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A good old fashioned undercover investigation by The Times newspaper and British Gas is paying the reputation price for failing to monitor its supply chain. In this instance, Arvato, their debt collection agency has been breaking into people’s homes (albeit with a warrant) to forcibly install pay-as-you-go meters in the homes of those who have failed to

There is an enormous noise around short-term financial metrics of listed companies. But do the directors of such companies have a legal duty to maximise short term profit for the benefit of their shareholders? US and UK companies, seemingly at the behest of The City of London and Wall Street, appear to believe that management

Having had time to reflect, maybe as much as this ex-CEO now, when should you advise your CEO that it is time to resign? Why did the board of Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) association take three days to first back then sack their CEO, Gareth Swarbrick? Why did he refuse to resign of his own

KFC in Germany endured a busy couple of days’ negative international media coverage last week. A marketing message on its KFC app had urged customers to commemorate the 9th November 1938 Nazi pogrom of German Jews known as ‘Kristallnacht’ with cheesy chicken. The message was rapidly removed and a sincere apology issued. A commitment was

The 1982 Johnson & Johnson Tylenol Crisis For 40 years, many people in PR have considered the response of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to the Tylenol poisonings in October 1982 to be the ‘grand-daddy of good crisis communication’. Although it may be more accurate to think of it as the ‘grand-daddy of corporate responsibility’, let

In our media training, we teach that journalists choose to write stories that meet the T.R.U.T.H. criteria. Not only must it be true, but ideally is Topical, Relevant, Unusual, Troublesome and Human. So to Rivian, a maker of electric trucks. That has just recalled all 13,000 of its sold vehicles due to an issue with

Kim Kardashian chose not to apologise last week for a misleading post on social media which landed her with a $1.26 million fine from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). For a privileged few, the normal rules of reputation don’t seem to apply. The SEC warned celebrities in November 2017 that they must disclose

Why is it that experienced media performers – politicians especially - often fall into the trap of getting into a heated ‘row’ with an interviewer when it is almost always counter-productive for the audience? In my experience of conducting interviews and preparing interviewees, the specters of Paxman, Neil and Humphrys still loom large. Theirs is

Tesco plant-based food advert banned as misleading (BBC) Tesco rebuked over greenwashing in adverts for plant-based food (FT) Britain's Tesco rapped by watchdog over plant-based products ads (Reuters) Tesco vegan burger adverts banned over ‘misleading’ environmental claims (Telegraph) ASA bans ‘misleading’ Tesco plant-based burger ads (Farmers Weekly) ASA chastises Tesco over greenwashing plant burger claims (The Drum) “Misleading” Tesco plant-based food

Louis Heren, veteran post-war Foreign Correspondent of The Times newspaper, famously said that in his job as a reporter seeking truth, he always asked himself of interviewees “Why is this lying bastard lying to me?”. This underlies why journalists ask challenging questions and participants on our media training courses desperately want to learn how to

To learn how to communicate effectively on radio and explain complicated topics simply, listen to the first 90 seconds of this four minute item from BBC Radio 4’s fact-checking and statistics programme, More Or Less - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0014x0f (scroll forward to 11.25). The programme’s presenter, economist Tim Harford, is excellent at using simple, accessible language to