Beware of Language that Dehumanizes

language

As the country and the world become even more divided along political, religious or national lines, language is increasingly used to dehumanize its targets. Language itself is being weaponized so as to condition people to consider the targets of that language as less than human.

This allows for the justification of committing any number of unethical, immoral or even atrocious acts toward them.… Read the rest

Media Interviewing: Beware of the Invisible Question

Media training

If you’ve agreed to do a media interview and it will be recorded, and then edited before “airing,” beware of the invisible question. What’s that, you ask?

It’s when the interviewer purposefully tells a story or asks what may appear to be a long or disjointed question that may give you pause. It could be one that seemingly comes out of nowhere, or, it could just be the way the interviewer stated things.… Read the rest

The Art of Fatherhood Taps Some Things We Learn in Public Relations

Father's Day

I almost never mention my personal life in my professional communications. This is an exception.

With the Father’s Day holiday coming up this Sunday, I’ve been thinking about the decades that I’ve been a dad, which have also coincided with the large part of my career in the PR business.

We often hear someone talk about a business that they “fathered,” or a special idea or project that they “gave birth to,” or more commonly today, their “fur babies,” as they self-identify as a cat-mom or a dog-dad. … Read the rest

Tech Workers: Nothing is Off the Record

media coaching

With all of the recent media attention on Silicon Valley, layoffs, economic troubles and oftentimes rogue employees talking to reporters, I came across something called the Tech Worker Handbook, which apparently is an online guide to help tech workers navigate media relations, legal issues, surveillance, and telling their own stories to the media or others.… Read the rest

Public Relations: Don’t Just Articulate…Resonate

PR messaging

One of the more common problems I’ve seen when it comes to public relations messaging is that while many messages tend to contain all of the right information and make all the right points, they don’t resonate with people.

More to the point, their creators are great at articulation, but they don’t know how to make those same messages relatable to the targeted audiences.… Read the rest

Pause This Memorial Day to Thank Someone Who Died for Your Freedoms

Memorial Day has become a lot of things, but as its very name implies, it’s not intended to be any of those things.

It’s a three-day weekend, the official start of summer in America, a chance to picnic with friends and family. Barbecue and cookout season is in full swing. What’s your favorite grill recipe?

It’s a day for parades, and perhaps a visit to the cemetery to remember our lost loved ones.… Read the rest

Issues Management: Choose Your Words Carefully

Words have power

When you are faced with the need to manage an issue on behalf of your organization, choose your words carefully. This may sound like I’m telling you to be careful not to use certain words that may offend, which is partially true, but if this is all you take away, you’re setting yourself up for defeat.… Read the rest

Media Relations: Getting Started

starting gate

One of the more common questions new clients have when it comes to media relations is, “How do we get started?”

Here’s a quick summary.

Information-gathering/Discovery – Anyone who’s a fan of legal or crime dramas is familiar with the term “discovery.” This is the phase of the legal case where the attorneys work to ‘discover’ as much information about the case as possible.… Read the rest