How NOT to Win Friends and Influence People
In the latest example of shooting yourself in the public relations foot, we hear from Hardy L. Brown, publisher ofBlack Voice News, a weekly newspaper in Riverside, California. Mr. Brown recounts how the California Teachers Association approaches community outreach:
For the past couple of years, California Black Media, a coalition of 22 African American newspapers across the state founded by myself and co-publisher Cheryl Brown, has sponsored a summit in Sacramento on various issues that impact the Black community. We invite experts on various topics to be a part of the panels so we can become better informed to educate our readers. This year the topics were “Crisis In Our Schools” and “Contracting With Our Small Businesses.”
Invitations were sent to select organizations to request that a high ranking policy maker represent that organization on the education panel and the CTA did not respond in a timely manner so we moved ahead. Working on a tight deadline to print the program and alert our readers of the event,
