Here’s some PR counsel you can take to the bank: There is no such thing as an “off-the-record” conversation with a reporter. In fact, often the best way to get a story out is to incessantly repeat the information you are providing is hush-hush and on the QT. Here’s how…
George Washington University associate professor David Karpf hopefully enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame. Karpf’s tweet on Tuesday likening New York Times columnist Bret Stephens to a “bedbug” garnered the prof national media attention and ultimately drove Stephens off the social media site. Donald Trump piled on, demonstrating once again…
The mark of a great newspaper is if it handles its embarrassments with integrity. The Wall Street Journal set the standard in 1984 with its no-holds-barred reporting on a staff writer it discovered was leaking market-sensitive story information to a stockbroker. The story contained myriad details that were embarrassing to…
WARNING: This blog post discusses and links to offensive content a New York Times senior editor deemed fit to print. The New York Times employs an avowed antisemitic senior political editor. That’s not my opinion but rather the admission of Tom Wright-Piersanti, whose decade-old tweets this week were uncovered by…
When I migrated from journalism to PR decades ago, I was appalled at services major firms were promising but I knew couldn’t deliver. I shared my dismay with my father, a brilliant businessman who I always turned to for counsel and advice. He was neither sympathetic nor supportive. “Bullshit sells,”…
I’m bad at math, much to the chagrin of my father, an award-winning accountant who rarely used a calculator or slide rule because he could process numbers faster in his head. I long blamed my algebraic impairment for my inability to analyze a balance sheet, but GE CEO Larry Culp…
The Forward, a storied 122-year-old publication founded in New York City by Yiddish-speaking Democratic Socialists, recently announced that former New York Times editor Jodi Rudoren will oversee the newspaper’s editorial operations. Rudoren has impressive credentials, but the appointment announcement by publisher Rachel Fishman Fedderson has me worried. The announcement notes…
Silicon Valley’s tech denizens fancy themselves as above reproach liberal do-gooders, disrupting antiquated business models and government regulations for the betterment of genderfluidkind, a term I imagine they’d prefer to “mankind.” Donald Trump is among the greatest things to happen to the Valley since the creation of the microchip because…
Careful readers of this blog (of which there aren’t yet as many as I’d like) know that I’m no fan of Equinox Fitness, the swanky, ridiculously overpriced gym chain catering to celebrities, wannabes, and the self-absorbed. I’m also no fan of Stephen Ross, who I briefly met at a reception…
Fortune magazine four years ago published what easily ranks among the best investigative features of all time, an in-depth examination of the devastating cyberattack launched against Sony Pictures. The attack erased everything stored on about half of Sony’s personal computers and servers. A deleting algorithm overwrote the data seven different…