Facebook Live and Crisis Management: The 24 Second News Cycle

[by Howard Fencl, Hennes Communications] If you follow this newsletter or attend one of our crisis management and communications seminars, you understand the urgency of getting your side of the story out in the first media news cycle. If you’re not ready to quickly roll out your messages when a crisis strikes or an issue […]

Horse-Race Journalism Dominated Primary Media Coverage

The media love to tell “horse race” stories. And if you’ve been watching/reading about the presidential race over the last year, you’ve seen a lot of them. While horse race stories are certainly legitimate storytelling “frames,” we’re not sure democracy is best-served with an overabundance on that particular frame. From Poynter in a piece written by […]

How Live-Streaming a Police Shooting Could Change the Narrative

When a police officer fatally shot her fiancé, Philando Castile, during a traffic stop in a Minnesota suburb, Diamond Reynolds responded the way she knew how: She calmly live-streamed the aftermath of the event, reciting on Facebook Live what happened in the car seat next to her. In doing so, she punctuated a national paradigm […]

The Dividend of Crisis (Yes, There Is One)

[By Nora Jacobs, Hennes Communications] If you want a recent wonderful example of an organization doing well by doing good, you need look no further than West Virginia’s Greenbrier Resort, which was at the epicenter of that state’s recent historic flooding. West Virginia was declared a federal disaster area after torrential rains swept through the […]

The Social Media Uproar Over Harambe’s Death

Cameron Knight figured Saturday would be a good day to catch up on some weekend work. Barring any breaking news, he planned to finish a Memorial Day story and a piece on the anniversary of the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire. As the breaking news reporter at The Cincinnati Enquirer worked, he listened to the […]

Getting Over Stage Fright With the Help of Your Smartphone

From The New York Times: For some people, public speaking comes naturally. But if you are like me, you may um and ah too much, spurred by the worry that nerves may get the best of you, that you might speak too fast or mess up in some way. So I have been practicing my public […]

3 Lessons From General Mills During a Product Recall

A brand’s worst nightmare: product recall. For brands in the food industry, customers’ health and safety are on the line and any recall situation can turn bad. Every brand should treat a recall situation as a crisis – even if nothing bad has happened yet. Taking the right steps in a recall situation can help protect your […]

Serious About Crisis Management? Get Serious About Social Media!

[by Howard Fencl] Here’s another wake-up call – in dollars and cents – for the many Pleistocene-era Luddites in organizations who treat social media as a newfangled afterthought in crisis management: U.S. ad spending on internet platforms will exceed ad buys on broadcast for the first time in 2017, according to a recent PwC report. […]

Veteran Akron Communications Professional Stephanie York Joins Hennes Communications

CRISIS MANAGEMENT FIRM LAUNCHING SATELLITE OFFICE IN AKRON CLEVELAND – Stephanie York, a communications professional with extensive experience and deep ties in the Akron area, is joining Hennes Communications as vice president. The firm, which specializes in crisis management and communications, is expanding its team and opening an office in Akron. York brings to that […]