Hardball PR


Book Description

To all corporate executives: Warning! There are now thousands of aggressive, ambitious young journalists out there who desperately want to become the next Bob Woodward, the next Mike Wallace or the next Seymour Hersh. They want to get there quick. They want to get there with minimal effort. And they won't mind getting there by destroying your company and marching over its corpse. These are the predatory journalists. They disguise themselves as "investigative reporters," but investigation is the least of their concerns. What they want is the hot headline that portrays you as a villain and that ignites public outrage. They know this is the fast track to stardom in the news media, and they're not about to let little things like facts, truth and context get in the way. Where do they get their stories? Often from Corporate America's most ruthless antagonists: plaintiff attorneys and social activists. Traditional PR says that you must kowtow to these thugs. Hardball PR says you can fight back--and win. Read this book. The life you save could belong to your company.




Playing Hard Ball


Book Description

PLAYING HARD BALL is a unique sports book, a cultural comparison of two national games - cricket, English in origin and American baseball - written from the viewpoint of a top-class practitioner of both codes. Ed Smith - the young Cambridge University and Kent batsman - has spent the winters since 1998 in Spring Training with the New York Mets baseball team. It has enabled Ed to contrast and compare arguably the two most iconic of sports from the inside. In fact, baseball had a thriving following in Britain until the Great War: Derby County's former stadium was called the Baseball Ground; Tottenham Hotspur was at first a baseball club. Apart from learning two very different techniques, Ed learned that the sports' ultimate heroes, the Babe and the Don - Babe Ruth and Don Bradman - might as well have come from different planets, whilst baseball's pristine Hall of Fame in Cooperstown is a far cry from the ramshackle cricket museum at Lord's. Ed Smith's PLAYING HARD BALL draws on these intriguing comparisons to paint a two-sided portrait of sports most illustrous 'hitting games'.




Baseball's Other All-Stars


Book Description

Baseball is played in all corners of the world, so it is no surprise to learn that some of the greatest hardballers of all time never played on a U.S. major league diamond. Who knows what major league records would have been shattered had Sadaharu Oh of Japan, Josh Gibson of the Negro Leagues, Martin Dihigo of Cuba, Francisco Coimbre of Puerto Rico and Hector Espino of Mexico played in the United States. This work is a survey of the greatest baseball players who never played in the U.S. major leagues. The greatest players from the various professional leagues outside organized baseball in the United States are reviewed, and all-star teams are selected for each league. Finally, the author selects an "all-world all-star team" from the individual all-star teams from Japan, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and the Negro Leagues.







Finding Baseball's Next Clemente


Book Description

This book examines what it takes for Latino youngsters to beat the odds, overcoming cultural and racial barriers—and a corrupt recruitment system—to play professional baseball in the United States. Latin Americans now comprise nearly 30 percent of the players in Major League Baseball (MLB). This provocative work looks at how young Latinos are recruited—and often exploited—and at the cultural, linguistic, and racial challenges faced by those who do make it. There are exposés of baseball camps where teens are encouraged to sacrifice education in favor of hitting and fielding drills and descriptions of fraud cases in which youngsters claim to be older than they are in order to sign contracts. The book also documents the increasing use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs by kids desperately trying to gain an edge. In addition to discussing the hard road many Latinos follow to MLB, the work also traces the fascinating history of baseball's introduction in Latin American countries—in some cases, more than a century ago. Finally, there are the stories of great Latino players, of men like Roberto Clemente and Carlos Beltran who made it to the majors, but also of men who were not so lucky. Through their tales, readers can share the dreams and expectations of young men who, for better or worse, believe in "America's pastime" as their gateway out of poverty.




They Don't Wanna Wait


Book Description

A dynamic look at the stars of "Dawson's Creek, " one of television's hottest shows. 48 photos, 16 in color.




In The Court of Public Opinion


Book Description

A practical guide to winning the public relations war in business In The Court of Public Opinion is a lively and practical guide for anyone involved in high-stakes litigation. Given the increasingly litigious, media-saturated business environment, companies and high-profile individuals need protection-not just in the courthouses, but in the court of public opinion. Using examples from many of the most famous cases in the past several years, In The Court of Public Opinion contains real-life strategies that CEOs, lawyers, and other executives can use when they find themselves in a high-profile lawsuit. James F. Haggerty, one of the nation's leading attorney/PR pros, offers advice on public relations strategies that will help businesses and individuals save their reputations as well as their livelihood. James F. Haggerty (New York, NY) is an attorney and CEO of the PR Consulting Group in New York. He has been working with legal and litigation issues for more than fifteen years and has been involved in many high-profile legal disputes, including the Ronald Perelman/Patricia Duff divorce and the Screen Actors' Guild strike against the advertising industry. His writing on communications issues has appeared in The New York Times, the National Law Journal, and PR Week.




Edge Strategy


Book Description

Are you missing opportunities for growth that are right in front of you? In today’s volatile economic environment, filled with uncertainty and sudden change, the forces pushing you to stay focused on the core business are extremely powerful. Profiting from the core is crucial, but the danger is that overfocus on the core can blind companies. Scanning the horizon for new markets and new products can also be tempting, but risky. Fixating too much on either strategy can cause you to miss the substantial opportunities for growth that are often hidden in plain sight, at the edge of the core business. In this insightful yet practical book, strategy experts Alan Lewis and Dan McKone articulate a mindset that helps leaders recognize and capitalize on these opportunities. The Edge Strategy framework challenges how the boundaries of your existing products and services map to your customers’ views of the world and then provides three different lenses through which you can see and leverage value: • Product edge. How to capture incremental profits and other benefits by slightly altering the elements and composition of a core offering • Journey edge. How to create and capture extra value by adjusting your role in supporting the customer’s journey to and through your offering • Enterprise edge. How to unlock additional value from resources and capabilities that support your core offering by applying them in a different context, for a different offering or different set of customers With engaging examples across many industries, Lewis and McKone coach you on how to identify and assess each of the different “edges” and then provide concrete insights and advice on applying edge strategy and tactics to use in specific business contexts. The book concludes with a ten-step process to help executives and managers find and leverage the edges in their own companies. Edge Strategy is the concise, hands-on guide for growing your business by getting more yield from assets already in place, relationships already established, and investments already made.




Forthcoming Books


Book Description




Press Freedom in Contemporary Japan


Book Description

In twenty-first century Japan there are numerous instances of media harassment, intimidation, censorship and self-censorship that undermine the freedom of the press and influence how the news is reported. Since Abe returned to power in 2012, the recrudescence of nationalism under his leadership has emboldened right-wing activists and organizations targeting liberal media outlets, journalists, peace museums and ethnic Korean residents in Japan. This ongoing culture war involves the media, school textbooks, constitutional revision, pacifism and security doctrine. This text is divided into five sections that cover: Politics of press freedom; The legal landscape; History and culture; Marginalization; PR, public diplomacy and manipulating opinion. Press Freedom in Contemporary Japan brings together contributions from an international and interdisciplinary line-up of academics and journalists intimately familiar with the current climate, in order to discuss and evaluate these issues and explore potential future outcomes. It is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand contemporary Japan and the politics of freedom of expression and transparency in the Abe era. It will appeal to students, academics, Japan specialists, journalists, legal scholars, historians, political scientists, sociologists, and those engaged in human rights, media studies and Asian Studies.