I attempted to reassure him that by promptly disclosing the crash and by providing details, the story would fade away in a few days. Which is exactly what happened.

The passing this week of renowned evangelist Oral Rogers brought to mind the extreme variety of clients represented by the agency in its earlier years, before we settled into our current niche of leisure travel, destination and maritime clientele.

Although the conventional public relations mantra dictates that, like children, the publicist should neither be seen nor heard, it’s always rewarding when media takes positive note of a special role played by one of us.

For the introduction of Carnival Cruise Line’s Ecstasy the agency proposed the first ever nighttime cruise ship inaugural, a challenge of both timing and lighting.

Although some companies are beginning to hire new staff, most recruiters are still under budgetary constraints. In response managers seeking talented workers are increasingly bypassing standard recruitment tactics and are using social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to find and qualify candidates.

In the public relations business, there are awards that are not exactly rewards for doing something well. Indeed, we spend an inordinate amount of time identifying and entering award contests for one client who seems obsessed with gaining the recognition that industry awards supposedly connote.

Aggressively pursuing digital media and online social networking outlets makes sense as we move into a direct-to-consumer era, where the intermediary layer of the journalist/editor disappears.

Public relations people love surveys. If your client gets rated in the top five of anything positive, that automatically merits a press release. However, the problem is that PR folks tend not to look too closely at a survey if it’s positive toward a client. But sometimes it’s good to question a survey — especially one that is obviously flawed.

The popularity of online streaming video continues to grow as the cost of photography equipment, video editing and production software, and hosting options continues to drop.

Since 1975, Lake Superior State University has submitted an annual “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.”

There’s one denizen of the social networks that won’t show up among the avatars of your Twitter followers or among your friends on Facebook, though it’s there all the same — the U.S. Justice Department.

The FakeAPStylebook is just what it says — a compendium of bad grammatical and style advice on Twitter that satirizes the Bible of the Newsroom. Simply put, it’s a lot funnier than the original.