3 subjects to avoid: sexist comments, racist comments and any allusion to the Nazis. This is assuming you do not want to attract lurid media headlines and critical coverage. If you do stray into this territory you must be aware of the potential for newspapers and journalists to go to town with their ‘outrage’. This […]
Professional communicators, whether writing or speaking, need to remember these basic rules to ensure what they say is remembered by the audience. A client asked me at lunch the other day to just give her the top 5 things we say when trying to help people communicate better. I couldn’t stop at 5 and ended […]
The Media Coach is often asked if we run courses for business writing and the short answer is yes we do. [See more in the last paragraph]. The enquiry normally stems from deep frustration of someone senior who has just read a paper or report from someone more junior and thought ‘what did they teach […]
The big news last week in the world of political PR was that the BBC’s head of operations at Westminster, Robbie Gibb, was named as Theresa May’s new director of communications. Here is how The Guardian reported it: BBC’s Robbie Gibb gets top job While I am constantly irritated by large organisations and the government […]
Imagine this ridiculous scene: You go to a doctor with some slightly worrying set of symptoms in the hope that he or she can reassure you or at least throw some light on what ails you. However, on this particular day your doctor refuses to do anything but answer questions. She (let’s say) has a […]
Mugwumps stole a lot of headlines last week. Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, wrote a piece for The Sun in which he suggested that people may think Jeremy Corbyn (leader of the opposition Labour Party) was a ‘mutton-headed old mugwump’ and feel sorry for him, but in fact he poses an enormous threat to our […]
It’s election time – unexpectedly – in the UK. This gives those of us that follow public communications lots to think about and discuss. Instead of our usual article I decided to just share a few things I have been thinking about: Just to restate a basic – this blog is apolitical. I comment on […]
Whether or if offence goes viral is one of the really unpredictable bits of PR. We saw a couple of high profile examples of ‘offence taken’ in the last week. When Offence Goes Viral: This Week’s Tally The National Trust managed to ‘offend’ the nation (or some of it) by dropping the word Easter from its annual Egg Hunt. […]
Legs-it was the clever caption on The Daily Mail front page photo of Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon showing a lot of leg last week. An article that prompted a great deal of coverage. As was widely noted at the time, the picture and cheeky headline received a great deal more attention than the substance […]
PR basics include a rule that you don’t promise something you may not be able to deliver. If there was one outstanding headline from last week’s UK budget it was that the Tories had broken a promise not to raise National Insurance. Chancellor, Philip Hammond announced in the budget on Wednesday measures that included a […]
