Online Public Relations Thoughts

News that real estate agents are finding ChatGPT essential to their writing opens a question for PR and marketing practitioners.  Are they next?  There is no reason why artificial intelligence can't render a basic release or marketing copy.  I would be surprised if some practitioners haven't tried it already.  The ability to write has been a necessity for decades, and some PR agencies still administer writing exams before hiring.  With ChatGPT that requirement might go away and workers with lesser skills take the place of copywriters.  It is too early to know whether ChatGPT would be consistently successful in rendering copy, but it is free to try at the present time.  Tinker with it.  

It is clear nobody checked the resume and statements by Congressional Rep. George Santos of Long Island.  Nearly everything he said and wrote was a lie.  Yet, he was elected for a two-year term and the Republican Speaker of the House has decided to seat him.  His fabrications were not even spin in which facts are twisted to fit a narrative.  They were false in every detail.  Santos is the peak of amoral communication untethered to reality and designed to mislead.  He is not the first to bamboozle the public.  He won't be the last.  This is why accuracy is so important to public relations.  Practitioners persuade based on a set of facts rather than an array of lies.  Santos might be able to serve out his term but he won't be re-elected and he might go to jail.  PR practitioners have an example of what not to do.

The pope has a way of disarming critics.  He lets them talk.  Through their speech he learns of the sensitivities of the Church and where opposition lies.  He is not a one for all, all for one leader.  Rather, he acknowledges that some of his positions are a painful burr to conservatives and it helps him to move with a sense of caution.  He takes incremental steps in changes to the Church.  His one great message is that bishops should be more pastoral and spend more time with the laity listening to their concerns.  In his 10 years of rule, he has named Cardinals who see the Church the same way he does so his impact will last beyond his retirement or death.  He is a shrewd leader with communication skills and an example to CEOs everywhere. 

The governor of Florida and developers of Advanced Placement courses are talking past one another.  Florida's Ron DeSantis has the upper hand at the moment by barring the AP African American studies program from the state's high school curriculum.  It is a battle of persuasion between two sides and two views of the history of the United States.  DeSantis holds to a traditional "patriotic" view that exalts the ideas of freedom held by slaveholders who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  Those ideas are expansive and African Americans claim the same rights given to white people.  Meanwhile, African American studies delve into the long history of slavery and denial of freedom imposed on people simply for the color of their skin. The views are fated to clash for decades to come, but eventually one or the other will win out.  It is hard to say at this juncture which one it will be.  

 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has fired several officials, some for corruption.  It seems old habits in Ukraine of being on the take remain, but such behavior is deadly for the country's reputation.  Why should Ukraine's soldiers fight and die and why should the West support a country in which its ministers are boodling?  Zelenskiy has answered what he says are calls for justice.  With billions flowing into the country for aid, it is tempting to pocket some so the government must be diligent in stopping graft.  That doesn't mean it will disappear entirely but it does say Ukraine is striving to be on the right side of the law.  It is essential for the company's fight against Russia to appear blameless.  It is one more burden on Zelenskiy as he directs the war.  

President Biden and Speaker of the House McCarthy are talking past one another.  Biden insists that he get a clean vote on raising the Federal debt ceiling.  McCarthy wants to negotiate and to curb spending.  Both are appealing to their base of support.  Meanwhile, Wall Street is terrified of a Federal default if the two sides can't get together soon.  Look for posturing and PR from both sides to try to convince the public and the financial community that they are right.  It will come down to who will blink first and the fallout from doing so.  McCarthy is in a weaker position.  He stands to lose the Speakership if he gives in too quickly.  He barely got the position as it is.  It would be an interesting battle to watch if the situation weren't so serious.  

This fellow was sending a message -- one of hate and violence that should have no place in American society.  Angry words translated into deeds have a long background in the US from demonstrations that turned into looting to torching of homes and stores to bombing of churches to mob hangings.  In many cases, people got away with misdeeds.  Authorities were overwhelmed or complicit, but it shouldn't be that way.  There is a rule of law and it should be applied without fear or favor.  Communicators can be passionate but words should persuade not violence. 

Millions of small businesses have to repay loans taken from the government during the COVID downturn.   They can't afford it and now they are publicizing their plight.  It is a fair use of PR.  They are drawing attention to a situation which can bankrupt them and if that happens, the government won't get its money back anyway.  The problem is that business hasn't recovered since COVID ended and now the country is heading into a possible recession, which will hammer small companies again.  The question is how much should small business owners suffer?  They acknowledge they freely took the loans.  They want to pay them back, but they can't.  Not now and in some cases, not ever.  It is a question only government can answer.

