Are Fans Ready for Some NFL Football?
Nicole Schuman, writing in PR News… Major League Soccer relaunched. Then golf. Major League Baseball. NASCAR. The NBA. The WNBA. The National Hockey League. It’s the National Football League’s time to shine. Excitement for the unique 2020 season began in April, when most people were locked down at home due to the quick spread of […]
How Police Departments are Applying the Principles of Crisis Communications in the Age of Citizen Journalism
By Nora Jacobs, Hennes Communications As protests rage across the country in the wake of police shootings, police departments are learning that shaping the public’s perception of any given event requires an increasingly sophisticated communications response. Gone are the days when a department’s public information officer would brief the media and then retreat from view […]
Eight Lessons I Learned from Hiring a Writing Coach
By Ari Lewis, writing in Crain’s Cleveland Business… The best athletes in the world have personal trainers: LeBron James, Serena Williams, Megan Rapinoe. I knew that to be the best, I needed to hire a writing coach to take me to the next level. As a species, we have a monopoly on collective knowledge. So […]
Public Health’s Share of the Blame: US COVID-19 Risk Communication Failures
The World Health Organization defines risk communications the exchange of real-time information, advice and opinions between experts and people facing threats to their health, economic or social well-being. The ultimate purpose of risk communication is to enable people at risk to take informed decisions to protect themselves and their loved ones. Risk communication uses many […]
Covid in the Classroom? Some Schools Are Keeping It Quiet
From Dan Levin, writing in The New York Times… On the first day of school in Camden County, Ga., local Facebook groups were already buzzing with rumors that a teacher had tested positive for the coronavirus. The next day, a warning went out to school administrators: Keep teachers quiet. “Staff who test positive are not […]
What if Facebook Is the Real ‘Silent Majority’?
From Kevin Roose, writing in The New York Times: Listen, liberals. If you don’t think Donald Trump can get re-elected in November, you need to spend more time on Facebook. Since the 2016 election, I’ve been obsessively tracking how partisan political content is performing on Facebook, the world’s largest and arguably most influential media platform. […]
Are the Biggest Threats to Your Organization’s Reputation Languishing in HR’s Bottom Drawer?
By Nora Jacobs, Hennes Communications As we have seen countless times during these COVID-stricken months, employees are working on a short fuse. Isolation, stress and a galvanized political landscape have combined to create an environment where casual comments on social media explode into wars of words, workplace rules spawn walkouts, and long-simmering resentments about past […]
Social Media Platforms Fight Back Against Manipulative Foreign Actors
From the American University School of International Service Disinformation Research Team writing in Homeland Security Today: Although Americans expect to encounter disinformation via social media platforms in the run-up to the 2020 elections, many continue to consume news online primarily via social media. Foreign actors have used social media to increase discord in the United […]
McDonalds Does Crisis Management the Right Way
By David E. Johnson, writing in CommPro: McDonalds stands out for handling its latest crisis with former CEO Steve Easterbrook right. The fast food giant let Easterbrook go last year after discovering that he had had a consensual relationship with an employee. When McDonalds terminated Easterbrook last year it said it had evidence of only of a non-physical, consensual […]
Are You Prepared for Bad Press About One of Your Suppliers?
From Bridget Satinover Nichols, Hannah Stolze and Jon Kirchoff writing in the Harvard Business Review: It’s always been true that when companies behave badly, consumers react by spreading the word and sometimes boycotting. But our recent research found that negative news is also bad for business in a new way: Consumers react even when the bad news extends beyond […]