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Joe Stack, the man who flew a plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas, could give the growing Tea Party movement a black eye. At least that’s what The Business Insider ’s Joe Weisenthal said in a blog post. “In [Stack’s] insane manifesto, he rails against the IRS, bailouts, and, well, all of the right wing’s typical enemies,” Weisenthal wrote. “Is this fair to the right? No. Will some of the media use this as a chance to smear the ‘tea partiers’? Sure. But we’re no…

Type “John Boehner is” into Google and you get several suggestions — none of them is flattering; do the same for Nancy Pelosi, and the result is equally unflattering. ( Here’s what you see .) Now, try it with your company or client’s name. What do you see?

A guide to writing faster, reporting better and feeling good about starting the story in the middle.

Really? Did the people approving these logos really fail to notice the sexual overtones in these logos? Unbelievable — and hilarious!

Here’s a  bizarre story from Esquire magazine. In Great Britain, there are lots of people named name Sara(h) Palin — dozens — more per capita than in the U.S. So, what’s it like sharing a name with a highly divisive political figure known around the world? It comes with lots of friend requests from Palin supporters on Facebook — and as many insults (for instance, “you never should have been born”). It also causes a social media headache, namely from Fac…

It started as a comedy event to promote moderation and reason. Now, the Rally to Restore Sanity, hosted by Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, is turning into a media frenzy — and, according to NPR , a rallying cry for liberal activists.  The New York Times reports that the event, which takes place tomorrow in Washington, D.C., drew more than 1,000 requests from individuals for press credentials and 40 press passes from various broadcast news networks. The list was ultimatel…

There’s a battle going on between Michael Sitrick, the king of crisis comms for Hollywood, and Allan Mayer, a partner in the powerhouse firm 42 West. This showdown at the PR Corral centers on allegations that Sitrick manipulated an employee stock ownership plan before he sold his namesake public relations company to Resources Connection Inc. There’s a bunch of lawyers involved now, which means that everyone involved is going to spend lots of dough and things are gonna get nasty.–Jackson Wigh…

As you probably know, Tiger Woods plans to hold a press conference on Friday in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., site of the PGA Tour headquarters. Well, it’s sort of a press conference — he won’t be taking any questions from reporters, and it will only last five minutes. According to the statement issued by his agent, the philandering golfer plans to talk about his past and future, and apologize. He will “be speaking to a small group of friends, colleagues and close associates,” the statement …

Is your blog an online landfill, filled with extra copy that’s nothing more than useless junk to the reader? Time to clean it up. HubSpot Blog recommends five places to start . Here’s one: The blogroll. “Is acknowledging other thought-leaders in your industry important? Absolutely. Is putting them all into a list with very little context while taking up valuable real estate on your blog the best way to acknowledge them? No.” What do you think?

Less than one week after The New York Times ran a scathing piece on the Tribune Co.’s “frat house” culture, Tribune Chief Innovation Officer Lee Abrams sent a companywide memo containing the word “slut” and links to off-color videos. He apologized, but was suspended indefinitely and without pay for the memo. From a PR standpoint, the Tribune handled this one well. Read  more — and, if you like, see the off-color videos that led to the suspension. The videos are fr…

Thinking about starting a blog? “I hope you have a good support group at home,” according to a post on Blog World Expo . “It’s especially helpful if your spouse is someone who ‘gets’ blogging and social media. If not, be prepared for lots of questions.” Here’s an example: “Yes honey, I really AM working when I’m on Facebook and Twitter. Though I began blogging long before Twitter, it’s been an immense help in growing my blog network.”

The newspaper will be extinct by 2017 in the U.S. and 2019 in the U.K., according to Australian Ross Dawson, a so-called “futurist.” Newspapers in Canada will survive until 2020. (Even though papers in Canada reported  actual profits and growth last year.)  The Wall Blog has several infographics, which explain Dawson’s rationale. But are newspapers going “extinct” or evolving into websites, mobile and iPad apps, and eventually, well, who knows?

Wednesday marked the anniversary of the signing of the Recovery Act, better known as the stimulus, and Democrats were out touting its effectiveness. To assist this PR push, Democrat-controlled Committee on Education and Labor created a 30-second video spoof of the popular iPhone commercials, “There’s an app for that.” What do you think? Does it help explain how the stimulus money has been spent?

Blogger and author B.L. Ochman has shared a rather interesting pitch she received the other day—about urinary incontinence commercials. “I don’t want to make light of this product, or the company’s efforts,” she wrote. “It’s the PR pitch that’s from hell.” Ochman showed how the company could have improved the pitch.

A study by the Small Business Index found that social media adoption by small businesses has doubled, from 12 to 24 percent, in the past year. Social networks are the most popular venue: 75 percent of business owners surveyed said they have a company page on a social networking site.