Accountants are the Rodney “I don’t get no respect” Dangerfield of the professional services industry. I know this because my father was the senior partner of a Toronto accounting firm and I learned about the abuse he took despite his unrivaled knowledge of Canada’s tax code. A former senior partner…
Back in 1965, an unknown young attorney named Ralph Nader published a bestselling book called “Unsafe at Any Speed,” accusing American automakers of being resistant to safety features like seat belts and questioning the design of a GM car called the Corvair. In those days, allegations that American companies would…
When I moved to Boston to attend graduate school, my uncle living there worked in the book publishing business. He saw infinite beauty in books, not just the information contained between the covers but the covers themselves and how they were bound. He was appalled by the stack of newspapers…
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…