The Pizza PR You Won’t Believe Made National News
03.04.2026 – Let me tell you about an accidental PR win for a brand I’ve openly mocked. It’s pizza. A very low-quality, floppy, sponge-like pizza. One that actually doesn’t taste much better than the cardboard box it’s packaged in.
Successful PR MUST Do This 1 Thing (HINT: It Starts with a P…)
02.25.2026 – IF you don’t get your audience’s attention with your communications from the get-go, then you’re dead in the water. That’s a given.
All your communications (public relations, advertising, in-person sales, speeches, etc.) must be attention-getting and engaging.
Authentic Means ALL In — Not MOSTLY In
02.19.2026 – An authentic communication is binary. Either it is orit isn’t. And the moment you try to sneak something past your audience — even something small — you’ve blown it. I witnessed this firsthand recently from a marketing email that landed in my inbox. It was a doozy.
A Kohl-Hearted Online Order – Part 2
09.24.2025 – In Part 1 of this saga, I shared how someone stole my credit card number and ordered $412 worth of Nike socks shipped to a local Holiday Inn. If you haven’t read that portion of the story, you should read it now. In Part 2, I share how I sprang into action after learning this package had been delivered to the Holiday Inn, the unbelievable decision made by the hotel employee I visited, and how a $15.9 billion company thanked me for rescuing some $400 worth of their inventory. Enjoy…
A Kohl-Hearted Online Order – Part 1
09.17.2025 – Interesting PR lessons can be learned when someone steals your credit card number. Besides myself, the primary stakeholders in this event are the credit card company, two vendors, two hotel chains, a local police department, and those who tried to scam me. Here’s the timeline of this story and the role each of these stakeholders played…
A Candid Conversation with a Journalist (Part 4) – PR Pros, Spin, and the Truth
09.10.2025 – One of the most poignant questions I asked Kingsport Times-News Editor Carol Broyles during my July interview with her was her honest opinion of PR pros. The sad reality of the PR industry and the PR pros that work in it is that it has a tarnished image in the eyes of some. That’s because back in the day, publicists would do ANYTHING (lie, twist the truth, etc.) to get the company they were representing in the news. These PR practitioners were given the name “flacks” — a very offensive term for PR pros. Imagine that: PR has bad PR. Yikes. (Who do you hire to fix THAT??) But every industry has bad apples. That’s just how it goes.
A Candid Conversation with a Journalist (Part 3) – Steps to Secure Local Coverage
09.03.2025 – Getting into the paper isn’t luck — it’s knowing the steps that make it easier for an editor to say yes. In my continued conversation with Kingsport Times News Content Editor Carol Broyles, she laid out a clear roadmap for how businesses can get covered, from making the first call to submitting the right photo format. And yes — your grand opening really does count as news.
A Candid Conversation with a Journalist (Part 2) – Photos, Pitches, and Playing Nice
08.27.2025 – We all know a picture is worth a thousand words, but it’s worth nothing to a newspaper when it’s low quality or is missing the cutline (journalism lingo for a photo caption) identifying people in the photo. But when you include a high-quality photo with a cutline when pitching a newspaper your story, you can substantially increase your chance of getting your story placed. Photos are attention-getting. Kingsport Times News Content Editor Carol Broyles said it herself during my interview with her in July. Here’s part two of our four-part series with her.