Well earned gongs for North West’s best

I was entertained by former colleague John Quinton-Barber’s tweets from the CIPR’s North West PRide awards last night, with IPB looking like they were having another good night. Cracking gold win for @ipbcomms at #pridenw http://t.co/idd2EpI2— John Quinton-Barber (@johnqbarber) November 23, 2011

Twitter cases show PR may be better than legal action

It’s been a frenzied week for the media, which has taken navel gazing to new levels over the spectacular failure of lawyers to protect Ryan Giggs’ privacy. They may have succeeded for a while in keeping their client’s name out of stories of his alleged affair. But, as pressure mounted and newspapers’ displeasure at the [...]

Former colleagues win recognition for crisis work

My former colleagues at IPB Communications have built a reputation over the last 10 years for being the people you would want in your team when the going gets tough. So I was delighted, but not surprised, to learn from their newsletter which landed in my email box today that they have been shortlisted for [...]

‘Andy Gray-gate’ highlights slack media practice

Andy Gray’s sacking today after another of his puerile outbursts (this time to colleague Charlotte Jackson last month, above) has taught him a harsh lesson. Someone of his experience should know that ‘private’ (as in off air) comments are still fair game if someone within earshot finds them offensive enough to share with the media. In fact, if you utter them in a room [...]

Chill brings good (and bad) comms to fore

I was definitely hasty this weekend, when I blogged that the media overplayed the impact of the bad weather. They went a bit heavy on the blame game (as always), but things have definitely got worse since then, with today seeing the heaviest day’s snowfall in decades in some areas. Christmas plans have now been wrecked for many. Having listened to the news, seen [...]

Cornwall’s comms challenged by flood crisis

Cornwall’s floods will have posed a huge challenge for the county’s public services and the communication teams that support them. They will have needed to revert to crisis procedure, with a clear focus on getting vital information and services to areas that most need them, whilst responding to rapidly changing events.