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The Audience in the Mind’s Eye: How Journalists Imagine Their Readers

By James G. Robinson, writing for the Columbia Journalism Review: A central irony of the newsroom is that while many journalists’ decisions are made with readers in mind, the audiences for their work often remain unfocused, imagined abstractions, built on long-held assumptions, newsroom folklore, and imperfect inference. This is not particular to journalism. Writing, like […]


A Major League Crisis – and How a TV News Producer Attacked it with a Roll of the Dice

[by Howard Fencl, Hennes Communications] Cleveland’s getting ready for another turn in the national spotlight with the 2019 Major League Baseball All-Star game. There’s a lot of revitalization to show off to national media doing sidebar travelogue pieces on the city. Where else can you find a town celebrating its river’s miraculous recovery 50 years […]


How Best to Convey “Executive Presence” Non-Verbally

By Dan Hill, from Sensory Logic: From U.S. presidents to NFL quarterbacks, I’ve studied their signature facial expressions—looking for the patterns that indicate success. Maybe you weren’t the first choice for the C-suite corner office you now have, but surely you weren’t the 199th overall pick for the job (like the New England Patriot’s Tom Brady). […]


6 Questions on the Power — and Limits — of Litigation Communications

The majority of work referred to Hennes Communications comes from attorneys, who are often “first responders” when bad things happen to good companies and organizations.  Subsequently, we’re often retained by the attorney or law firm in order to help assist them in preparation for trial.  It’s called “litigation communications” and here’s a great piece on […]


Criminalizing the Boardroom: A Communications Guidebook for Prosecutorial Targets

From our friend and colleague, Richard Levick: It took half a year and dozens of interviews with former prosecutors, defense lawyers, the falsely accused, and those who served time and resulted in two series in Forbes and the Corporate Counsel Business Journal. It is soon to be the source of multiple broadcasts and another comprehensive piece in a board […]


The Day TV Journalism Died

By Arthur Solomon, writing for CommPro: We soon will be approaching June 1, the birthday of the death of TV journalism. And Americans who care about truthful, factual, accurate news should still be in mourning. People who grew up during the age of cable news might not know that once upon a time, TV journalism […]


“Taking Out the Trash” is Not a Crisis Management Option

[by Howard Fencl & Thom Fladung, Hennes Communications] Memorial Day – just last weekend – may already be a wistful memory for you. If you watched local TV news – and almost no one does on holiday weekends – you know it was dominated by stale, cliché, perennial coverage of barbeque tips, parades, gas prices […]


President Trump, the Russian Connection & Crisis Communications

By Bruce Hennes, Hennes Communications Some believe  President Trump and his closest advisers committed illegal acts by conspiring with Russian officials on a wide variety of political and financial activities. Some believe President Trump and his closest advisers indeed had contacts with Russian officials, but that those contacts were benign or perhaps even stupid, but […]


New ‘Morning Edition’ Theme Aspires to be ‘Inclusive and Inviting’

From Adam Ragusea, Journalist in Residence and Visiting Assistant Professor, Mercer University Center for Collaborative Journalism: The new Morning Edition music debuted Monday. As a composer-turned-pubradio-guy-turned-journalism-prof who still sometimes writes music for shows, here is my take on it, along with reactions I’ve gathered from other people and some perspective from the person who oversaw its production. […]


Sometimes It’s Best to Shut Up – Inside Lori Loughlin’s Crisis PR Strategy

From Rose Minutaglio writing in Elle: A slew of nameless sources claiming to be “close to” Lori Loughlin and “familiar with her case” have been feeding what seems like endless fodder to tabloids since news of the college admissions scandal broke in March. “It’s killing her that her squeaky-clean reputation has done a total 180. […]


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