Author: Erik Arvidson
What PR Pros Can Learn From Bill Belichick
Bill Belichick is legendary as the coach of the Patriots. What many people don’t give him enough credit for is the way he executes a press conference. I’ve watched a few Belichick pressers over the years, and the way he goes about his business is almost as impressive as how he coaches. Sure, he speaks in a monotone. Sometimes he makes grunting sounds into the… Read more »
Five lessons for PR professionals from Boardwalk Empire
How "The Tonight Show" Reversed a Negative Storyline
I only occasionally watch the late-night talk shows. So maybe that tells you something when a clever and witty stunt this week by Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon got my attention, and in a good way. In case you haven’t been following it, NBC announced this week that Leno, 62, will step down as host of “The Tonight Show” in the spring of 2014, giving… Read more »
Magazine publishing becoming more personal
In the age of personalization, none of us is very surprised anymore to walk down a supermarket aisle and see approximately 1,752 different brands and varieties of shampoo. As consumers, we’ve gotten so used to customized products and offers personalized to our needs that we have come to expect it. That trend has even spread to the world of publishing.
Staying straight down the middle with Wikipedia (a public relations perspective)
I’m a fan of Wikipedia. There, I said it. Despite all the controversy in recent years, when I want to get an unbiased, jargon-free description of what a company or individual does, I can often find it at Wikipedia which, while certainly not perfect, has really tightened up its standards of quality and objectivity.
Good news (maybe) for print media
AdAge recently published some interesting stats about how affluent Americans consume media, and the results seem to show a strong interest for “traditional” media formats (giving hope to those of us who’d like to see print media survive and thrive).
Conversational is always better
When I was learning the journalism ropes for a small town newspaper years ago, one of my editors gave me this bit of advice: If it’s a word that people don’t use in normal conversation, don’t use it in a news article.
Steven Slater, JetBlue and effective blogging
When JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater made international news after reportedly blowing up at an uncooperative airplane passenger, he seemed to many to be the real-life Peter Gibbons character from the film “Office Space.”
New versus Old Media
Are bloggers wired differently than traditional journalists? This week I came across new research by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism that uses hard data to quantify the differences between the news agenda of new and old media.
Hey, reporters, we have a few things in common
A few years ago when I was a reporter snooping around Boston covering the political beat and thinking about crossing over and starting a career in PR, a few nagging concerns were holding me back. I really had no idea what PR people did day to day, except for what a few colleagues who had made the same move told me. Would my skills and experience… Read more »