The Flack highlights changes and trends in the news, examples of communications practices, and content we at BYRNE PR thought you might find useful.
We hope you enjoy, and we always welcome your feedback.
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Saudi Arabia’s Golf Gambit – As you’ve certainly heard by now, LIV Golf is a professional golf tour backed by the government of Saudi Arabia. The tour is offering PGA Tour players massive contracts to defect to the LIV Tour, and it seems to be working. Phil Mickelson was reportedly paid $200 million to join, and other marquee names, including Dustin Johnson, have followed suit. This past week the PGA Tour suspended 17 of these players. Bottom line: this is a mess, and it’s about to get messier. Foreign Policy does a nice job sorting it out.
Substack’s Founders Dive Headfirst Into The Culture Wars – Substack launched in July 2017 with a seemingly smart, benign premise: a place for writers to post their content, and readers can pay them directly for access. But there’s one catch: Substack is fairly relaxed about the content they allow. Five years and one million paying subscribers later, Substack is changing journalism and igniting questions about free speech. Vanity Fair takes a deep look at Substack and its influence.
A Vanishing Word in Abortion Debate: ‘Women’ – As the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, another debate is surfacing about the language used to discuss reproductive rights. Medical, government and progressive organizations have adopted gender-neutral language that draws few distinctions between women and transgender men, as well as those who reject those identities altogether. In 2020, the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) issued a guide to activists on abortion that stressed they should talk about a “woman’s choice.” Two years later, the same guide emphasized the need for “gender-neutral language.” The New York Times digs into the debate about the language surrounding reproductive rights.
Antarctica’s Riskiest Glacier is Under Assault From Below and is Losing its Grip – Yeah, yeah, yeah…we’ve all heard it. Climate change is real. Icebergs and ice sheets are melting fast, and the potential for sea levels to rise is more than significant. But before you brush past this issue as something you’re sick of hearing about, take 10 minutes and read this article from The Conversation. It may change your perspective and/or scare the hell out of you.
The Savannah Bananas and The Business of Making Baseball Fun – There’s no debate: Baseball is boring. In 2020 the average MLB game lasted more than three hours; the average MLB fan is 57; and attendance/viewership has been plummeting for years. So it may not be surprising that one minor league team is looking to do the opposite of what MLB does, and they’ve sold out every game since 2016. The Hustle brings you the Savannah Bananas.
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flack
: one who provides publicity
flack
: to act as a press agent or promoter for something
The word flack was first used as a noun meaning “publicity agent” during the late 1930s. According to one rumor, the word was coined in tribute to a well-known movie publicist of the time, Gene Flack.