At the now-infamous press conference that turned out to be an orchestrated ambush of Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Real American’s Voice correspondent Brian Glenn lobbed a hand grenade of a question to Zelenskyy. That single question was emblematic of an entire shift in the way the media works, requiring a comprehensive rethink of how public relations practitioners prepare for a media environment in which engineered outrage is rewarded by the press because spectacle earns more clicks than substance. In this short midweek episode of For Immediate Release, Neville and Shel break down the many implications for the practice of PR and the actions required to prepare brands to be targets of the same kind of treatment Zelenskyy got at the hands of the leaders of the free world and the complicit media at the press conference.

Links from this episode:

• When a Trump-supporting journalist heckled President Zelensky for not wearing a suit
• Trump and Vance attack Zelenskyy in remarkable Oval Office exchange
• Antisemitism in the Oval Office

 

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, March 24.

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email fircomments@gmail.com.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients.

Raw Transcript:

Shel Holtz (2): [00:00:00] Hi everybody, and welcome to episode number 454 of four immediate release. I’m She Holtz.

Neville Hobson: And I’m Neville Hobson. I’m sure almost every listener to this podcast has heard about the extraordinary encounter between Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, and US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on the 28th of February with US Vice President JD Vance.

During the argument. Here’s what happens. A Rightwing journalist, Brian Glenn, questions, Zelensky choice of attire, rather than focusing on war or democracy during a press conference alongside Trump and Vance, why wasn’t he wearing a suit? They wanted to know, this wasn’t an offhand remark, but a calculated attempt to manipulate perception.

Demonstrating how mainstream media today isn’t just about information, but about controlling narratives. In the post on LinkedIn last week, mark Bukowski highlights a fundamental shift in pr, media, [00:01:00] and public discourse, illustrated by the seemingly trivial but strategically loaded question asked of Zelensky by Brian Glenn setting the scene