Reinventing diplomacy
I sometimes think that we get a little obsessed with what PR is and isn’t, and I am not always sure that these conversations do anything more than keep us…
Xenofobia catches up with Italy against Romanians. How could public relations help?
Something awful is happening in my country (Italy) these days, with many implications on public relations (specifically in the sense of public diplomacy) which I feel we should all be…
Italian Cabinet approves recognition and regulation of lobbying activities. A small but first relevant step towards more transparency.
Yesterday, Friday October 12, the Italian Cabinet issued a decree which recognizes the value and regulates lobbying activities related to the Government, its various Autorities and the Public Administration
What-were-they-thinking Moments
All of us have run across examples of communications that are so inept or so risky that we are tempted to quote Tony Blair in the movie The Queen, when…
Ukrainian Elections Aftermath: PR Needs Massive Cleaning
Yesterday, the people of Ukraine cast their ballots in national elections for the third time in three years. In just a few days, Ukrainians will know who will run this…
Communicating Justice in Portugal: the Madeleine case
Of the many possible angles to approach the terrible case of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, a tremendous shock to everyone in Portugal, the UK and arround the world, I decided to…
What is ‘the public interest’?
A run on the Northern Rock bank in the UK this week got me thinking about ‘the public interest’ again, especially after Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England…
How Philip Morris uses public relations to change the regulatory environment of the tobacco industry… Ann Landman exposes an apparently effective plan
Recently, an articulate and highly informative article by Ann Landman appeared on pr watch. Although quite critical and explicitly biased, it details Philip Morris’s current public relations activities to modify…
Anne Gregory relaunches the debate on ambiguity as… a reason for public relations.
In a recent post I had raised the issue of the ambiguity of public relations concluding with the question: Are we ready to challenge ourselves over our own ambiguity?. Here…
Lobby in Portugal: When the PR industry doesn’t succeed in producing social change
Portugal has a 33 years old democracy achieved after a peaceful military revolution that ended a dictatorship that had lasted for several decades. Propaganda was one of the major strengths…