Mark My Words

Reputation is hard won and easily lost if you’re not careful. Today, as the judge dismissed multiple claims in Meghan Markle’s case against Associated Newspapers, her reputation is under the spotlight again and will be the subject of many headlines and debates, most of which will examine her motives and image and fuel the type […]

In crisis situations we tend to move faster. We react and defend and there’s nothing wrong with that until any lack of thinking and preparation alongside, comes back at us with force. We have all seen daily examples of hope and positivity from business and people as well as what happens when any combination of […]

This post is a very different musing on the news agenda. The Last thing anyone needs at the moment is another perspective or opinion. Instead, it’s a collection of this and that, hopefully, so we can glimpse views together and not just dissect the picture on the wall.  It’s certainly not a how-to-do-it nor does […]

Money, hard times and political wrangling are good news for the media (traditional and social) For several years vast teams have been writing algorithms and toxic headlines to ensure that everyone is as outraged as possible and as often as possible whilst mindsets, whatever they might be at any time, are reinforced. The rumour virus […]

  We are all to blame for the death of Caroline Flack. Even those of us who choose not to enter into the toxic fuelling of clickbait narratives with their ravaged commentary and opinion, still often view from afar and with an opinion. Our cultural addiction begins with popular soaps like Coronation Street, and the […]

  News cycles have shrunk from days to minutes.   Where once the attention of the nation would convalesce around iconic events from the Blind Date, Coronation St, House Party, Dallas, the Lottery Draw to mega football clashes  and the News at Ten, today it splinters into a thousand fragments. The water cooler has been […]

The #SussexRoyal PR disaster which has gathered almost terminal momentum recently could have been avoided if they had heeded advice and precedent and had a plan from the beginning which took into account the rules and boundaries of Royal media relations. There is no doubt that being a top tier member of the Royals is […]

One thing is certain, if you don’t deal with hubris and ego it’s going to keep on biting you. So you’d think that Harry and Meghan would have learned that if they want to win the press war, they have to lead it, not fight every word with petulance, stand offs and impulsive statements. But […]

It’s January 3rd and I have already been emailed several ‘lists’ of PR and other predictions and Top Tens. Mostly they say the same thing in slightly different ways. Anyway, I thought I would join in with a slightly alternative list and here goes. I shall be rudely awakened at 5.50am on at least five occasions to […]

For a long time, I’ve known that moderates across the country were in trouble, but I didn’t realise that it would get this bad, this fast.We have handed our country into the hands of people who are willing to stoop to unprecedented lows in the pursuit of success. In this campaign they made promises and […]

As the pressures of a looming global downturn, reckless deregulation and business culture of chasing short term growth at the cost of long-term stability converge, it’s no wonder that we see so many corporate crises in the news. VW, Whirlpool, Boeing, Grenfell a few names from a long list of companies using endless denials and […]

  Dennis Muilenburg, CEO of Boeing, appeared before the US Congress yesterday in a performance that had the stench of overzealous media training. In an attempt to appear sad-eyed and apologetic, he ended up looking like he was stuck on death row without the reward of a last meal. Conservatively suited and booted, Muilenburg was […]

I write this as we emerge blinking from the events of the past week, a week marked by two articles that have reached depths of cruelty that are reminiscent of the dark days of the Evil Empire of the Red Tops. Yes, we’ve seen the demise of kiss and tells, but these were a brief […]

  Imagine the fairy tale, the one with the young bored shepherd races into town day after day crying wolf. Day after day, until finally there is a wolf – and he, along with his herd, fall afoul.   It’s a story with a famous message for all children, but it has another overlooked message. […]

Jessica Mulroney, perhaps the closest and most loyal of Meghan Markle’s inner circle has posted to Instagram citing racist bullies as behind the criticism of her friend. Sorry, but this is an example of the inner circle clutching at straws. It’s the Sussexes insistence on a version of privacy in an age of absolute scrutiny, […]

The Edinburgh Fringe is noisy. No, not the plaintiff wheezy whine of the devil’s bellows. I’m overwhelmed by the nauseous pollution; the brash posters littering the streets. Gaudy graphics constructed to hypnotise one’s peripheral vision. Loud marketing. Dumb ubiquity. Hopeless strategy to attract an audience. On the last count, walking a 400 yard stretch (imperial […]

It took half a century for us to work out that smoking had certain negative qualities, and it took another twenty years for the legislators to do something about it. Big Tobacco was a formidable opponent to change for several reasons. Yes, it was massively lucrative, provided thousands of jobs and sold an aspirational product […]

One of the minor, but depressing, changes to our society is that since Brexit, and the cultural and media zeitgeist got sucked into a political chaos-loop there is no part of national celebration that the zealots and partisans can’t ram their agenda through. Last week Dawn Foster, outrider for Jeremy Corbyn, criticised ‘centrists’ for basing […]