Stories by Steve Goldstein

Legendary Hollywood director John Huston was fond of saying that he didn’t direct actors—he cast them. He would cast actors because they were right for a particular role, and that judgment alone was the limit of his direction of their performances. You can apply this same approach to the ways in which your brand works with influencers. The bulk of the job is in finding and vetting the right influencers.

PR News’ Measurement Hall of Fame members have a thing about data or, rather, a thing about the casual disregard of data in the PR discipline. Few things aggravate them more than a PR professional who worries openly about proving the value of communications efforts yet shies away from taking the first steps toward using data to inform their work and show the effect of their work on an organization’s goals.

In her nearly two decades as a PR pro, Maire Griffin, VP, global communications for the Wyndham Hotel Group, has been a witness to many changes in the PR pro/reporter relationship. What hasn’t changed is the need to work equally hard on relationships with internal and external stakeholders. One feeds into the other, and back again.

If you’re in the market for a new job in communications, assume that anybody you might be meeting for an interview once made the mistake of hiring somebody without having given that person a writing test (it’s a mistake you make just once). Expect to be asked to take a writing test, and take these four tips to heart.

PR News will kick off 2018 with its celebration of the Top Women in PR on Jan. 23 at New York’s Grand Hyatt. This annual luncheon event tends to be much more than a parade of illustrious business executives. Top Women in PR honorees typically share their deepest-held lessons learned and, most significantly, talk about the mentors who have meant the most to them.

When Lacey Haines joined HP in 2016, she saw an opportunity to reinvent how the company approaches product reviews by expanding the scope of the program to include lifestyle media. In short, Haines created HP’s consumer media program, building it into what it is today.

Five communications veterans were inducted into the PR Hall of Fame at PR News’ 2017 PR People Awards luncheon on Dec. 5 at the historic National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Entry into the PR Hall of Fame is PR News’ highest honor: Inductees are PR professionals who have played longtime leadership roles, serving as sources of inspiration within and beyond the workplace, and helping to redefine and expand the roles communicators play.

There is profound uncertainty about the uses of data and of the value of the communications data that communicators share with senior leaders, according to a recent survey of communicators at the director level and, separately, at the VP level and above. The survey from PR News and PublicRelay, a media monitoring and ana­lytics firm, looks at the day-to-day role of measurement and media analysis.

Digital communications makes nearly all actions and results quantifiable. This should enable communicators to have an easier time proving the value of their work. It’s more complicate than that as this survey from PublicRelay and PR News discovered.

Let’s start with this morning’s initial apology from a powerful man accused of sexual assault: “I certainly don’t remember the rehearsal for the skit in the same way, but I send my sincerest apologies to Leeann. As to the photo, it was clearly intended to be funny but wasn’t. I shouldn’t have done it.”