The Future of Fake News: Don’t Believe Everything You Read, See or Hear

From The Guardian: The University of Washington’s Synthesizing Obama project took audio from one of Obama’s speeches and used it to animate his face in an entirely different video In an age of Photoshop, filters and social media, many of us are used to seeing manipulated pictures – subjects become slimmer and smoother or, in the case […]

Facts Don’t Change People’s Minds. Here’s What Does.

From Ozan Varol: If you had asked me this question–How do you change a mind?–two years ago, I would have given you a different answer. As a former scientist, I would have cautioned you to rely on objective facts and statistics. Develop a strong case for your side, back it up with hard, cold, irrefutable […]

Corporate Attorneys & The Court of Public Opinion

[By Thom Fladung, Hennes Communications] “The house could be burned down before you even smell smoke.”   In 2009, The Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics set out to study how the court of public opinion can shape legal controversies. The sources were the people on the front lines – responses gathered from a questionnaire sent […]

Body Language: Telling Your Team How You Really Feel

From one of our favorite columnists, Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D: Do you know that your team is constantly evaluating your emotions through cues in your body language – and that they can do so in a fraction of a second? At the Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging at the University of Glasgow, researchers found that it […]

Tackling Scandal: An Interview with Hennes Communications’ Stephanie York

Scandals come in many flavors and are often tinged with sexual misconduct, fiscal mismanagement, and/or nefarious lapses in moral and ethical judgment. American City & County, the voice of state and local government since 1909, interviewed Hennes Communications VP Stephanie York about scandal and how to neutralize it with proactive communications. Here’s an excerpt: York […]

Poynter KSU Media Ethics Workshop – Fake or Fact?

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP Fake or Fact? The Poynter KSU Media Ethics Workshop is a one-day training program for professionals, educators and students that examines critical issues and perspectives in media ethics. Moderated by distinguished faculty from The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., the Media Ethics Workshop provides a unique forum for professionals and students […]

Saying You’re Sorry

From Rick Seltzer, writing in Inside Higher Ed: For college and university presidents, the process of apologizing after high-profile missteps can seem to take as long as a tortoise walking a mile. As a result, the actions Wednesday of University of California, Irvine, Chancellor Howard Gillman stand out as noteworthy. Days after news broke that […]

What “The Mooch” Can Teach Us About Surreptitious Tape-Recording

No longer must you visit a “Spy Store” or RadioShack and pay big bucks for a miniature recording device.  Today’s high-definition audio and video recording devices are tiny, inexpensive – and nearly impossible to spot.  In fact, you probably already own one: your iPhone or Android device can easily make recordings with a wide variety […]

Lessons From Google’s Search To Protect Its Reputation

By Thom Fladung/Hennes Communications Any business leader who’s been caught in a hailstorm of criticism after an internal matter went viral must have had a surge of schadenfreude watching the Google diversity memo controversy. Google leadership was immersed in a crisis over an internal memo in large part because, well, people could Google it. Beyond […]

Bruce Hennes Named Industry Game-Changer by PRNews

Bruce Hennes, managing partner of Cleveland-based Hennes Communications, has been named one of 50 “Game-Changers of PR for 2017” by PRNews, one of the public relations profession’s leading news sources. Hennes was selected to join a group of industry leaders from corporations, non-profits and communications firms around the country who use their deep knowledge and […]