Melia Russell

It's easy to think about AI within the context of a CMS. Of using AI to optimize writing, editing, and SEO workflows. The more exciting choice is putting AI in the hands of reporters early on in the process. Over the weekend we published a deep look at how immigration is being portrayed in political ads this election cycle. It's an absorbing read--with editing and reporting from multiple desks across the newsroom. It's also the debut of one of our AI-powered reporting tools: Haystacker. We carved out a lane in our roadmap for "Ambitious Journalism"--this is what it looks like. https://lnkd.in/eTteMFxY

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There's so much talk about using AI to generate content, especially now that tools like ChatGPT make it look so easy. But is that coming at a cost to the reader experience? I'm a huge fan of (properly using) AI. It's been great at summarizing meetings. I use it sometimes to generate headline ideas or to generate a first draft of social media copy. I'm legitimately amazed at how fast this technology is developing. But as someone who has been "generating content" for newspapers, websites, blogs and social media since MySpace was the dominant social platform, I see far too many companies rushing to adopt AI for content generation without question. It seems so easy — because it is. Upload some reputable, trustworthy data sources (at least, please tell me you're doing this), click a couple buttons and you've got a story ready to go! Unfortunately, going this route ignores a lot of success factors. - Is it going to rank on Google? (No — the algorithm wants human experience and expertise that AI can't magically generate.) - Is it something that will add value for your customers? (People don't really want to read awkward AI copy, and will just bounce.) - Is it going to read well? (Unless you're also a robot ... no.) Instead, use AI to *assist* human writers. It's great at summarizing interviews, gathering key data points and helping you brainstorm. It can generate a first draft that gives you a structure to work with, if you're stuck. AI is a wonderful tool as an assistant, but it's not a long-term content strategy. While the technology changes over time, one thing doesn't — people want to trust that the article they're reading will help them out. Seeing how often people add "Reddit" on the end of their Google searches just confirms this. If you really want to stand out among your competitors and get long-lasting results, don't use AI as a content generator. Use it to help your human writers and editors do their job better.

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The future of local journalism might be grant funding and newsletters. For Creator Spotlight this week I spoke to Ambreen Ali, creator of Central Desi, which has won $181k over the last two years from the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium. New Jersey has a South Asian population of roughly 500,000, but the under-staffed and under-funded local news organizations in the state have, historically, not produced enough coverage of, for, or by that population. Central Desi is filling that gap. It's also educating the next generation of journalists, teaching them to carry the torch for integrous, well-researched local news, through a fellowship program funded by those grants. "That's kind of what's different about this version of local journalism from the newspaper version. We can be small and nimble and we can use digital tools to our advantage." Read it here: https://lnkd.in/ej5D3txY

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For today's Wide Shot newsletter, we return to the question of whether streaming is a good business and, more precisely, for whom? We address cable giant John Malone's recent assessment (categorically "no") and take a look at the state of Netflix, Disney, Paramount and others who participated in the streaming war. Who's winning? Who's still losing money? What's the next stage of the streaming business? (Oh, we also get into JOKER 2's box office travesty). #entertainmentbusiness #hollywood #streaming

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My ad nerds and I remember this 2010 Super Bowl commercial for its sweet conscious-coupling story that unfolded in a search bar (we hadn't seen the likes of this creative tactic before). It came from Google and it was called "Parisian Love." Unicorn AI startup Perplexity decided to reimagine the spot, calling it "Parisian Dream" and aiming to make a point about its rival search. Does it work, LinkedIn friends? Discuss! Full story and video below: ADWEEK #marketingandadvertising #artificialintelligence #searchengine Dmitry Shevelenko Gordy Sang Quality Meats Creative Deb Gabor Sol Marketing

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Kudos to Eleanor Hawkins and the Axios Communicators team for their "1 big thing" visual of the day. Yes, it's reductive guidance on when to speak out and when not to, and yes, you should think through it with more nuance and specificity to a situation at hand, but these are great questions to start with when you're wondering how to communicate through murky or uncomfortable events. Some other questions to consider: ▶ Do we know enough about this situation? If not, do we have a sense of timing for more information to come through? ▶ Can we meaningfully influence the situation by speaking out? ▶ If we are communicating about this, who is the right person to serve as our voice?

