Posted on Just last week while delivering training something struck me that had been right under my nose. You do not need a picture editor on the internet. The thought had never occurred to me before. A picture editor when I was a journalist was the gatekeeper who decided what image went where. They could pick a […]
Posted on A good comms plan helps you to get to where you want to go… without one you are almost certainly going to fail. You can fire a rocket into the sky and you might successfully hit the moon but the chances are you won’t. Back in 1969 when NASA put a man on the moon […]
Posted on When a terror attack struck London the people who ran towards it were members of the public sector. We’re used to seeing police act when a man with a gun is on the loose. Brave? Yes. That’s what they’re trained for, isn’t it? But nurses and doctors running from a nearby hospital towards the noise? […]
Posted on You need to think about fake news. Not the click-bait churned out by Moldovan teenagers in their bedrooms but the stuff on your neighbourhood Facebook group or page and newspaper comments page. Around the village, estate, town or city where you live and work there are scores of groups and pages. On the internet, it’s […]
Posted on ‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this,’ is the first line of a blog post about post-truth and the internet I never got around to finishing. Why didn’t I finish it? Maybe because the very tools that I had such faith in when I first came across the social web are the tools that have […]
Posted on The issue of social media bubbles has become a bubble of its own just lately. Post-Trump, post-Brexit and post-truth the issue is this. People build their own bubble from people of a smilar view. Driving home today listening to Radio 4 I came upon a rather excellent programme Bursting the Social Media Bubble. The iplayer […]
Posted on Reading through the post-Trump and post-Brexit assessment of where we are one passage stood out. It’s from David Simas, Barack Obama’s political director, in a lengthy New Yorker piece you can read here. It’s touches upon Facebook fake news and echo chambers: “Until recently, religious institutions, academia, and media set out the parameters of acceptable […]
Posted on So, what is the difference was between journalism and PR? I’ve stopped and asked myself the question this week. I’ve been thinking of how to explain the difference. For 12-years I was a journalist and rose to become assistant chief reporter of a daily regional newspaper. Back then I would have told you that the difference […]
Posted on I had this amazing moment of revelation just recently really that I want to share with you. It’s about Facebook. Yes, I know you know about Facebook. But stick with me. Of course you know Facebook’s numbers are big. In the UK, Ofcom say that 38.9 million adults use the site regularly. That’s a lot […]
Posted on This is the greatest thing you’ll have seen about public sector communications in a long time. A tweet from Unison featuring a poster celebrating the back-office staff who play an under recognised role in making the UK a better place. Loving this @unisontweets campaign – recognising how vital 'support' roles are in public service #thankyourchampions […]