Stories by Tony Silber

Today, the Baltimore Ravens cut Ray Rice, the running back who was involved in an ugly altercation in February with his then fiancé, and now wife, Janay Palmer. The NFL followed the Ravens’ action by suspending Rice indefinitely. What a difference a video makes. The contract cancellation and the suspension come just a month and […]

I’ve been riveted by the fast-moving situation in Ferguson, Missouri. It seems like an event from the sixties, a dark reflection of an ugly period long past, when cities burned and communities writhed in confrontations with law enforcement. I paid oblique attention for the first few days, but was shocked this morning (Thursday, August 14) […]

I have a stack of business books that I’ve either started reading or plan to start reading soon. I’m looking forward to getting into them, and I took three of them with me for a vacation last week on the beach in North Carolina. As it turns out, I didn’t read any of my business […]

So you have a major meeting this week. Let’s say it’s a really important client meeting. You just landed a big account, and now you’re working out the details of who’s going to manage what. Or maybe the corporate communications department is tasked with implementing a social media and earned media campaign for a new […]

Which workplace exchanges do you find to be most difficult? For most people, they’re centered on two things: Personnel and performance. Both of these things straddle the worlds of internal communications and HR, and both are also general managerial challenges. I recently read an interesting column in Business Insider about the toughest conversations you can […]

When the Time 100 was released last week, our editorial team discussed how we might cover it. The context was its relation to PR, and how communicators could leverage the value of making the list. This list is a PR person’s dream. It’s eclectic and interesting, and it covers a wide variety of human endeavor. […]

I was editing a report the other day about a PR person who got into a spat with a news organization. And the report used the phrase, “Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.” Some of you might know that one. Many of you may not have heard it. But…

There I was in the dentist’s chair with the TV on in front of me, with the 10 or 11 “Good Morning America” co-hosts—or was it 13 or 14?—yelling and laughing maniacally as one at some unfunny cross-promotional tidbit about what’s trending on Twitter. I only prayed the whine and scrape of the ultrasonic scaler […]

Over the weekend, I repeatedly came across examples of the realities of the new media ecosystem. On Saturday, I saw on Facebook a hot conversation about an apparently serious car accident in my town. People were reporting what they saw. They were sharing second-hand accounts, and of course, opinions. I toggled over to the local […]

Yesterday, I was driving home with a friend, and the conversation turned, as it inevitably does, to Howard Dean’s famous scream in the 2004 presidential campaign. (Okay, it’s not really inevitable, it’s just funny to say that, and it goes to a point I’m about to make.) And that point, to borrow from an old […]