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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Anthropic Was Behind. Now It’s The AI Boom’s Front-Runner. – The AI race has a new front-runner, and it’s not who you’d expect. Anthropic, once dismissed as an also-ran to OpenAI’s ChatGPT juggernaut, is now outpacing its rival in revenue growth, business adoption and investor interest. With a potential $900 billion valuation on the horizon, how did this scrappy underdog quietly engineer one of tech’s most stunning reversals? And if you don’t believe they’re winning, just ask Claude. The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the state of AI.
Oregon’s Most Unexpected Gubernatorial Candidate? A Pencil With A Point – An Oregon literacy advocate is making a sharp political statement, literally. J. Schuberth has built a full pencil costume and is running for governor as “Pencil,” urging voters to skip the ballot line entirely and write in the name. Why? Oregon fourth graders rank dead last in reading nationwide. It’s an absurd campaign with a serious message — and surprisingly, some voters are actually considering it. NPR has the story.
Wordle To Become Prime-Time TV Show, With Savannah Guthrie As Host – Your daily five-letter obsession is coming to prime time. NBC is turning Wordle into a game show hosted by Savannah Guthrie, with Jimmy Fallon producing. But behind the excitement is a deeply personal story that makes this announcement far more meaningful than it first appears. The New York Times explains.
Local Journalism’s AI Problem Is That We Never Solved Its Consumer Problem – AI doesn’t send traffic. It doesn’t build loyalty. And it doesn’t care about your business model. A Stanford journalism fellow argues that local news was already losing the battle for audience relationships long before AI arrived — and that the only path forward isn’t a tech fix. It’s something far more fundamental, and harder to build.
How Padel Became One Of The Hottest Sports For The Global Elite – Somewhere between tennis and squash, inside a glass cage, the global elite have found their new obsession, and they’re absolutely insufferable about it. Rolex, Prada and Lamborghini are all in. Six-figure memberships exist. Jay-Z has a racket. And nobody can agree on how to pronounce it. Welcome to padel (pa-DEL?).
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Feed Your Head:
Why Do Escalators Have Brushes On The Sides?
Here Are The Winners Of The 2026 Pulitzer Prizes
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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.