Last Friday, when I let newspaper editor Helen Karakoudas know that I had a “timely and hilarious” news release coming her way, she immediately gravitated to the “hilarious” half of that promise. “Now you’ve got my interest,” said Karakoudas, managing editor of Wednesday Journal, Inc. I was referring to my effort on behalf of Charo’s […]
Category Archives: Public Relations
It’s been quite a three-month journey with Oak Park’s “Shop the Village” and it’s coming close to an end. Last night was the Mega-Gift Drawing, with one ticket out of the estimated 83,000 tickets (about $2.1 million worth of shopping) generated by the program worth $4,000 in prizes from each of the more than 100 […]
It’s hardly news to report that real estate values have declined lately. But if you find a local, specific angle on that general state of affairs, and back it up with some reliable statistics, it can become news to your target audience. And better still, because you are taking the lead in disseminating the hard […]
One of my clients, Five Seasons Sports Club in Burr Ridge, received prominent mention in the current issue of West Suburban Living Magazine, a classy publication that focuses on, well, the western suburbs of Chicago. It came about in November, when managing editor Brittany Ashcroft asked if I had any candidates for a profile on […]
Though he may well have been driven by even loftier motives, shortly after taking office two weeks ago, President Barack Obama made a decision that, from a public-relations standpoint, was most astute. To read my piece, “Obama’s FOIA Move Holds Key PR Lesson: Open the Front Door,” check out the essay at BulldogReporter.com.
On Monday, through the Small Business Networking Event held at the Oak Park (Ill.) Public Library, I will be sharing public-relations tips with business owners, entrepreneurs and those seeking to launch enterprises of various kinds. Among the points I will convey are four myths that can sidetrack individuals and organizations from attaining genuine PR success. […]
Evidence of the decline of newspapers–as we now know them, anyway–is all around us, both locally and nationally. Pioneer Press, the chain of weekly newspapers that has been around for more than a century, just shut down a dozen of its papers throughout the Chicago region. Last week, three Pioneer editors I have been in […]
Emperor Rod Blagojevich at this very moment, instead of defending himself before the Illinois Legislature as it proceeds with an impeachment hearing, is in the midst of making the national media rounds. As Rex Huppke so ably noted in a story that appears in the Jan. 26 edition of the Chicago Tribune, Blah Blah Blago’s […]
Freezing temperatures and the Urban Land Institute: the two will be forever linked in my memory. That’s because last Thursday, very possibly the coldest day of my life (it was about 20 degrees below zero), I trekked to the Union League Club to cover a meeting of the Urban Land Institute’s Chicago chapter. The topic: […]