Tim's Blog

More than 110,000 people in the U.S. have died as a result of COVID-19. In addition to tragically taking human lives, the coronavirus pandemic exposed shortcomings of the national health system, with early shortages of critical equipment, such as ventilators, personal protective gear and masks....

The Early Care and Learning Council (ECLC) recently honored Tim Cook, president of Cook Communications LLC, with its 2018 Excellence in Leadership Award in the media category.   Child Care Council Inc. CEO Barbara-Ann Mattle and the Council’s management team nominated Tim Cook for the award,...

You are a company about to launch a new product or service, and you are looking to garner national attention. What is the best way to get coverage? Developing a news release to announce the news remains a powerful public relations tool for generating media coverage. After retaining a PR professi...

To paraphrase the famous quote by Mark Twain, the reports of the news release’s death are grossly exaggerated. There have been numerous news articles and blog posts about the state of the news release as a public relations tool, with many claiming that the news release is dead. It started a few y...

With investigations underway by Congress and by a special prosecutor into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, many media outlets have started using the phrase Russiagate. This is the latest in a long line of other “gate” scandals in government, sports and entertainment...

I will never forget the first time I heard the term AP style. In my first public relations job, I had written a news release and my supervisor returned the draft full of red ink and said, “This release doesn’t follow AP style.” Short for “The Associated Press Stylebook,” AP style is the writing s...

For years, United Airlines urged us to “fly the friendly skies.” Unfortunately, this week the company showed just how unfriendly it can be when security staff violently dragged a passenger off one of its flights. The video of the bloodied passenger is shocking and disturbing. It is bad enough tha...

Cook Communications LLC has won a 2017 Telly Award. The firm was honored for a video created for Rochester City School District’s More & Better Learning Time program. The video, recognized in the general information category, was developed with support from Blackbird Son Production Service.  We a...

A nonprofit health planning organization convenes two commissions working to address health disparities among people of color. They are striving to achieve a shared vision of achieving health equity for African Americans through community-wide efforts and to engage Latino community leaders to design...

An Ivy League university recently received a multi-million-dollar donation from a national foundation to build a new building for its computer science department. Cook Communications was part of a team hired to plan and promote the building’s official dedication. We developed and implemented a co...

A summer camp in New York state provides a fully accessible camping experience for children and adults with paralysis and other physical challenges, giving them a place where they do not have to worry about wheelchairs or medications. The camp features an array of amenities, from a climbing wall,...

Paid advertising and public relations both are powerful tools in an organization’s marketing communications arsenal. Before utilizing either, though, it is important to understand some fundamental differences between them. One key difference involves control of the message. In paid advertising...

When asked to name their favorite music genre, most people would likely respond with rock, country, rap/hip-hop, blues, or top 40. Theater organ music would not register with many folks. Perhaps not surprisingly then, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the theater organ genre was ex...

While many advertising agencies can create effective commercials to sell a product or to promote a business, when it comes to politics, experience matters. If you are running for elective office, it is important to choose a media consultant who understands politics, who has experience in political a...

For decades, street prostitution plagued a neighborhood in a mid-sized metropolitan city in the Northeast. Area businesses, property owners, residents, faith-based organizations and local government agencies joined forces to create a nonprofit agency to reinvigorate anti-prostitution efforts in the...

Public relations means many different things to different people. Some people view the industry negatively and think that all PR practitioners are spin doctors trying to control a story (and some practitioners embrace this view - a colleague hung a sign on his office door stating, “The Spin Doctor i...