Internal Communication

As social issues, such as those in Minnesota, escalate rapidly and play out in real time, business leaders are increasingly forced to decide not just whether to speak or make statements, but how clearly—and at what risk—in moments when silence, caution or ambiguity can be interpreted as a message of its own.

The Buffalo Bills’ week of misfires provides stark, real-world instruction for public relations professionals. The failure was not necessarily in the decision to fire their coach, but in their total breakdown of crisis communication protocols.

As 2026 approaches, it pays to take stock of everything that occurred in 2025 and how it could impact the next year of the PR industry. Some friends in the communications world approached PRNEWS with predictions for the coming year for many PR tenets including digital, crisis, media relations and more.

This week’s PR Roundup examines an AI-generated McDonald’s holiday ad gone wrong, a new study by Ruder Finn that reveals employee optimism around AI, and Beaches going all-in on experiential for an Elf on the Shelf vacation no family will soon forget.

2025 PRSA ICON gathered comms professionals, educators and students to explore themes on impactful storytelling, industry ethics, leadership and reputation in polarized times, and the effect of technology on the profession. 

Most companies prepare for technical outage recovery. Very few prepare for reputational recovery.

This week’s PR Roundup takes a look at a prime example of unprompted employee advocacy on LinkedIn, lessons from the Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage and a new study from GIPHY showing the triumphant preference of the group chat for sharing important information.

This week’s PR Roundup explores the high stakes of personal conduct in a hyperconnected world, how AXE’s tongue-in-cheek TikTok collaboration proves the power of creator partnerships, and why new research shows PR pros must rebuild trust as young audiences turn to (but doubt) social media for news.

Industry leaders note that the real power of AI in PR lies in giving teams their time back. When communicators spend less time sorting media mentions and formatting briefings, they can focus on the insights themselves and on what their organizations should do next.

This week’s PR Roundup looks at the chilling effect of employer retribution for triggering Charlie Kirk remarks on social media, how a new Comscore tool can inspire brand creativity and a new study that shows how Gen Alpha controls many purchasing decisions in the household.