Episodes

AI can imitate your voice, your words, even your face, but it can’t steal your story. What happens when companies hand their storytelling to machines that don’t understand who they are? As businesses race to automate, they ri...

Is the BBC losing its grip on journalistic credibility? Or is it being pushed? This episode of The Week Unspun unpacks a chaotic week in media and politics with sharp insight from PR veterans Farzana Baduel, David Gallagher, ...

In public relations, success often depends on one quiet skill: knowing how to adapt. The best communicators read the room, sense the temperature, and adjust their tone without losing their message. In this episode, we explore...

In this audience-driven “mailroom” episode of The Week Spun , the conversation opens with a provocative idea from the PRovoke Summit: AI is now being discussed in full-time equivalent (FTE) terms, signaling a shift in how age...

Afraid of posting on LinkedIn? You’re not alone, and it’s not about time or talent, it’s about confidence. In this episode we look at why communicators, especially women, struggle to show up confidently on LinkedIn. Fear, not time or skill, is the biggest barrier to visibility. PR professionals who…

What do a billionaire climate pivot, AI-fueled layoffs, and a scandalous Italian election have in common? They all got the PR treatment in this episode. Farzana Baduel, David Gallagher, and Doug Downs peel back the media laye...

We live in a moment where artificial intelligence can write our emails, plan our meetings, even give us life advice. But here’s the problem: these systems are often too agreeable for our own good. They’re less like truth tell...

Can a cyclist-turned (accused) communist New York mayoral candidate teach the PR world a thing or two about emotional storytelling? This week we unpack the “Mamdani effect” how Zohran Mamdani is rewriting the rules of politic...

Is attention the new currency? Politicians, brands, influencers, even your neighbor’s viral TikTok are all competing for the same scarce resource: your focus. But attention is slippery. It can make you a household name overni...

The call for better measurement in public relations is not new. For decades, leaders in the field have warned that counting impressions, likes, and advertising value equivalents is not enough. Yet here we are, still leaning o...

Search is changing faster than most PR professionals realize. For years, SEO was about keywords and backlinks. Now, with AI-driven tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity shaping how people find information, the game is sh...

Getting Hispanic communications wrong is not just a slip. It can cost brands credibility, trust, and millions in wasted campaigns. Too often, companies think a simple translation is enough, only to find their carefully crafte...

What happens when your newsfeed becomes a battlefield? In the US and UK, political leaders trade accusations, social media thrives on outrage, and communities are left simmering in distrust. What used to be disagreements over policy now look more like open hostility, with violence creeping closer t…

Google Search still holds about 90% of global search volume as of mid‑2025, but change is underway as more users begin turning to AI. AI search is rewriting the rules of discovery, and PR needs to adapt. With ChatGPT, Gemini,...

More women are now leaving the PR industry because of perimenopause and menopause than because of childbirth. That’s a staggering, often invisible, that’s shift happening right at the top. It’s not burnout or work-life balanc...

PR really is at a crossroads… we’ve got old playbooks and new players coming in who want to change the rules. In its report Mind the Gap , USC’s Center for Public Relations reveals sharp divides between Gen Z and older profes...

Ayeni Adekunle Samuel argues that Africa is often misunderstood or reduced to oversimplified stereotypes by global brands, agencies, and even tech platforms. Despite Africa’s complexity, diversity, and economic importance, ke...

Why is the PR industry still having the same tired conversation? Year after year, event after event… while the world moves on without us? We talk about getting a seat at the table, then sit quietly when we do. We debate metri...

What does it take to rebrand an entire nation? Not just a logo or slogan—but the name itself. Gökhan Yücel helped lead the campaign to officially shift the international name from Turkey to Türkiye . It’s a move that goes far...

What if the most powerful tool in public relations isn’t a pitch deck or media list, but your own story? In this episode, we’re joined by technologist-turned-storytelling-evangelist William Welser IV, founder of Lotic , a pla...

What if the expert quote you just read in a news article wasn’t written by a human — but by AI? That’s already happening. A PR tool called Synapse is selling agencies the ability to fire off automated expert pitches to journa...

In today’s media landscape, journalists are drowning in pitches while PR professionals scramble for attention—often missing the mark entirely. But what if the problem isn’t the story, but the way it’s being told—and the tools...

What if everything you’ve been taught about pricing your work—tracking time, logging hours, justifying effort—was wrong? What if the real value of what you do isn't how long it takes, but what impact it has? In a world where ...

What if the smartest pitch you ever sent didn’t sound smart at all—but sounded real ? In a world where inboxes are flooded with AI-polished messages, Lauren Passell makes a strong case for going the other way: writing like a ...