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 [...]

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 [...]

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months – and no disrespect intended to rock dwellers – you’ve likely heard about the Occupy Movement. What started as a single demonstration on Wall Street in September is now a worldwide story. Citizens in 1500 cities around the globe have either witnessed, participated [...]

Want to write better, tell more interesting stories and inspire action? Water may be the answer.
After reading The Big Thirst, Charles Fishman’s fascinating book on water, I found myself marveling at how well Fishman illustrates the global health, economic and political ramifications of clean water.
He informs us that at least 1.1-billion people in the world [...]

I keep an eye on what’s going on in government as every PR person should, but I’ll admit I’ve never been a political junkie. What I am, however, is a key message junkie. And these days I’m getting a great fix.
Here in Canada, signals are that the government will be brought down by a vote [...]

One of my favourite things about one year ending and another one starting are all the lists that come with it. It’s a natural human tendency – or so it seems – to want to organize and categorize people, places, and things into subject areas. Best albums of the year, top advertising ideas of the [...]

Surely living healthily must be among the top New Year’s resolutions every January 1st, and it seems Canada’s national broadcaster Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is taking that to heart with its massive, cross-platform initiative called Live Right Now. Live Right Now leverages all of the CBC’s formidable news assets including TV, radio and online. There [...]

Okay, so I haven’t seen every movie ever made, but, of the many that I have seen, these are my top five in terms of public relations value:
1. The Queen (2006) – The story in this Best Picture nominee isn’t the British royal family versus Tony Blair, it’s open, modern public relations versus dunderheaded old-world [...]

A lot of PR people I know watch Mad Men. If you don’t, this won’t mean much to you, so check out this instead.
The central premise of Mad Men, as I have come to realize, is a struggle between fiction and fact, between deception and transparency, between acting and reality. Public relations professionals I think [...]

Call me old-fashioned. I start my morning at home with the Washington Post spread across my kitchen counter. I start with the front section and go page-by-page, headline-by-headline and article-by-article. I carefully look at the editorials, the letters to the editor and the op-ed articles.
While I’m working through the front, Metro, Style and Sports sections, [...]