For Immediate Release

A Press-Gazette investigation found that dozens of experts quoted in the mainstream media don't actually exist, and PR agencies are unwittingly sharing them with the press. This poses a credibility issue for the agencies and the media. It requires a layer of verification unlike anything we've faced before. Also in this episode, crisis communication has long been housed in the PR or communications department. Should it be a governance responsibility of the C-suite? That's the case made in a new report from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. In his Tech Report, Dan York covers an initiative to close the AI language gap, including video moves by YouTube and Bluesky, smart glasses, and enhancements to Threads' podcast toolkit.Continue Reading → The post FIR #529: Fake Quotes from Fake Experts Find Their Way Into Top-Tier Media appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Fandoms are not synonymous with audiences or communities. The difference: Fans' identities are tied up with the team, artist, product, or other object of their passion. It's not surprising that marketers are chasing fandoms, in hopes of turning their brands into something people are genuinely excited about. But not everything is a potential flashpoint for a fan base. In this short midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel explore what distinguishes fans from members of other audiences or communities, how brands might leverage them, the wisdom of trying to spin up a fan base, and why fandoms might rebel against attempts to use them for marketing purposes.Continue Reading → The post FIR #528: Why Marketers Are Suddenly Obsessed with Fandom appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

At one company, a leader discovered by chance that AI was rejecting job candidate applications within seconds of their arrival. One reason: They graduated from college before 2010, which contradicted the instruction to surface candidates who displayed "youthful energy." What's worse, the talent acquisition manager didn't see any liability issues, since AI made the decision. Also in this long-form episode for August 2026: An expert witness used ChatGPT to prepare a report. The prompts he used to generate the report were uncovered during discovery and entered into evidence. Nutrogena parted ways with its spokesperson, Hayden Panetierre, more than a decade ago. Its rationale for that decision has created a crisis for Nutrogena today in the wake of Panetierre's untimely death. Brands suddenly care about Reddit thanks to its (perceived) role in AI-generated overviews and summaries. Redditors haven't returned the feeling. Meta is facing a trillion-dollar-plus judgment in its current trial, but even more consequential could be a requirement to strip from its social media platforms the devices that addicted young people, many of which have become standards for social media. Will social media as we know it change in the wake of the verdict? Some companies are compensating employees who join the ranks of influencers and creators sharing content about the companies' products and services. It sounds like a good idea, until you look at the labor, HR, and legal issues that arise. In his Tech Report, Dan York provides more statistics about the decline in referral traffic thanks to AI overviews and searches via LLMs, Time magazine's decision to inject ads into markdown files targeting AI agents (and Perplexity's decision to block them), and LinkedIn's "Seems Like AI Slop" option -- is it working?Continue Reading → The post FIR #527: Delegating Hiring Decisions to AI appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Anthropic's watermark scheme is the focus of so much discussion that you could be excused for thinking there was nothing else to talk about. For many, it's the solution to identifying all those evil-doers who offload their writing to large language models. But we are wasting far too much time trying to determine whether (and to what degree) AI was involved in creating content. Much more important is determining whether the content was crafted with respect for the reader, and whether the creator can stand by every word. That's the idea behind the new AI writing policy from the software company Clay, which makes far more sense than trying to detect a watermark.Continue Reading → The post FIR #526: Forget Anthropic’s AI Watermark. Can You Defend Every Sentence? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

We have been hearing about work slop for a while now, and evidence is mounting that it can create long-term problems for companies. Yet we are hearing very little (if anything) about what businesses are doing about it. There's new research, which Neville and Shel discuss in this episode, along with some thoughts about actions companies can take.Continue Reading → The post FIR #525: The Consequences Businesses Will Face from Work Slop appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.