Blog

Why the embargoed press release no longer makes sense

When PR clients talk about timing for pitching journalists on a story idea, be it the launch of a new product or filing of a lawsuit, every so often someone will ask about whether we should issue an “embargoed” press release. For those...

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Nervous of getting misquoted? Write a guest column!

The most common reason clients tell me they’re nervous about being interviewed by a print or online journalist is that they worry they could be misquoted. Or at very least, the resulting story won’t accurately portray them or their...

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Why PR isn’t always what you or your company need

It’s true enough, as a once-famous psychologist said, that if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. As a publicist, I admit I often see PR as a useful way to promote one’s goods or services, as...

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Why not responding to a journalist is often dumb

Since I left journalism more than two decades ago to work as a publicist, I’ve witnessed many reasonably sane and nice people behave oddly around journalists. To be fair, journalists are often a bit weird. Among the more common – and at...

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How to follow up on a pitch to a journalist

As a publicist who does a little freelance writing on the side, I empathize with both professions. I pitch journalists on ideas involving my PR clients. And a fair number of fellow PR practitioners pitch me, hoping I’ll write about their...

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Press releases still suck, but…

In a recent blog post, I wrote about why press releases suck. Lest you think this is an apology, I still think they suck. But I forgot to mention a couple halfway decent reasons to use them beside those I’d written about earlier. First,...

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Why press releases suck

I’m pretty sure that if American statesman Benjamin Franklin ever tried his hand at PR, he would have said that the only certainties in life were death, taxes and clients asking him to write press releases. To be fair, the last bit –...

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PR 101 – Being interviewed by a journalist

Here's my Cliff's Notes take on how best to do interviews: Plain English. Lively metaphors. If you're a lawyer, avoid legalese. Talking points. Reminders. Not script. “No comment” is not an answer. It’s a sentence fragment. It also makes...

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When it hits the fan

A few recent crisis communications matters with clients got me thinking about how this is still such an overly mysterious part of good public relations. So I thought I’d jot down a few thoughts for anyone who’s interested on this topic,...

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