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As many of the folks in my network gear up for #ClimateWeekNYC, I wrote about the importance of storytelling for the weekly 17 Communications impact newsletter. DM me if you'd like to be added to the distribution list! See below for an excerpt and read the full newsletter at https://lnkd.in/eGPCPckD I’ve attended Climate Week NYC for each of the past two years and have always come away feeling excited, inspired and curious. There are so many people doing such interesting things to address climate change, even if the news cycle most days seems apocalyptic. News stories about heat waves, droughts or natural disasters don’t seem to have quite the same effect as they used to – perhaps because we’ve all become numb to the tragedy. But there are still some mediums that are capable of breaking through the numbness and motivating changes in people’s behavior. Books. On my train ride to last year’s Climate Week NYC I read “The Ministry for the Future,” a climate sci-fi book that explored what it might look like if the world got its act together in time. The author, Kim Stanley Robinson, recently gave an interview to the FT in which he said that people are attracted to the book because it can replace “feelings of futility or despair” with “relatively justifiable hope.” As for his motivation? “You tell the story in an attempt to forestall it by informing people in advance.” My take is that the book found a way to balance blind optimism and cynical pessimism in a way that felt refreshingly human. Most news coverage these days tends towards the dark and stormy, but long-form writers like Robinson are able to take a step back and offer a more balanced perspective that feels more real and accessible for a general audience. TV. Like many of my colleagues who work in finance, I’ve become enamored by the steady stream of excellent TV series that bring viewers into the wacky world of finance. Billions is the most obvious example, but even hit shows like Silicon Valley and Succession explore complex financial themes that are integral to the narrative. The new show that should be on everyone’s watchlist is Industry, which explores the inner workings and general tomfoolery of an investment bank in London. While their episodes focused on the ESG craze have been cringeworthy, I appreciate that a major company like HBO would green-light a project that offers a somewhat realistic view into how the finance world works, and why it sometimes doesn’t work. The 3rd episode, which is primarily set at a major climate conference, shows how the worlds of finance and sustainability interact, with profit rather than purpose motivating most decision-making. The link between these examples is storytelling... Stories are what power human ingenuity and creativity, and are how we are able to connect across racial, cultural and economic divides. 

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Thanks to CanvasRebel Magazine for the interview. Read it to find out how freelance copywriting made me cry. https://lnkd.in/eS-QY2pf

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The Wall Street Journal editor Paul Beckett’s account in the Columbia Journalism Review of how the Journal mobilized to free Evan Gershkovich after 16th months as a prisoner in Russia is a tour de force and “a free press triumph” and well worth the read. Some excerpts: A phone call to a senior government official who knows this terrain provided the answer: “There are times to be quiet and there are times to be loud—and this is a time to be loud.” “Yet on days like August 1 (when he was freed), the values that underpin democracy and are the foundation of a free press triumph.” “Few countries that are not democracies could point to such care for their ordinary citizens abroad, let alone noncitizens imprisoned for their political beliefs.” “news organizations must continue to assess and calibrate the risks their reporters face when operating in dangerous terrain. Perhaps they need to make more hard-nosed choices on whether it is necessary to deploy in person to countries that target journalists or whether that terrain can effectively be covered from outside, given advances in technology and communications.” “And they could ensure that press freedom around the world—an issue so fundamental to their existence that it is often taken for granted—is a subject they cover as if their livelihoods and their liberty depended on it.” https://lnkd.in/etZTVCeB

