Why it took almost three days of confusion for Sunderland and Di Canio to draw a line under this story is anybody’s guess. Either way, it’s the perfect example of how a poorly executed corporate communications strategy can damage your brand, says Mark Dye

I couldn’t help but cringe as I sat and watched Paolo Di Canio’s first press conference as Sunderland manager. As sure as eggs are eggs, there was only one question the gathered media throng wanted an answer to and this was, ‘Was Paolo Di Canio a fascist?

'You've booked the hotel suite, hosted the lunch, paid the mini bar bills and given out all the freebies. But how do you know the journalist is going to write about your client?' asks Mark Dye

What makes a good flack: 'Is it nature, nurture or chutzpah?' says Gina Sharp

You might have seen in the news that Jane Cummings, Britain's chief nursing officer, has called on the nation's nurses to show more compassion. The problem, apparently, is that nurses are now recruited by the NHS on their ability to pass exams. One of the ideas mooted was to teach compassion to undergraduate nurses.

Call me old fashioned, but I think that whilst you can teach people skills, some students will always be outperformed by the naturals. It goes without saying this is true of other vocations that call for humanists with good listening skills, empathy and warmth, such as counsellors, doctors, social workers and, don't laugh, public relationships experts. Well, we are spin-doctors after all. Spin doctors cum counsellors cum teachers in many respects.

Football provides many examples of how misdirected anger can be converted into positives, if you know how to express yourself properly, says Mark Dye

In media training courses, we often draw people out of their shells by doing unusual exercises that are designed to be fun while concentrating the mind on a skill they might need every day.

One of the ironies of any craft is that the more work you put into it, the easier it looks to outsiders, says Mark Dye

You really have to work hard to make things look simple to other people. The hallmark of genius is a person who can make the other person feel clever. Not my words, but those of Albert Einstein, who was reasonably intelligent by all accounts. Not that his job looked all that difficult.

Be mindful folks. Stalking can kill your hard won friendships like a chimp with a machine gun.

Like all technology, marketing machines are powerful weapons that can work both ways. Marketing automation is like a loaded gun. If you use the power of automation properly, it's a tremendous force for good. If you point it in the wrong direction, you're going to hurt somebody.

Steve Gold remembers the ‘90s and harks back to a time when there were IT journalists aplenty and KPIs few and far between.

Back in the early 1990s, when there were IT journalists aplenty and profit margins – on hardware and software – were as meaty as some of the Roger Melly like epithets coming from marketing directors at the shows and conferences of the era, PR professionals had the joy of being able to wine and dine us press reptiles on a grand scale.

In the latest of our series of #hackbugbears Tara Evans wants PRs to make sure they get their facts straight before getting in touch.

If I were to write an article that hadn’t been well researched then I’d be torn to pieces in the ferocious (but uniquely funny) Mail Online comment section at the bottom of the article.

In the same way if I ever make a mistake in an article (which, I never do of course!!), then I’m often treated to a polite email or phone call from the press office pointing out my error.

That’s why I’m often flabbergasted when I receive a call or email pitch from a PR person when they clearly haven’t taken the time to research what I write and who I write for.

In the latest in our series of #hackbugbears, Charles Arthur thinks the PR industry needs a wake-up call.

At present, the practice of PR is full of mistaken ideas. Let's spot a few together…

The first is thinking that email is an essential medium through which you can place stories without doing any more work than drafting a press release, titling your email "Press release", writing "Please find the attached press release" and titling the attached press release as (what else?) "pressrelease.doc".

Yeah, you're laughing, aren't you? I get a couple of those a month though, a statistic that has remained unchanged for at least ten years.

In the latest of our #hackbugbears Sally Whittle has some advice for those interested in improving blogger relations.

Those journalists, they love a good rant about hapless PR campaigns, don’t they? Well, they do – I was one for 12 years and I ranted with the best (or worst, depending on your perspective) of them.

But in my two years working as a full-time blogger at Who’s the Mummy and the Tots100, my relationship with PR agencies has shifted quite dramatically.

In the latest of our #hackbugbears, journalist Dan Raywood says that if we’re ever to see a real change in PR tactics it must come from the top.

The recent blog by Jessica Twentyman on PR pitches returned some positive feedback on how approaches to journalists should be made and what we are looking for.

In the latest of our #hackbugbears, journalist Jessica Twentyman suggests many PRs need to rethink their strategy when it comes to pitching journalists.

Why are the PR pitches I receive so bland? When I tweeted that question some time back, I quickly got back a pretty tetchy response: “How are PR people supposed to know what you think is ‘bland’?”

In the second of our new series of #hackbugbears, journalist Mic Wright reminds us that good PRs know when to be seen and not heard.

The PR is sat about three feet away from ‘the talent’. The ‘talent’ could be anyone from a Hollywood movie star to a ragged old rock’n’roller or a big businessman talking up his firm’s latest products. I’ve interviewed all of these and a whole host of other characters. The interviews that really stank were the ones where I wasn’t just talking to the interviewee but having to verbally spar with their handlers too.

Having seen several amusing rants about the relationship between journalists and PRs on Twitter of late, we thought it might be a nice idea to let some of the journalists speak out about the things that annoy them the most. In the first of our new series of #hackbugbears, journalist Nick Booth wryly ponders the disturbing similarities between PR people and estate agents…