I can think of no better example of why politicians and business make for a poisonous and untrustworthy mix than the unfolding disaster at EADS, the parent company of Airbus, and the delays in bringing to market the new A380 airliner that’s the European rival to Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner. A…
In January, I wrote about Quaero, a planned European multimedia search engine, the answer to Google and brainchild of the French government. My own thoughts about it were expressed thus: […] The idea of Quaero is a terrific one. Yet I can’t imagine anything more oxymoronic than “government-backed search engine.”…
The re-located blog of newly-appointed Secretary of State for the Environment David Miliband has got off to a running start as awareness grows about the most senior member of the British government who writes a blog. Comments are beginning to appear thick and fast to some of his posts since…
Yesterday, a new president of Costa Rica was sworn in during a televised ceremony that was a model of the democratic process that you take for granted in western countries but not at all in most of Latin America. There are multiple reasons why this interests me. First of all, I…
Local elections took place in the UK yesterday and the governing Labour Party hasn’t done well at all. One consequence – the biggest Cabinet reshuffle in over a decade. The BBC website is a good place to go for detailed information. Of special interest to me is what’s happened to…
Last week, I posted commentary about an article by John Lloyd in the Financial Times on the relationship – I used the word symbiosis: check the definition – between journalism and PR in politics. The concluding point in my post was this: […] Most PRs and journalists add little value…
The Financial Times reports on a big task for any PR agency: Russia’s presidential administration has signed a multi-million dollar contract with Ketchum, a US-based PR firm, to advise on communications with western media during its G8 term, which started on January 1 and lasts for 12 months, as well as…
It is a self-regarding conceit of journalism that we are the dogs for whom public relations furnishes the lamp posts, says John Lloyd writing in the Financial Times. In a jaundiced view of the relationship between journalism and PR in politics, Lloyd’s “The Truth about Spin” in Friday’s FT presents…
