Stories by Diane Schwartz

For reasons that escape me now, I said yes to my son Max when he asked if we could go to Comic Con together this past weekend.  Sounded like a fun day out in New York City: hanging with 125,000 pop culture fans at the Javits Center, more than half of whom came dressed as […]

I am among the unlucky who didn’t watch ‘Breaking Bad’ over the years and missed out on the binge-watching and chatter over Sunday’s finale. We must all make choices in our TV viewing and apparently I made a bad choice and there’s no going back to viewing all the seasons since I now know (spoiler […]

I picked up a sound piece of advice the other night, during a college admissions event my daughter and I attended.  Among the questions the prospective students asked of the alumni panel was whether the class sizes are so big that you can’t see, hear and learn in them.  The very articulate Class of 2010 […]

When UPS wanted to make the public aware of its sustainability and energy-saving practices, the PR team knew it needed to tell an interesting story to showcase its efforts.  It has always stuck with me that UPS drivers don’t make left turns (or at least, 95% of the time, they don’t turn left). By turning […]

Women are being told to “lean in” to advance their careers; others are encouraged to lean out. I’ve got some advice that’s gender-neutral and is in response to a troublesome trend permeating society, from business meetings to social gatherings, from conference rooms to concert halls, from boardrooms to, um, bedrooms. The advice? Look Up! Move […]

When I was a child, my mother always corrected me when I used the word “uh” and “like,” as in the sentence, “Uh, I am not sure, like I really want to do this but I don’t know how.” I have made up that sentence for great effect (hopefully) to illustrate how uneducated one can […]

Let’s assume that your press release landed in the right in-box, meaning the reporter is the right target for your message. For anyone in public relations, just getting to this point is a major achievement. But don’t get all cocky, because …

Let’s assume that your press release landed in the right in-box, meaning the reporter is the right target for your message. For anyone in public relations, just getting to this point is a major achievement. But don’t get all cocky, because what comes next is critical. As a reporter by trade and one who still […]

New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, also known as Carlos Danger in the sexting world, issued an apology this week after more salacious text messages surfaced between him and a twenty-something Indiana woman. The messages were exchanged after he …

New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, also known as Carlos Danger in the sexting world, issued an apology this week after more salacious text messages surfaced between him and a twenty-something Indiana woman. The messages were exchanged after he resigned from Congress in 2011 amid a sexting scandal, promising to rehabilitate. At his press conference […]