Media Relations

When I ask my friends in PR what they’d do with a bigger budget, their first instinct is to smile that “yeah, right!” smile. It’s hard enough to keep the budget they have much less… Continued

President Trump’s June 29 tweets about “Morning Joe” hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough have generated plenty of outrage in the professional media, on social channels and in home kitchens across the land. In his… Continued

On June 16, Amazon announced its $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods in a press release. But what does its messaging look like to its investors and top stakeholders? In the 10 days since the press release and accompanying front-page headlines, messaging for investors has centered on sales, showing that automating more jobs is a good thing, aligning with government priorities and maintaining a CSR narrative. Here are five ways Amazon has been communicating the acquisition as a benefit to investors.

“We know data visualization is important, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy,” said Kevin Hartman, head of analytics, consumer, government and entertainment for Google, at PR News’ Visual Storytelling Boot Camp in Chicago. “You have to keep your storyline simple and readable,” said co-presenter Carolyn Barth. “And you have to know your audience and think about what’s practical for them.”

In the course of your career, you’ll have attended dozens if not hundreds of industry events where – if you’re like most human attendees – you’ve exchanged business cards as if by rote, refilled your… Continued

Andrew Hayes, VP, corporate communications at Fifth Third Bank, has seen media relations from the other side, and he wasn’t too impressed by the view. After running his own PR agency for 10 years, he… Continued

File under “signs of the times”: Republican candidate for the House of Representatives Greg Gianforte violently assaulted a reporter Wednesday, according to the eyewitness account of a a team from the Fox News Channel. The victim, Ben Jacobs of The Guardian, entered a room at Gianforte’s Bozeman, Montana headquarters where the Fox News team was preparing for an interview with the candidate and began questioning Gianforte about the controversial American Health Care Act.

Imagine this: attendees at a conference are flocking to a table filled with greeting cards where they can choose among “thank you,” “happy birthday” and “congratulations” greetings, write something nice (hopefully), lick the envelope and… Continued

More than 5,000 press releases are issued each day and reporters get roughly 100 pitches daily via email. So, how can you produce a release that stands out from the crowd? That was the question tackled by Mandy Menaker, head of PR and brand development for Shapr, and Erin Burke, director and vice president of APCO Worldwide, at the PR News Press Release Writing Workshop at the Yale Club in New York.

Leave it to a media company to offer a mini-case study in media relations. ESPN cut around 100 jobs on Wednesday, about half of which affected on-air talent. While the cuts were expected, they went deeper than many industry-watchers anticipated. Thanks to ESPN’s transparency about the layoffs, many of its talking points in its prepared statements became the foundation of coverage from media outlets.