We thought social media would make the world smaller. But it made us smaller, in echo chambers of disinformation. Our naiveté was a failure of imagination. We couldn't see into the darkest downsides. Now we're repeating the same mistake with AI.

Back in 1996, AT&T's CEO was hung out to dry because he refused to believe emotions can overwhelm facts. Turns out feelings can determine elections too. The Atlantic's Megan Garber argues Trump's “post-truth” society privileges feelings over reality.

Join millions who have switched to Grok.

Age of Artificial Intelligence is here. PR people must understand implications beyond machines writing news releases. What are trade-offs in privacy, security, and free choice? How manage them? How counsel clients? See video:

Genius: From FastCompany -—“As society pivots toward a more conscious form of capitalism, lies are Public Enemy No. 1. They’re the Anna Sorokin, George Santos, and Sam Bankman-Fried of bad communication."”

Democrats could end McCarthy’s agony just by asking 34 members to stay home. McCarthy’s 201 yes votes would then be a majority. But what’s in it for them? McCarthy would have to renege on his promise to allow one vote to vacate so the hard right couldn’t put us back where we are.

Congress is investigating the role of PR in preventing action on climate change. Watch the hearing on Sept. 14 10 am. Should be interesting.

Here are a few words in defense of "spinning“ without losing your soul.

COVID-19 forced most of us in the communication business to work from home. In the process, we learned more than how to navigate Zoom. We also learned more about communication, from both the sending and receiving end.

Nothing is harder to change than someone else’s made-up mind. But if you must, here's how.

Now that people seem to be worrying less about COVID, they should begin worrying more about an equally dangerous plague: Zombie Partisanship,

A case study in unethical public communication. The people behind the bizarre non-profit trying to kill Biden's climate agenda. Flimflamming at its worst.

P. T. Barnum flimflammed millions into his museums and circus tents and called it “entertainment.” Now politicians are using the same techniques to flimflam voters and they call it “free speech.”Here’s how they do it. And you can too!

Department of Disheartening News: I wrote a book on Rebuilding Brand America, following the invasion of Iraq. Things got better for a while, but now we seem to be sliding again. Uvalde Shooting and Roe Reversal create headwinds for US exports and tourism

Someone missed the class on PR Ethics. Here's Exhibit A in the case of Why PR has such a Bad Reputation. ’ Powerbrokers: How FPL secretly took over a Florida news site and used it to bash critics

Isn’t the the Chief Communications Officer’s job? The C-suite job of the future: Chief purpose officer

Senior PR leaders should work with the C-suite in constructing a new social contract with workers that responds to current issues raised by the tight labor market and the pandemic. See

To be honest, I had never heard of "dispreferred markers“ but apparently they make all the difference in trustworthy word-of-mouth communications, according to this research — Can't be sure, but could it work in tweets too?

DOJ accuses Google of hiding docs from legal discovery by marking everything "Prepared for Advice of Counsel.“ At AT&T we used that heading on first drafts of news releases for legal review but not as an all purpose shield. Slippery slope at work?

Senior PR counselors. If your clients haven't asked you about the Business Roundtable’s guidelines for using artificial intelligence, bring it to their attention. ’

Why 2022  will be the Year of Corporate Sinkholes