media training

PRepping the Policy Pundits

Bill O’Reilly of Fox News In spite of this new era of transparency in which leakers and whistleblowers are celebrated in many quarters, I’ll never understood the compulsion of some communications counselors for self-aggrandizement, often at the expense of their clients. (Actually I do understand it, but have a hard time reconciling it with the […]

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Fateful and Fatal Interviews

Who said mainstream media doesn’t matter? The PR team at Rolling Stone is working overtime to publicize its latest celebrity scribe Michael Hastings, the writer that Gen. McChrystal took along for an ill-advised tour of duty, which may be the last tour for the loose-lipped former Special Ops chief. Even Hastings scratched his head at

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Primetime Meltdown

The value to a company of a smart, articulate and engaging CEO cannot be underestimated. Nowhere is this PR fact-of-life more apparent than during a live TV or video-streamed media interview. I’ll always remember sitting alongside one of the best in the business — Sun Microsystems’ CEO Scott McNealy. We were in the green room

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Cramer Eats Crow

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM – Th 11p / 10c Jim Cramer Interview Outtake Pt. 2 Daily Show Full EpisodesImportant Things w/ Demetri Martin Political HumorJim Cramer My wife has pedestrian tastes in her TV fare. I peeked in on her the other night and caught her watching the most vapid and annoying show

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On Background

How many media training sessions does one have to endure before taking to heart the trainer’s counsel that nothing is “off the record?” We’ve certainly witnessed a fair share of PR gaffes by newsmakers who thought it was cool to kibbutz with a reporter. Segueing from “off-the-record” to its semantic sibling “on background,” we read

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Not Ready for Prime Time

I love Joan Walsh’s comparison of Sarah Palin’s comments on Iran to those of Miss South Carolina on why Americans don’t know simple U.S. geography. First Miss South Carolina: “I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps. And I believe

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Flack Helps Pack Crack Hacks

“Don’t take the bait.” This was the advice former Bush flack Ari Fleischer gave to a Green Bay Packers gathering yesterday on how to deal with journalism’s offensive line. “They [the media] are also going to stir the pot.” (Apparently not enough.) But, Ari, how should one behave when he’s caught lying? And what should

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Gawker Reporter-in-Training

In his post today, PR Newser’s Joe Ciarallo called out the PR blogosphere in an attempt to draw it into the imbroglio between Gawker and Edelman over something the snark blog’s newest reporter (direct from PR Week) Hamilton Nolan (pictured), posted this week. The offending post was precipitated by an unnamed marketing executive, and regurgitated

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