Reputation Town

In this 50th episode of the Reputation Town podcast, we do a breakdown of the US Presidential election, looking specifically at the elements of media relations, whether podcasts have eclipsed mainstream media, etc. We also discuss the complicated legacy of comedian and former late-night talk show host Mike Bullard, who recently died at the age of 67. And finally, we look at McDonalds' effective handling of its recent E. coli contamination crisis. 

With four days to go before the US Presidential Election, we're joined by our good friend Molly McPherson to discuss the presidential campaigns, each candidate's use of the media, the role podcasts will play in this year's election, the controversy around the 'garbage' comments and, finally, each of us gives our prediction of what we think will happen on Nov. 5th. Hope you enjoy this episode! 

In this episode, we catch up on some stories from the past few weeks, including Dave Grohl's confession about having a baby outside his marriage, Samsung's apology for missing its earnings estimate, Quantas forces an entire plane full of passengers to watch an R-rated movie, TD is fined US$3 billion for failing to live up to its anti-money laundering requirements and the bulk of this episode (the latter half) is spent analyzing the media relations performance of presidential candidate Kamala Harris over the past few weeks. Hope you enjoy this episode of Reputation Town!

This week, John and Warren talk about the negative PR impacting Disney after the allergy death of a guest, the viral Australian breakdancer at the Olympics, the Trump/Musk conversation on X, Kamala Harris's reluctance to do media interviews, $18 million of bonuses at the CBC, a Boeing project manager tries his hand at media relations and more. Hope you enjoy this episode!

This week, John and Warren talk about the drone/spying scandal facing the Canadian Olympic women's soccer team, the wrap-up of the LCBO strike, the astronauts that 'are not stranded' on the International Space Station, the startup company that spent $1.8 million on a domain name and our main topic of the week, the fallout in the wake of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. 

This week, John and Warren chop up a few stories, including Paul Maurice's touching speech moments after winning the Stanley Cup, the TTC's inadequate response to a recent stabbing murder at Jane Station in Toronto and veteran broadcaster Al Michaels approves an artificial intelligence version of his voice to be used at the upcoming Olympics. We end this episode with a discussion of Joe Biden's dismal performance at the recent Presidential Debate, how his cognitive decline has been (mis)handled by much of the mainstream media and what does this all mean with four months until the US elections. 

This week, Warren and John talk about stories including the Donald Trump guilty verdict, the continuing absence of Kate Middleton and Kensington Palace's curious handling of the situation, Shoppers Drug Mart posts a job ad looking for people to work for free, a US study tries to link crisis response to companies' stock price and Boston Pizza's curious creative choice for its TV ad during the Stanley Cup playoffs. Thanks for listening and we hope you enjoy this episode! 

This week, we break down some of the more recent PR stories in the news, including the Toronto Maple Leafs parting ways with their coach (and his video farewell), one of the Leafs players compares his teammates to 'gods', the Canadian army declares war on good design, the handling of the university protests and Galen Weston thinks customers are 'misguided' in their criticism of the Loblaw brand amid high grocery prices. 

This week, John and Warren discuss numerous PR-related stories in the news, including the comms around the Maryland bridge disaster, the reputational implications of the New York Magazine hit piece on YouTube neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, a California police department that got under the skin of the makers of LEGO, MLB's alleged gambling crisis, rumours swirling around the impending closure of Marineland and the continuing scrutiny around Kensington Palace's PR practices. 

This week, we're joined by PR legend Dr. Terry Flynn, Graduate Director and Associate Professor for the Master of Communications Management Program at McMaster University. The anchor story of this week is the ongoing KateGate situation, which is the last story of the pod. Other stories we talk about this week include the dangers of over-media training your spokespeople, Toronto Police's advice to homeowners to leave their car keys by the front door to give easier access to car thieves, TikTok's lobbying initiative that backfired, Molson's great PR move to profile women's names on hockey jerseys and Ron MacLean trying to salvage his reputation/friendship with Don Cherry. Hope you enjoy this episode!