Edelman’s Trust Barometer is a major highlight of the PR calendar because it provides global and historically comparative data we can mull over. This year there’s a welcome shift in Edelman’s narrative. Gone is the anti-profit, anti-business and all stakeholders are equal tone that I’ve criticised in the past.  Read on ›

Of course PR is about building relationships. Even more than most, our business is diplomacy and even schmoozing and wooing. But let’s not get too soft about our game – or our clients’. Read on ›

This second installment of a two-parter on Queen Elizabeth I describes how PR acts in support of leadership and authority using rhetoric’s persuasive powers. It tells the story of the emergence of modern PR practice and the modern world it shaped. (It is work in progress for my book: On Message: Propaganda, persuasion and the PR game.) Read on ›

On the night of Wednesday 8^th June, Alastair Campbell issued a stark warning to British journalists. Speaking ‘in conversation’ with Bill Hagerty, editor of British Journalism Review, New Labour’s former spin doctor warned that journalism risks losing even more integrity by shifting its ‘centre of gravity’ further towards celebrity culture. Read on ›

Public relations professionals don’t really do philosophy: we’re in the people business, and sound-bites suit us better than Immanuel Kant’s Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785). As for our clients, well, we’re bound to note their lust for the latest guru-speak getting lift-off from an airport bookshop. Read on ›

There are two media hullabaloos resonating right now: Business Secretary Vince Cable was stripped of some decision-making powers after telling undercover journalists he had “declared war” on Rupert Murdoch; WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange now claims The Guardian has betrayed his secrets. It makes me wanna chant “long live the media!” Read on ›

Hands up who hasn’t known for years that Wayne Rooney of Manchester United is a “bad” boy. If Coca-Cola has not got its hand up, I accuse it of humbug or worse (plain stupidity). Read on ›

Media Release: Rough Diamond PR launched today. Slogan: “We’re as mean as the media….” . We’re here to protect the reputations of public figures in the war being conducted against them. Read on ›

What are we PRs to do with the troublesome issue of privacy? We certainly have an interest in leading this debate because reputations are linked to the public’s perception of its protection. Read on ›

Here’s a tale highlighting why the C-suite requires speechwriters. Lucy Kellaway at the FT was accused of moving too far from reality when she covertly inserted the words of a true-life financial services chief into the mouth of her satirical character Martin Lukes. Read on ›