President Trump referred to COVID-19 as a “foreign virus” during his Oval Office speech last month. Soon after, that phrase gave way to the “China virus” triggering a spike of racism directed at Chinese Americans. Of course, Trump enjoys race baiting. It’s good TV. Most Americans don’t realize – or perhaps don’t care – that …more
You’ve heard the phrase, “read the room.” Huawei can’t read the room. In spite of an in-house communications team that includes talented pros from the West, they continue to make amateur mistakes. The latest comes in the form of an open letter to the U.S. media published last week in The Wall Street Journal. If …more
Journalists get anecdotes. PR not so much. A few years back, we analyzed three months’ worth of tech stories in The Economist breaking down the content type by category. It turned out that 17 percent of the articles were anecdotal. . We consistently find that the anecdotal content in business publications ranges from 15 to …more
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I intended to slide into the holiday on a happy note. But I can’t leave alone the White House statement on Saudi Arabia and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. It turns out that Trump didn’t care whether Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was behind the murder or not. He …more
Today marks the day, the 10-year anniversary of Ishmael’s Corner. In the spirit of taking a step back, I reached out to a mix of individuals I respect for their perspectives on that elixir for communications we call storytelling. The backgrounds vary from journalists to storytelling gurus to authors and everything in between. As …more
