It has been handbags at dawn between Facebook and Burson Marsteller (BM). The former say they never asked BM to organise a covert campaign undermining Google; the latter say they should never have accepted Facebook’s brief which stipulated just that. Read on ›

The media says Fukushima is awful because it is worse than Three Mile Island (TMI), even if it’s nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl. But the case for nuclear power survived TMI and Chernobyl, so it can easily survive Fukushima. In fact, even with its accidents, nuclear energy is still worth the cost and it remains the safest of all the major energy sources. Here are some PR messages we need to get out… Read on ›

Nobody can be anything but shocked by the devastating impact of the earthquake and Tsunami on Japan. The scenes were on a scale hardly envisaged by a Hollywood disaster movie. Yet that’s no excuse for the media’s seeming loss of nerve and perspective over the troubles at Fukushima nuclear power plant. Read on ›

In Egypt the authorities have imposed curfews, restricted access to the internet, Twitter and Facebook. Even mobile phones are not working properly. That’s what states do in a crisis; close-down the streets and cut communication links. Let’s explore this some more. Read on ›

What happened to Mark Hurd at HP was the stuff of Hollywood. Michael Moore or Oliver Stone to the fore? Read on ›

I’m home refreshed after two weeks in the Swiss canton Ticino on the shores of Lake Lugano. It didn’t take long, however, for me to get my focus back and decide to take a swipe at some PR nonsense. Read on ›

Imagine the outrage if gaffe-prone BP chief Tony Hayward had said yesterday that the Gulf Coast places were “as vibrant and just as beautiful as they’ve always been”. Well, that’s what First Lady Michelle Obama did say yesterday. Read on ›

Who’s to blame for the blowout in the Gulf? It’s a fair bet that the corporations involved will get stuck with most of the opprobrium. But I’m more inclined to blame the regulators and their masters, the politicians. What’s BP to say about its plight? I’d say the big thing is for them to stress that, with luck, they’re here for the long haul. They want to fix the problem, clean up the mess, learn the lessons and go on aiming to be the “best in class”. The rest of the truth will need to be told by third parties.  Read on ›

Note: This piece needs to be treated with care. I was the victim of a sophisticated hoax. I apologize to anybody who was mislead. But I’m leaving the post here as a spoof of a spoof. It shows how even if the anti-Shell campaigning trickesters got their way, it would not address the problems in Nigeria in a sensible or realistic manner but would actually make things worse.

Yesterday “Shell” (go to hoax press release) said it was going to clean up the Niger Delta, compensate local communities for past injuries, and institute a local stakeholders’ program that will help lift the region out of poverty. That sounds like good news. But what if the real victim is the truth? Read on ›

At the Senate hearing into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill BP, Transocean and Halliburton disputed each other’s account of what caused the accident. It was a messy affair. But in it I glimpsed the makings of a much-needed corrective PR campaign. Read on ›