Disinformation and the PR Industry
Between Trump and the GOP’s disregard for the truth, and the unwillingness of the major social platforms – Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter – to remove provably false or purposely doctored information from reaching its users, America is poised for a whole lot of hurt in 2020. Now comes the news, thanks to some nifty reporting […]
Superhuman or Not
I’ve been following with more than a passing interest the big debate over whether it’s an ethical breach to receive a read receipt from a sent email without the recipients’ knowledge. The controversy stemmed from the invite-only roll-out of the Andreessen Horowitz-funded premium-priced ($30/month) email app called Superhuman, which includes read receipt as a default […]
Ad Tech Wars
At the recent Collision Conference, I had the pleasure of taking the stage alongside The Trade Desk‘s co-founder/CTO Dave Pickles and AdRoll Group president Scott Gifis. We talked about the fast-changing and increasingly complex world of data-driven advertising in the age of programmatic and connected television. We opened the session by gauging whether the audience […]
In the Matter of Bezos and The National Enquirer
I was asked by a leading PR industry trade magazine to share some thoughts on Jeff Bezos’s audacious PR gambit aimed at the blackmail-happy National Enquirer and its Trump puppet owner David Pecker. I was hardly alone in acknowledging the fearless guile of the billionaire owner of Amazon and The Washington Post. It prompted my […]
The 2019 PR/Media Quiz
Some years ago, frustrated by the lack of a mechanism to assess prospective PR agency candidates, I developed a questionnaire on media and PR trends that served as a non-scientific barometer for hiring. It was not intended as a measure of whether a candidate will ultimately succeed in the job, but rather one that speaks […]
Facebook PR Exposed
Nick Confessore, one of The New York Times’s better-known investigative reporters, appeared on MSNBC’s “All in with Chris Hayes” within hours of The Times publishing its bombshell exposé on how Facebook dealt with the Russian crisis. The story was aptly titled “Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis.” Its verdict: FAIL. After six […]
Europe’s Biggest Tech Conference
For those who follow my social streams, you’ll know I spent the better part of last week in Lisbon attending the massive Web Summit. It was my 4th visit to the Dublin-born tech conference, and it continues to inspire. First and foremost, the 70,000 attendees of the sold-out event are treated to a feast of […]
Do Paid Media Walls Further Divide Our Nation?
Hardly a day passes without my seeing a tweet from or about Civil, a new enterprise that will use blockchain technology and the sale of tokens to revive and sustain the badly battered journalism profession. Reimagining the news with #blockchain-based architecture https://t.co/xx50xG4ntU — Civil (@Join_Civil) August 24, 2018 Today the purveyors of high quality news are not only […]
Facebook’s Short-Term PR Has Longer-Term Consequences
In her eye-opening piece this week, The Guardian’s SF reporter Olivia Solon opens the curtain on the draconian efforts by Google, Facebook and presumably others to muzzle their employees from speaking publicly about their company’s doings. Aptly titled “‘They’ll squash you like a bug’: how Silicon Valley keeps a lid on leakers,” Ms. Solon […]
Rachel Maddow, Journalist First
A common refrain from the media cognoscenti goes something like this: Try listening, reading or watching those whose views run counter to your own. It may open your eyes to how others see the world. I hear this constantly from friends, family, and way too many social science pundits. To them I say: bullshit. I will […]
