be. As Annalee Newitz writes in “Stories Are Weapons,” propaganda is premised […]
From Tom Weidlich at PRCG | Haggerty… Former Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi has a piece in the Columbia Journalism Review this week highlighting the trend (he has numbers) of companies and others not even responding to reporters’ calls for comment. His examples concern crises. Farhi did Nexis searches and found that mentions of the phrase “did not […]
From our good friend in Australia, Tony Jaques, at Issues Outcome. Check out his website here. With universities tying themselves in knots over free speech and campus protests, and corporations struggling to decide what to say on high profile issues, it’s time to revisit whether management should speak up or shut up. Despite the headlines […]
Why ‘meaning-making’ matters In every crisis, it is essential that government and public sector leaders provide a compelling story. A good crisis narrative teaches the public about the realities of the predicament. It conveys what leaders know, do not know and cannot know, and what they are doing to figure out as much as possible. […]
By Constantinos C. Markides and Andrew MacLennan for Harvard Business Review A pilot once told us a story about an accident on an early morning flight in the 1950s. As the aircraft accelerated to take off, the captain noticed his flight engineer’s sullen expression and called out, “Cheer up, George.” But in his sleepy state, […]
By Nick Hansen for the American Bar Association “If you can see it coming, it’s not a crisis,” said Bruce Hennes, CEO of Hennes Communications, to audience members at his 2024 Bar Leadership Institute workshop “Speaking Out or Strategic Silence? Organizational Approaches to Issuing Public Statements.”Hennes, along with Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association (CMBA) CEO Becky […]
By Matt Petteruto for PR News As the media landscape continues to change at a dizzying pace, it can be difficult for PR and communications pros to keep pace. Layoffs continue to mount, while the manner in which news is delivered and consumed by audiences is constantly evolving. Despite these rapid changes, one thing remains for […]
By Eric Rose writing for PR News… This recent headline would make any crisis communicator cringe: “Amazon’s plans to advance its interests in California laid bare in leaked memo.” The story, which unfolded through a leaked internal memo, shed light on Amazon’s growth strategy in the Southern California region and its 2024 internal community outreach plans. […]