Bitcoin and Ethereum and have rallied and the crypto market has regained a $1 trillion valuation.  Why is hard to pinpoint.  The fundamentals haven't changed for either of the two coins.  The only value is what people believe.  There are no assets underlying them, nothing that ties either to the real world.  Cryptocurrency is an example of secular faith.  Promoting it leads investors astray and into a fantasy world. One would hope communications practitioners would know better.  

A continuous shuffle of generals affects troop morale.  It is as if the top doesn't know what it is doing and is grasping for anything to make headway. Putin's replacement of his lead general after just three months smacks of desperation.  It communicates a lack of trust felt down to the trenches.  The soldier reflects bitterly comrades are dying while command is playing merry-go-round.  It is not the first time such shifting has happened.  Famously, Abraham Lincoln cycled through generals in the Civil War until he settled on Grant.  The difference so far is that Grant made headway while Ukraine is still a battle of inches.  Ukraine still has a unified command and that is no small part a reason for its defensive success.  

 A corrupt file in its computer system has damaged the Federal Aviation Administration's reputation.  It exposed what observers have known for a long time.  The FAA is underfunded and operating with systems first developed in the 1950s.  It is decades past due for new infrastructure.  The question now is whether Congress will act to give the agency the money it needs to build new systems and communications software and hardware.  Any action to bring it into the 21st Century will take years but it needs to be done.  The FAA tracks some 47,000 flights a day and the country can't afford more glitches with its systems.  

When propaganda rules, facts are the only contraceptive.  This is what Ukraine produced when the Russians claimed to have killed hundreds of soldiers at a vocational school.  The institute brought reporters to the scene and allowed them to inspect the premises. Aside from blown-out windows, there was no apparent damage to the facility and no blood on floors or walls.  The school rejected the Russian claims and bloggers in Moscow criticized the authorities.  Still the Russian defense department held to its falsehood and looked ridiculous.  Both sides are twisting truth as a strategy of battle, never letting the other side know what is really happening.  Spin rules the day and the media are left to sort out what is known and what is fantasy. 

About 2,200 companies and more than 100,000 attendees make CES, the consumer electronics show, the biggest event of the year for anyone in the industry.  The question for marketers and PR practitioners is whether it is too big. A sea of reveals and announcements creates cacophony and inevitably good products are overwhelmed in the noise.  That written, it is an event in which the industry shows what it has for the year and what it will be marketing.  That serves many purposes, not the least of which is competitive research.  Armed with a good pair of shoes and long hours of walking, one can steep himself in the state of the industry as it is today.

This study of the world's 215,000 land-based glaciers estimates that 2/3rds of the them will be gone by 2100.  Yet, global warming deniers still exist in government and society.  That is, even if they accept the planet is hotter, they are not ready to take the necessary steps to prevent  temperature rise.  Why?  It's painful and costly.  It requires a culture change that will affect everyone's daily living.  This is the public relations challenge of the century and perhaps, three centuries since coal burning began on a mass scale.  There is no guarantee the world can succeed in stabilizing the thermostat, much less turning it down.  More studies like this one are needed to chip away at stubborn attitudes, but it might already be too late.  

The House after two days and six votes still doesn't have a Speaker.  It is an embarrassment for the nominee, Kevin McCarthy.  It is also a political mess from which McCarthy might not recover even if he does win on a future ballot.  McCarthy and the rebels are talking past one another.  They are communicating but not persuading.  It isn't clear if and when McCarthy might change their opposition to support.  Meanwhile, Democrats in the chamber are watching the fight with glee.  Republicans have descended into chaos and cannot form a strong voting block. They were weakened in the November elections. They have fallen apart in choosing a Speaker.  Look for a contentious two years.  

Oil giants Exxon and Chevron are set to announce $100 billion in profits for 2022.  That has set the Biden administration's teeth on edge and provoked charges of customer gouging.  It doesn't matter that barrel prices are set by world commodity trading and not the companies themselves.  It looks bad.  While most corporations would celebrate success, the oil giants have a PR problem on their hands.  The public won't accept such earnings easily and there will be calls for give-backs and taxation to curb their profits.  Environmentalists are already screaming that oil companies are not doing enough to curb pollution and foster green energy. This is a case in which success is misery.

 It's symptomatic of a field in which ignorance rules for predictions to be wildly divergent.  Consider bitcoin where forecasts for 2023 spread between a 1400% rally and a 70% plunge.  Nobody knows anything about the fate of the cryptocurrency.  Communications in an environment of uncertainty are difficult.  It is probably best not to say anything but to watch closely what a market is doing to see if there are any enduring trends.  This leaves investors without comfort but it also prevents confusion and noise.  No one really knows why any market rises or falls on any given day.  Traders reach a consensus but they don't know either.  They are guessing.  There is no shame in stating publicly that one doesn't know.  It is far better to be honest than glib.