Stories by Seth Arenstein

Have we turned the corner on coronavirus? If not, what dangers are ahead? How can brand communicators help spread accurate information to employees and the public about vaccination, mask wearing and the importance of doing as much as possible before variants go widespread, probably in mid- to late-March?

A key to media relations is treating journalists as human beings. A new survey, provided exclusively to PRNEWS, looks at journalists’ income, workload, mental health and preferences about pitching and video conferences. It concludes that some things have changed with the pandemic, but the basics of media relations endure.

In this new series, PRNEWS asks young communicators about their view of the industry and of life, what skills they’ve acquired and what they wish they’d known about before beginning work. Our first young PR pro is Cedric F. Brown. He offers his perspective on diversity, useful skills and how Jackie Robinson and Ofield Dukes inspire him.

How would you like to lead communications for the new Facebook Oversight Board, which was created to adjudicate content-moderation issues for the behemoth social platform? For Dexter Hunter-Torricke, his greatest challenge, right now, is explaining to the public what the board is and does.

Onclusive and Shareablee announced a strategic partnership to offer marketing and communication teams solutions for earned, owned and social media insights.

In light of the Jan. 6 violence at the U.S. Capitol and the social, racial and economic unrest of 2020, we asked Cristina Alesci, Chobani’s first chief corporate affairs officer, how CEOs are thinking about promises many companies made last year, as well as what a veteran journalist brings to a corporate setting.

Proving that there’s no time off for some PR pros, we asked those on Twitter Sunday, right after Dr. Deborah Birx’s interview on “Face the Nation,” about how they’d advise her. More than one dozen PR pros gave her a lot of good communication, crisis and reputation advice for free.

PR pros can learn plenty from the NY Mets’ handling of a recent employee sexual misconduct episode. While the team moved quickly to dismiss the employee, it botched the follow-up, failing to own the incident and attempting to pass it off as a failure that couldn’t be avoided.

It seemed that most of the nation stopped today to watch the inauguration. With nearly wall-to-wall coverage on the incoming president and VP, is it wise to think about pitching a non-political story now? As with so much of PR and communication, there’s no definitive answer.

We had a good feeling about Linda Thomas Brooks, who was named PRSA’s CEO today, before we met her. The last line of her bio did the trick.