This Week in PR Takes

Before we jump into this week’s take’s, I want to thank you all for subscribing and reading. The response from the PR/Communications community has been overwhelmingly welcoming and I appreciate everyone that has taken the time to engage with this newfound newsletter. In a bit of a scheduling change, I am going to start publishing these on Fridays instead of Mondays, so the content stays true to the title and hits on “this week’s” PR takes. If you’re receiving this via LinkedIn or Slack, please remember to subscribe so the takes come right into your inbox each week.

I previously mentioned that I am building the plane as I fly it with the newsletter, and want to add that I am a huge believer in the power of gratitude. In that light, I wanted to thank Rachel Curry for taking time out of her busy schedule this week to talk with me about launching newsletters. She has an excellent one on corporate jargon, I highly recommend you smash the subscribe button over here:

With that, I give you the 2nd TWiPRT!

-BK

Take of the Week:

• This week’s Take of the Week goes to Rhiannon Hendrickson, who recently touched upon the ongoing debate around the “PR Rolodex” and the question around who you know vs. the story to tell.

  • I 100% agree that if you’re asking a PR person about relationships with reporters, you’re asking the wrong question. If anything I would stretch out the point that it’s a nicety and not a necessity. Knowing a reporter can help, but that relationship only helps with the chance that the story pitch will be opened and read. After that, it’s up to the story idea to do the work and being one that reporters would want to share.

The Rest of the Takes:

• Carly Martinetti writes about how we should stop thinking about PR as an “announcement engine” and instead think about it as an ongoing conversation where Comms pros should translate into insights reporters can use.

• Pressy Nkirote Kaburu published some thoughts on the future of AI and PR.

• February is Black History Month, and Jenna Guarneri posted about the PR “do’s and don’ts” for the month.

• Not all public relations work is to promote a business or celebrity as Kelly Weisner points out when sharing this PR Daily article about how a PR effort helped a city after a natural disaster.

• The state of public relations and the question around its supposed death is a constant discussion topic, and Nicole Remedios adds her take on it in this post.

• Stacy Ann Nanyo wrote about the differences between Corporate Communications and Investor Relations.

• Gini Dietrich wrote about the “New Rules of Modern Earned Media” (*disclaimer: this post is not on LinkedIn, but came through my inbox over the past week)

• Nikole Flores Savage put together a post about balancing earned and paid media.

• Pointing towards Eleanor Hawkins’ latest in Axios, Jason Alderman stresses the importance of communicating with plain language.

• Yvonne Baraza published a take on how AI is impacting PR and media relations.