Stories by Justin Joffe

Fashion e-commerce site Revolve filed an IPO this week. The site, which describes itself in the filing as a “next-generation fashion retailer for millennial consumers”, mentions the word influencers a whopping 79 times. Going public also brings on an increased level of scrutiny, and the need for Revolve to make sure its influencers are properly disclosing their relationships to the FTC. That has not always been the case.

Not all brand leaders ought to have their smartphones taken away. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has established a reputation as the rarest of figureheads—not only does she have her fingerprints on every piece of work that bears a connection to her “Wizarding World,” but she often responds to fans online directly, keeping up a dialogue and mitigating any controversies that arise.

September is National Preparedness Month, when the federal government offers resources for people to prepare in the event of an imminent natural disaster. In the spirit of this awareness initiative, PRSA’s New York Chapter hosted a panel discussion, “Disaster Communications: Preparing Yourself, Your Team, and Your Company for the Unexpected,” at FleishmanHillard’s New York Office.

Successful writers and PR pros alike remember that the words we use carry a weight, a positive or negative connotation, and choosing what word to use can make or break your brand. Weight Watchers demonstrated an understanding of this on Monday when it announced that it was rebranding as WW, or “wellness that works,” forgoing the 55-year old brand name in favor of shifting the focus away from simple dieting to highlight the brand’s new emphasis on sustainable wellness products and initiatives.

All recent accusations of bias have one thing in common, the same thing that Facebook has dodged questions of reform or regulation over and generally failed to directly address: its proprietary, micro-targeting ad platform. It was this ad platform that allowed the Russians to pay for propaganda in rubles, it was this ad platform that allowed Cambridge Analytica to manipulate its third-party audience categories, and it was this ad platform that has brought the latest accusations of gender bias back to Facebook.

A good endorsement from the FDA could actually turn out to be bad PR for Apple, a company known to offer its newest proprietary tech at premium prices, as people who need the tech might not be able to afford it. The issue of life-saving resources that are unaffordable to many recalls several recent instances when pharmaceutical companies have made headlines for raising the price of their medications to such exorbitant numbers that those without insurance deemed the gouging to be a death sentence.

Goldman Sachs offered a blanket denial to the reporting from a story published earlier this week in the New York Times, which accuses Goldman of dismissing claims from a top executive who used the firm’s own whistleblower hotline to call out a litany of ethical violations he saw from the inside. Goldman’s statements on the matter call to question why transparency and accountability remain so difficult for the bank to put into practice, and its statements similarly raise more questions.

The New Yorker has published a 14,000-word profile on Facebook founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg. While regulation continues to be proposed as the umbrella solution to several of Facebook’s problems this year, here are a few takeaways from the story on what Zuckerberg thinks about external regulation—and what efforts the platform is taking to regulate itself.

This past Labor Day, Nike announced Colin Kaepernick as the main face for the 30th anniversary of its “Just Do It” campaign. Heaps of praise, and condemnation, were immediate. #BoycottNike continues to trend, as conservatives across the country destroy the Nike goods they paid good money for in protest, and Nike shares took a slight dip.

Earlier this week, President Trump accused Google and Facebook of prioritizing unfavorable coverage about him in their respective news feeds. The accusation comes at a time when both platforms are under increasing pressure to be more transparent about how they decide what content to prioritize.