Soaking up the brilliance of Kent State’s Gene Sasso

Update 2/26/13: This morning, Inside Higher Education (a national trade publication) featured Gene’s story — more evidence that an angry groundswell cannot be silenced. In the interest of transparency, I cooperated with the reporter — something I hope every faculty member in a School of Journalism would do. 

The story, titled Succeed and Lose Your Job, is damaging to Kent State, but it provides an important lesson about listening to one’s stakeholders. We teach these sorts of case studies all the time in our classes. Now we’re one of them. More on that in a future post. Continue reading

Grading the PR Online Master’s at Kent State: How’d we do?

After 21 years of grading other people’s work, I thought it might be fun to turn the tables.

Bob Batchelor

Bob Batchelor

In this post, I grade my own work and that of my teammates in the Kent State Online Master’s in Public Relations. Those teammates, Bob Batchelor and Gene Sasso, developed the curriculum, the architecture and the vision over a 3-year span. I consulted on curriculum and created two of the courses in my supporting role. Continue reading

Papa John’s CEO sparks an angry groundswell

Perhaps Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter missed the news last week. President Obama was reelected. And as a result, universal healthcare will remain the law of the land.

Schnatter’s pronouncements that he’ll be cutting workers’ hours to dodge the costs of Obamacare are lighting up the not-so-silent majority in social media today. Schnatter sounds like an indignant rich guy, the very kind American voters turned thumbs down to just 6 days ago. Continue reading

How the GOP blew the 2012 election

From the last row in the MAC Center at Kent State, on one of the President’s many visits to Ohio.

Since before I cast my first ballot in 1972, I’ve been told that Americans vote their interests, and that those interests tend to be economic. But yesterday, that didn’t happen. The polls were telling us that Mitt Romney’s primary strength was his perceived ability to lead on economic issues.

What happened? Continue reading

Is PR too influential? Or is local news no longer relevant?

Don’t read too much into this post. It one of those “It occurs to me” things that pop up over morning coffee and the newspaper. ___________________________________________

The past decade hasn’t been kind to mainstream media in the USA, and that’s hardly news. When advertising revenues began to evaporate, so did money to pay real journalists who dig for the real stories. When I open my morning newspaper today (I still subscribe to one) I see one of three things: Continue reading

Oh, well. How about 17 days?

My quest to post for 30 consecutive days fell short yesterday. I was busy embracing life — which involved a long bike ride with my bride, a great meal (still with local sweet corn), then some wine and conversation with our friend. And let’s not forget the beach fire.

All of that — except for the 5 or so hours I worked in the a.m. — seemed more important than this blog. One thing I learned in those first 17 days is that I just don’t have the wisdom or the energy to post every day. So I’m gonna take the rest of the weekend off.

Fun stories that don’t matter a lick

They say bloggers fall into two categories: linkers and thinkers. I’m a thinker. Or at least I think I am. Therefore, I am.

But today I don’t feel like thinking. I just want to share a couple of fun stories that might make you laugh, groan and/or roll your eyes. It’s today’s edition of “30 days, 30 thoughts.” Continue reading

Sex, lies and the 47%: There’s a PR lesson here

In love and in politics, it’s long been the practice to tell your “target audience” what they want to hear. And there is an upside: Just before you get screwed, at least someone promises to love you in the morning.

Mitt Romney’s “47 Percent” speech (Do I even need a link here?) handed us something hot and sexy. And today, the orgy continues needing no more help from Mother Jones. Continue reading