Lessons from Ferguson: Are You Listening?
[By Thom Fladung, former managing editor, The Plain Dealer] A year after Ferguson, the lessons continue to reverberate. Is anyone listening? At the recent National Association of Black Journalists convention in Minneapolis, a panel of journalists spoke about the lessons they learned in Ferguson, Missouri, covering the shooting of Michael Brown, its aftermath, and how […]
News Junkies & the Social Media Fix
[by Howard Fencl, APR] In the world of TV news, the most rabid members of the viewing public have long been known as “news junkies.” In the pre-web, pre-social media era, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, they were the letter writers, the habitual phone callers; or in extreme (and scary) cases, they were the […]
Are Internet Trolls Winning? Only If We Let Them!
[by Thom Fladung, former managing editor, The Plain Dealer] A recent Columbia Journalism Review story argued that the media, while denouncing the online trolls who delight in spreading hate, also support trolls by providing forums and attention. As a 33-year newspaperman who very recently left the media, how would I plead? Is “I really, really […]
Beyond the Chaos: 3 Stories of Those Under the Gun During Major Crises
From our colleague, Jim McKay, editor of Emergency Management Magazine: In this feature, we look at three separate disasters through the lens of someone in command. All three of these emergencies were incredibly tragic and difficult or impossible to predict. Besides the tragedy, these emergency managers share lessons learned, some of which we discuss here. Frank […]
Protecting Value in the Face of Mass Fatality Events
From Oxford Metrica: Extreme events provide an opportunity for investors to review their opinions about a firm and, more pertinently, about its management. Additional corporate information is forthcoming around such events that would not be available in more normal circumstances. This new information is received and digested by markets which form new estimates of future […]
6 Storytelling Lessons from Superheroes
Matt Kirdahy from Water & Wall Group writes: What makes the tales of Superman, Batman, Spider-Man—and now Ant-man—successful is that they incite passion among followers. Their stories transform these followers into loyalists and ambassadors. Too often marketing and communications pros tap the wrong sources of information from our clients to use in connecting with audiences. […]
Thom Fladung, Former Managing Editor of The Plain Dealer, Joins Hennes Communications
NEWSPAPER AND DIGITAL MEDIA VETERAN THOMAS FLADUNG JOINS HENNES COMMUNICATIONS CLEVELAND – Hennes Communications, one of the few firms in the U.S. focused exclusively on crisis management, crisis communications and reputation management, today announced that Thomas Fladung has joined the agency as vice president. Fladung brings more than 33 years of daily newspaper and digital […]
TLC & the Duggar Family Scandal
[By Howard Fencl, APR] In the ongoing story of the Duggar family sex abuse scandal, the TLC cable television network on Thursday, July 16 announced that “after thoughtful consideration, TLC and the Duggar family have decided to not move forward with 19 Kids and Counting. The show will no longer appear on the air.” The […]
How Jeni’s Ice Cream Faced a Bet-the-Store Crisis
[By Nora Jacobs, APR] When news of the Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream recall first broke in April, we lauded the company’s communication response . (If you missed that post, you can access it here.) We watched reports of the crisis in the following weeks and could only imagine what was going on within the company […]
Brian Williams Goes to MSNBC – Punishment or Opportunity?
For our money, we think Mary Long, writing for Digital Media Ghost, was 100% on-target when she wrote: “NBC could’ve easily fired its anchor, as credibility is inarguably key to the role, and he’s already admitted guilt. The cost to fire him wouldn’t be insignificant, of course, but it would be much less than the […]