Police Response to Astroworld Tragedy Shows Importance of Timing, Risk Management
John Guilfoil writes… The Astroworld Tragedy is gut-wrenching. Media reporting about it, especially a New York Times story today, reminds us how important professional journalism is to finding the truth behind a major incident. In the story, a source tells the Times that Houston Police Chief Troy Finner shared concerns about crowd control directly with performer Travis […]
The Not-So-Jolly Aaron Rodgers Controversy’s PR Lessons
Art Solomon writes… Aaron Rodgers arguably is the best quarterback in the National Football League, but also he is one of many athletes who should attend a PR 101 class. A basic PR rule that Rodgers broke is never to lie or mislead the media. The Green Bay Packers’ star denies he did. Yet, his […]
Communicating Effectively With The Public About Terrorism In Crowded Places
From the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats… Effective public communication can help prevent attacks on crowded places by encouraging reporting. It can also reduce the impact of attacks that it was not possible to prevent by informing the public about how to protect themselves. Despite this, there has historically been limited research […]
Threats Rarely Work: A PR Lesson from HBO’s ‘Succession’
David Ball, writing for PR News, hits it on the head… With the return of HBO’s “Succession” next month, I remember at least one teachable communication moment from the second season. In episode six, a magazine writer approaches the leaders of fictitious Waystar Royco with a story of sexual harassment and abuse within the company. The story […]
A Journey in Organizational Resilience: Crisis Management
From George Platsis, writing in Security Intelligence… So far in this organizational resilience journey, we have focused mainly on the planning phase, or, as some call it, ‘left of the boom’. For a moment, let’s look at a ‘right of the boom’ (post-incident) theme: crisis management (CM), an important component of your cyber resilience planning. A good CM […]
Six Tips for Being More Persuasive
Written for attorneys by Gray Robinson, but applicable to all… A large part of practicing law is persuading someone to believe, act or agree with your client’s position, whether in a courtroom or boardroom or at a negotiation or dinner table. We seek to persuade juries, judges, colleagues, friends, family or the media that we […]
Should Heads Roll at Board Level When Issues are Mismanaged?
From our colleague in Australia, Tony Jaques, reprinted with his permission… Boards and individual directors are now very clearly in the crosshairs when their organisation is battered by an operational crisis or high-profile issue. It used to seem sufficient to jettison the CEO and a handful of executives as red meat for the media, investors […]
“Even-Though Risk Communication”: Mandatory COVID Vaccination
If your organization is grappling with conflicting thoughts about whether or not to mandate that all of your employees get vaccinated as a condition of employment, we urge you to carefully read the article below. Risk communications concerns itself with making risk comprehensible and relatable to other risks, how to pay appropriate respect to […]
Consider the ‘Message Effect’ of Inviting a Consultant to Help Your Witness
From Ken Broda-Bahm, Ph.D., writing for The Persuasive Litigator… Arriving for the preparation meeting, the witness notices that there’s someone new in the room: a communications consultant. A non-lawyer visiting from out-of-town, the consultant is introduced by the lawyer as a specialist in legal communication and as someone who “is here to help us prepare […]
It’s Not Misinformation. It’s Amplified Propaganda.
From Renee DiResta, writing in The Atlantic… One Sunday morning in July of last year, a message from an anonymous account appeared on “Bernie or Vest,” a Discord chat server for fans of Senator Bernie Sanders. It contained an image of Shahid Buttar, the San Francisco activist challenging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the 2020 congressional runoff, and […]