media & PR archive
Men and women at work: simple pictures can tell a complex story well
There’s a great example in today’s release of the latest employment figures of the power of simple pictures to communicate complex points. In this case, it is the use of two pie charts by the Office of National Statistics, pulling together a large number of figures and putting them in a context that is easy [...]
Jimmy Savile: the other question we should be asking
Reading old news coverage with the advantage of hindsight can evoke all sorts of emotions, burnishing or rubbishing the reputations of journalists and pundits depending on how event subsequently turned out. Yet it is hard not to read old coverage of Jimmy Savile with anything other than a bitter sense of sympathy for journalists who [...]
How not to do an interview: Grant Shapps demonstrates
1. Running away from Michael Crick rarely works. 2. Running away from Michael Crick whilst he has a camera crew in tow even more rarely works. 3. Running away from Michael Crick into the wrong room and then having to turn around and walk back past the camera even more rarely works. 4. Running away [...]
Bingo. Guardian corrects Polly Toynbee article
An update to my earlier post – I’ve now had this from the Readers’ Editor team: Thank you, Mark. We’ve corrected that quote in the online article now and we’ll also be publishing a correction in the paper.
Dear Readers’ Editor: About Polly Toynbee…
Dear Readers’ Editor, A couple of factual errors seem to have slipped into Polly Toynbee’s article yesterday. She writes of: The reality of welfare cuts the Institute for Fiscal Studies calls “without historical and international precedent” However, when The Guardian previously reported that quote from the IFS it was different into two key respects. First, it [...]
How much does a funeral cost?
Thankfully not an issue I’ve had to worry about, yet it’s one that is often of concern as people struggle to find the money to give a loved one an appropriate send off. What I’d not really appreciated until seeing the analysis from Sun Life (a client at work) is quite how quickly the costs [...]
Do documentary makers need to visit the country they are making a show about?
Over the years I’ve seen a fair number of TV programmes either dedicated to the fighting at Monte Cassino in 1944 or giving a good amount of time to the fearsome battle and the tragic, self-defeating destruction of the ancient Abbey. (In brief – the Abbey was not being used by the Germans; the Allies [...]
Today’s the 30th anniversary of David Ogilvy’s classic memo
Thirty years ago today David Ogilvy penned his classic memo on how to write. As he said in it, “People who think well, write well. Woolly minded people write woolly memos, woolly letters and woolly speeches. Good writing is not a natural gift. You have to learn to write well.” So today is also a [...]
Bloggers and PRs: how to pitch, how to receive
Rich Leigh has written an excellent piece on the art, science and occasional nightmare of PRs and marketeers pitching to bloggers – including the rarely mentioned obverse, namely tips on how to respond when someone is pitching to you. The gems in the piece include this: Be friendly: I’ve worked with many bloggers who have, at [...]
By 2015 more people will use social networks than vote
The latest PR Week Soap Box features this from myself on how social media is changing public affairs: At the time of the 2010 general election, more adults had broadband than voted. By the 2015 election, on current trends*, there will be more adults using social networks than vote. There will, no doubt, still be [...]