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Sharing a few words today about the use of embargoes in PR. First, let me say that if you're using the embargo tactic to try to get more reporters to read your pitch—without any real value to them—don't. Embargoes are only effective in 𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 situations - and even then, they should be used sparingly. Slapping the word "embargo" on your press release doesn't do _anything_. 😕 The reporter must first AGREE to honor the embargo. And in most cases, using one just doesn't make sense. After talking with reporters, the takeaway is that it may be OK to use an embargo IF: 1. You have a story worth embargoing 2. You have an existing relationship with the journalist built on trust To back up a bit, 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐨? When public relations practitioners pitch news to journalists using an embargo, they’re sharing information (many times in the form of a press release) before the announcement date. An embargo gives reporters time to write the piece and have it ready the moment the news is publicly announced. It’s offered under the notion that reporters won’t publish the story until the stated date. But - unless the news is earth-shattering, an embargo isn't warranted. And - reporters often won't honor them, even if asked, because they've been burned in the past when they held a story - and a competitor didn't. In other words, is your story worth asking a reporter to honor an embargo? For most companies in most cases, the answer is no. #mediarelations #PRTips #publicrelations

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DOS Won't Hunt -- Recording Schedule through December   Interested panelists, please contact me directly via email, not just with comments on this post: [email protected]   Note to public relations teams: please only pitch panelists you have CONFIRMED will be available on those dates. This is a video podcast recording. Only the panelists will be in the session. Here are the topics I plan to cover on the podcast in the weeks ahead. All recordings will be on video, panel discussions, at 12 pm ET on the recording dates below.   December 6 – What Enterprise IT Predictions Actually Mattered in 2024? Every year sees prognostications about what tech will take off, evolve, and transform the enterprise world. What expectations did your organization start 2024 with and how has that played out? Did anything hold water? Did surprises in tech emerge during the year eclipse the predictions? Is it better for organizations to not chase predictive trends or does that mean giving up a competitive edge? December 13 – The Cloud You Want vs the Cloud You Need: Are enterprises able to tailor their cloud resources to fit their operational needs? How does that compare with ambitions? Cost? Usage? Are more organizations cloud-first? Are we ever going to see an all, cloud-first world where EVERYTHING exists in the cloud? Does that dream no longer seem real?   December 20 – Cyber Threats and the Holidays: Do retailers still face high levels of cyber risk in a world fraught with ransomware attacks year-round? Do bad actors focus their attention more on targets they strike when an opportunity arises, which might not have anything to do with the holiday shopping season? Or are there still Cyber Grinches out there who are making a concerted effort to strike as transactions fly faster than reindeer? December 27 – Infrastructure Resilience: Y2K 25 Years Later. What have we learned about maintaining our infrastructure, a generation after putting in the work to correct the Y2K bug? How has computer infrastructure been rethought? What “rules” and “norms” that were part of legacy tech no longer apply in the time of cloud, edge, and all else beyond we are exploring?

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There's been a trend of creative agencies launching design units as of late. Some of those shops include Goodby Silverstein & Partners, GUT, JOAN Creative, MullenLowe U.S. and Lafayette American. While those shops already had design capabilities, launching a dedicated unit has strategic and new business benefits. That said, it’s a tough market for newbies, filled with established players such as Collins’ own practice, Landor, JKR and Pentagram, as well as boutique design-focused shops. And while design is still a key component for most marketers, the uncertain economy has caused brands to reduce the amount they spend, according to Natasha Jen, a partner at Pentagram, who said she has seen clients allocate 15%-30% less on marketing and design budgets compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic. Also great quote from Brian Collins: “You can write the entire history of design and never mention advertising once. You cannot write about advertising without writing about design.”

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I keep seeing PR agencies make the mistake of hiring prompt engineers with no experience actually doing PR work. Whyyy? 1) Prompt engineers are no longer relevant - LLMs can write their own prompts better than any human can. 2) Unless you deeply understand the use-case, what is the point of someone who knows how to prompt AI to get a broad range of results. It's AI + a narrow focus that delivers value not AI + general use case humans. 3) Just hire smart, capable, problem solvers that are also PR consultants.

