January 30, 2014—Generations of journalists have been taught to write inverted pyramid stories with the first paragraph focusing on the five W’s: who, what, where, when, and why. Many communications professionals come from the ranks of journalists or imitate their best practices in writing news releases and in other content areas. It’s not a bad…

January 15, 2014—Two events in Toronto in the past week have again drawn attention to the often narrow and sterile debate on resource development in Canada. They also raised the issue of how professional communicators can help frame that debate so that it doesn’t remain stuck in a zero-sum game. First, rock star Neil Young held a…

In the “look before you leap” category, good sound advice about developing content strategies.

Content strategy: Craig Baldings is right, it isn’t always about more content, faster speed, more platforms. “Less” can definitely be “more”.

January 6, 2014—The other day I was reading a Forbes article about national reputations, or “brand”, for 2013 as measured by the Reputation Institute, a “global private consulting firm based in New York and Copenhagen.” According to this organization, Canada holds the highest reputation of any country in the world for the third year in…

December 11, 2013—I’ve been thinking about all news TV channels like CNN or CBC News Network or France 24 or Sky News. I’ve been wondering whether they sometimes do more harm than good in distorting the important and inflating the trivial. My thoughts are spurred by the remarks of Gilles Finchelstein who works as a…