Stories by Seth Arenstein

As the PR News’ Top Women in PR awards luncheon approaches (Jan. 25, NYC), we look at why women continue to dominate PR in terms of numbers of jobs, yet are largely excluded from its leadership positions. We asked some of the women who will be honored next week about this and what can be done. They said the solutions should come from women and industry.

2019 brought new regulations, including one that requires hospitals to post online their standard prices. Unfortunately, the goal of transparency in hospital pricing is still a long way off. There are, though, takeaways that communicators in all fields can learn from this issue.

In theory, communicators should be good at keeping their team informed. Yet internal communications often is a problem. In this first of a series of short videos, Jennifer Mastin Giglio, VP of communications for the Washington Nationals Baseball Club, discusses how she keeps her team informed. The video was recorded just prior to a communications leaders roundtable that PR News and partner PublicRelay hosted.

It wasn’t long ago when brands were told to steer as far away as possible from politics and social issues. The situation is more complicated today. Some consumers expect brands to take stands and will reward them for it. Several brands in the Washington, D.C., area are reacting to the government shutdown with acts of kindness. Will they be rewarded?

A woman of many talents, ESPN’s Hannah Storm discusses visual storytelling and her work as a film director/producer and the founder of a charitable foundation in this brief video.

In this short video, Emma Monks of Crisp mentions that brands often fail to consider the risks of working with influencers.

Not long ago, communicators outside the tech industry tended to ignore CES, the country’s largest trade event. The new reality, where every device is connected, blurs the distinction between consumer and business technologies. This new reality and has made CES an important event for all communicators.

A legend in the auto industry, Carlos Ghosn has called a Tokyo jail cell home since before Thanksgiving. The former Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors chairman allegedly failed to report millions of dollars in income. He might get the chance to speak in public next week. What should he, or other CEOs in hot water, say in such a situation?

PR News’ regular Roundtable feature asked senior communicators to discuss what they believe will be the toughest challenge in 2019. Perhaps concerned with the headlines of the day, many of them had trust and integrity issues on their minds. Others mentioned breaking through the clutter to get their narrative heard.

The mood of the moment when people are making predictions often influences what they see for the year ahead. As we reached out to communicators for our annual predictions feature, headlines were blaring about the NY Times’ scathing Facebook article in late November. As a result, though a multiplicity of issues was discussed, trust often seemed top of mind.