Your PR Architect

Every day, at least one of the news sources I follow on Facebook posts a link to a non-local story, accompanied by the invitation: WEIGH IN. Or SOUND OFF. Or the ever-popular: WHAT DO YOU THINK? And I think: Go enterprise a real news story. The internet has enough rude, unmoderated comments. The best reporting requires a little hustle on the part of reporters and editors. Ambition. Moxie. The best reporters do this, time and again. But in a Facebook world, it's not enough to report news. TV news affiliates -- and some print-based media online -- now try to augment the good work of reporters and goose their Facebook traffic numbers by inviting followers to "sound off" or "weigh in." This is less vox populi than it is a blanket invitation to banter. Media consultants tell TV and radio outlets they need to "engage" their audiences via social media. Thoughtful online discussions would be one way. But asking viewers to leave under-informed ...

Three recent unrelated retail experiences did little to assure me that we'll be shopping in actual stores for nonperishable goods, five years from now. Each event was so illustrative that I decided to name each store below. I don't know if there's any PR strategy that would persuade me to alter my opinion about each merchant. Because retail involves hundreds of individual interactions between the store staff and shoppers, rather than a massive message campaign. Here's today's scorecard: By M.O. Stevens (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Dollar Tree - I don't expect concierge service in a discount store with "dollar" in its name. But when a heated, f-bomb-laden shouting match breaks out between two surly males at the slow-as-molasses checkout, I expect the store's staff to do more than stand around and watch the drama unfold. Kids in line were crying. Ís dialing 911 too c...