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Wait... what? A PR is an announcement right? Or is it a press release? Do you mean you 'do' press releases? Is that like using a newswire? What do you mean embargo?.. hmm.. and that's a.. deadline? PR terminology is a pain, like all industry jargon it makes it look more complicated than it is and you think "I really need someone who understands this stuff".. 12 years of working as a comms expert and I have conversations with companies all the time that follow the script above. So I wrote a simple breakdown of PR terminology, starting with content formats - for all the other founders and CMOs out there who are sitting on calls with their PR agencies, wondering what the *🤔🤔😑😑😬 they are talking about, but don’t ask because it will take another 30 minutes of precious billable time. In a new article, I’m covering: 🐥 What content formats to use to communicate company information 🐿 When to use them 🐫 How to structure them 🐢 Best ways to share them Read it all here: https://lnkd.in/eDCxvG9C This will be part of a broader series about all the things that cause confusion in PR (and there are many more), so let me know what PR terms you struggle with in the comments. P.s. hope you enjoyed the emojis.

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Tech PR Risks Becoming ‘Performative Relations’... Now, I know that’s a provocative title, but hear me out. PR has long been more art than science. But data and client priorities suggest it has to be more science than art or we as an industry risk marginalizing this work and undermining its strategic value. Let’s look at a few sets of critical data -- focusing on the first ones here and in a coming post, and the other data in later posts. The first set reflects the tech market and the constructs that imperil common PR practices.  The latter data set offers compelling evidence that even in the face of problematic market conditions, a vast majority of tech PR professionals are overly focused on tactics that are inherently hindered by those increasingly apparent conditions. This graph below summarizes a mix of data from Pew Research and our own internal understanding of how media coverage of the tech industry breaks down: ➡️50% of all tech coverage is garnered by what Wall Street calls the Magnificent 7 stocks: Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia and Tesla.  ➡️The Trending Companies reflect the various story squirrels that the news dogs incessantly chase -- the Sam Altman coup for a week, the SBF trial for two weeks, CoreWeave for a month -- and reflect another 25% of the collective reporting mindshare.  ➡️That leaves the last 25% for every other company in tech. Let that sink in. From Adobe to Zendesk, nearly every enterprise tech company is fighting for that last 25%.  The largest number of tech firms are tangling for the smallest piece of the pie.  The takeaway seems pretty obvious: unless your company or client is among the Magnificent 7, or just happens to be today’s "it” story, it’s gonna be tough to deploy a media-centric strategy to initiate, maintain, and sustain a meaningful market dialog -- the objective of most, if not all, PR work.  It may even be impossible. It’s time to Rethink B2B Communications. In our next post we’ll look at some more data that shows some other significant challenges to a earned media-centric approach. Be sure to hit the follow button and the 🛎️so you don’t miss the next piece of this story! #communications #b2btech #pr 104 West Partners Next Practices Group Ringer Sciences

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If #agencylife is your gig, and #PR is in your repertoire - let this sink in.. ➡️50% of all tech coverage is garnered by what Wall Street calls the Magnificent 7 stocks: Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia and Tesla.  ➡️The Trending Companies reflect the various story squirrels that the news dogs incessantly chase -- the Sam Altman coup for a week, the SBF trial for two weeks, CoreWeave for a month -- and reflect another 25% of the collective reporting mindshare.  ➡️That leaves the last 25% for every other company in tech…

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This week's PR Roundup looked at: ✅ Data on X's (formerly known as Twitter) downward market valuation spiral ✅ Nonverbal communication and the making of a Kamala Harris meme ✅ An opportunity for communicators and academics to bond and share new research at the Institute for Public Relations 2025 Bridge Conference. As we all know, users/advertisers generally gravitate toward entities with a good reputation—X's chaos and advertiser exodus shows what happens when that reputation is sullied. Brand Finance provides us with the data that proves how this impacts market value. And if you watched the presidential debate (but who am I kidding, even if you didn't you were bound to hear SOMETHING about it this week), you may have noticed that words didn't always speak as loudly as Kamala Harris's facial expressions. In a world where traditional media trainers may say to remain stoic when public speaking, the VP is breaking all the rules, making a real non-verbal impression. And finally, check out IPR's Call for Presentations! Thanks to Richard Haigh, Isabelle Dienstag, Rebecca Evans and Tina McCorkindale, Ph.D., APR for their insights this week. And, I'm curious—let me know what you are seeing in regards to your organization and clients utilizing or backing away from X. Is it still part of your strategy? Happy weekend!

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