Recently, I attended a PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) professional development program that featured a panel of well-known D.C. area assignment editors. The editors ranged from broadcast news, to radio and even the good old Washington Post.
Initially, I did not expect much from the panel, other than comments like “never call me” or “do [...]

A few years have passed since I had a go at faddish words that have already worn out their welcome. As we’re communicators, speaking in understandable language is the thing. But using clichés and hackneyed expressions and words may seem like an effective use of language, but, in truth, it grates on the ear. Using [...]

Pictures and photographs have always been a powerful way to tell a story and convey a message. Throughout history there are several images that we associate with events, such as the famous World War II kiss in Times Square or the firefighters raising the American flag at Ground Zero after 9-11, to name a few.
But [...]

Did this title grab your attention? Put a fire in your belly? Does it make you want to scroll down to the comments section (immediately below this post) and vehemently voice your displeasure? You could call me names – maybe even ones that start with the letter ‘s’ – or write comments like: “Lorna, the [...]

Oliver’s Twist
Published by Viking Canada
352 pages
Oliver’s Twist, the recently published autobiography by CTV News chief parliamentary correspondent, Craig Oliver, pans an extraordinary professional and personal life. Raised on the remote northern shores of British Columbia by divorced alcoholic parents, Oliver unexpectedly lands a summer job with the local CBC Prince Rupert Radio and the rest [...]

My friend in Lagos, Nigeria, broke the news of Whitney Houston’s death to me at 8:16 p.m. EST. I received her message one hour after the Beverly Hills police pronounced Houston dead on February 11, 2012, and only 15 minutes after the Associated Press sent out its first tweet.
What came next was a flood of [...]

As public relations professionals, we like to consider ourselves masters of language. Communication is our bread and butter and the written word is often our choice method of connecting with an audience. From news releases, to speeches, to blog posts, storytelling is among our greatest strengths. But what about story-showing?
I recently watched an interesting TED [...]

I have recently watched with more than casual interest the public relations controversies swirling around News Corporation and, most recently, the Susan G. Komen Foundation. I have former colleagues, now friends, in the top communications jobs at both organizations and have been astonished to hear how similarly the situations evolved. Both scenarios were not dissimilar [...]

In all the noise and commotion of the recent Susan G. Komen debacle, it was not difficult to point out what Komen did wrong.
Within the scandal, something was done so very, very right, that it went almost unnoticed. What Planned Parenthood did, and did not do, in communicating with media and followers of the [...]

With the New Year comes all manner of “year in review” lists, articles and coverage across the media spectrum. Some of these will simply summarize the previous year’s highlights, while others will take a more nuanced and critical approach, attempting to learn from the year past and consider the lesson’s we can all take forward.
Amongst [...]