-
Political consultancy and the Mitt Romney video
The New Yorker has an interesting piece about the invention of political consultancy. It sprang immediately to mind when I read this quote from Mitt Romney, in a transcript of a secretly recorded video at a fund-raiser: I have a very good team of extraordinarily experienced, highly successful consultants, a couple of people in particular…
-
Communicating counterterrorism
This is from a very modest, practical and illuminating speech by a career US diplomat, until recently tasked with using “public diplomacy” for counterterrorism purposes. Lessons from Previous Attempts …Previous messaging projects had a spotty record in the way that they tapped into the intelligence community to inform their work, failing to establish systems and…
-
Press freedom is just political advertising
From the Leveson inquiry this week: (Tony) Blair complains about the crossover of comment and news in newspapers. He says that this “stops being journalism. It’s then an instrument of propaganda or political power” What exemptions should there be for propaganda?
-
Davos 2012
I attended a Civil Society event where I spoke with representatives from human rights organizations, the union/labor movement, and NGOs working to address some of the hardest problems in society. I had a lunch with a university president talking about the role of technology in higher ed. I had dinner with an esteemed physicist, an…