There is an art to resigning. Fall on your sword immediately and you might end up enhancing your reputation. Cling on for months in spite of overwhelming evidence you should quit - and the opposite can be true. This week, David Yelland and Farzana Baduel look at whether the PR rules around resigning are changing. Has the tipping point moved in an age of fragmented media? Certainly the noise from the baying mob has never felt louder but if it's not laser-focused, does that make it easier to ignor...
May 13, 2026•26 min
Finding the right words in a high-pressure situation is not easy - especially when the world is watching. But by common consensus, King Charles' speech to Congress was deemed pretty much pitch perfect. This week, David Yelland and Farzana Baduel take you behind-the-scenes, into the writer's room. Who was involved in crafting the words, how did multiple people feed in and yet make it sound like a singular voice? They explain why the speech worked for multiple audiences in today's 'fragment econom...
May 06, 2026•27 min
There are jobs and there are jobs. And then there are jobs like being head of the FBI. So when you're in that role and get accused of excessive drinking and unexplained absences from duty, the reputational risk is huge. This week, David Yelland and Farzana Baduel look at how Kash Patel has handled the claims - from getting into heated verbal battles with reporters to launching a $250m defamation lawsuit citing 'false and obviously fabricated allegations'. What were his options? As they explain, ...
Apr 29, 2026•29 min
These are busy days in the world of crisis comms. Keeping calm is vital - keeping the public calm is even more vital. David Yelland and Farzana Baduel explain what's going on behind-the-scenes everywhere - from supermarkets and airlines to energy companies - as concern rises that the war in Iran could affect supply lines. They discuss the importance of being like a meerkat - horizon scanning - for potential public flashpoints. And why PRs have to come up with calming strategies to avoid dreaded ...
Apr 01, 2026•29 min
What happens when you cross enemy lines and join the other side? As King Charles hires a Sky Royal correspondent for a top comms job at the Palace, David Yelland and Farzana Baduel discuss what happens when journalists switch to PR. Crucially, they need to learn how to go from broadcast to mute. No more fabulously indiscreet anecdotes involving the rich and powerful over dinner - they're now your clients and your job is to protect their reputation. And that's just for starters. There are a whole...
Mar 25, 2026•29 min
In the good old days, if you wanted some favourable PR for a client, you could call up a journalist and take them out for a jolly good lunch. It's not so easy when the thing you're trying to influence is a bot. So is it possible to spin the likes of ChatGPT? This week David Yelland is joined by Lauren Beeching - a crisis management expert with clients that count their followers in millions. They discuss how AI is changing so much of the nuts and bolts of the PR reputation game - from having to b...
Mar 18, 2026•22 min
When your country's PR plan relies on the projection of safety and security, how do you keep that image alive when you're under attack? This week, David Yelland is joined by global PR expert Farzana Baduel to examine how countries in the Gulf have managed their comms since the start of the war in Iran. In Dubai especially, social media influencers have been used as foot soldiers in the reputation battle. But has the relentlessly on-brand, 'we feel safe' messaging been successful? David and Farza...
Mar 11, 2026•27 min
Getting your message out is obviously a cornerstone of PR. But where you put that message is becoming even more important. This week, David Yelland is joined by Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty from the BBC podcast Fame Under Fire. Together they look at the challenge for big institutions - especially the Royal Family - of cutting through. You may think you've been successful if your story gets pick up in all the traditional places - but has anyone under-35 even seen it? They discuss the need to popula...
Mar 04, 2026•19 min
When you’re in a crisis, you discover very quickly who your friends are. Or perhaps more accurately, who your friends aren’t. This week, David Yelland and Simon Lewis examine how different types of friends are deployed to the PR front line when it comes to reputational combat. When you can't defend yourself in public, you need the right sort in your corner. But not all friends are equal. There's the named friend, the unnamed friend and the showbiz favourite - 'close friend of the couple'. And Da...
Feb 25, 2026•25 min
How do you fight a PR battle when everyone's already decided you're the bad guys? That's the problem facing the water industry on the eve of a new Channel 4 factual drama called Dirty Business. The clue is in the title. It focuses on a 10-year investigation into sewage-polluted waters. Sticking to the facts is a basic rule of PR - but when coming up against raw anger and emotion, do you need more than facts? How do you appeal to hearts as well as minds? On the extended edition on BBC Sounds, PR ...
Feb 18, 2026•31 min
Some jobs just can't be done. Circumstances, events and a changing world simply make them undoable. This week, David Yelland and Simon Lewis ask whether one such job is communicating on behalf of the Prime Minister. Not just this Prime Minister, but any Prime Minister. After only five months, the PM's Director of Communications, Tim Allan has quit. He's the fourth person to hold the role under Sir Keir Starmer. The old levers of PR clearly aren't working and there seems to be a general bafflemen...
Feb 11, 2026•27 min
How close is the Palace to being sucked into the Epstein reputational black hole - again? In this episode David Yelland and Simon Lewis discuss the latest revelations from the Epstein files about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Can a reputation ever be so utterly ‘nuked’ that there is no coming back and anyone close gets sucked in? What is the Royal Family's PR calculus to avoid the gravity pull of the Epstein PR black hole? On the extended edition on BBC Sounds, David and Simon look at another man ...
Feb 04, 2026•29 min
It started with a bombshell but the aftershocks are only just getting started. This week, David Yelland and Simon Lewis ask whether David and Victoria Beckham's seemingly bulletproof brand is under threat. The cause is of course the incredibly emotional social media outburst from their son, Brooklyn. Theirs is a brand built on family - so what are the PR challenges when threads start to unravel? And crucially, what say will the money men have about how the Beckham's handle the fallout? On the ex...
Jan 28, 2026•24 min
Reputations supposedly take years to build and seconds to destroy. But what if that's no longer the case? What if the normal rules about earning - and keeping - a reputation simply don't apply any more. This week, David Yelland is joined by Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty, from the BBC podcast Fame Under Fire. Together, they venture into some distinctly dubious corners of the internet to see how public opinion is really being shaped. Examining the trial of rapper Diddy, they explain how he may have a...
Jan 21, 2026•32 min
When everything's going really well, there's always a lurking fear that it can't possibly last. This week, David Yelland and Simon Lewis look at how the discussion around weight-loss injections is suddenly, subtly shifting. New research suggests that once you come off them, you put weight back on faster than if you'd shed the pounds in a more traditional way. The findings dominated the news agenda. So is the PR worm ever so slightly turning? David and Simon discuss what happens when a product le...
Jan 14, 2026•26 min
Call it smoke and mirrors, call it sleight of hand. The best PR is often invisible PR. In this latest episode of our mini-series on the Golden Rules of PR, David Yelland and Simon Lewis look at the risks of showing your workings. Increased transparency is admirable in many cases - but beware of just how much you reveal. A great example from 2025 was the Heathrow Airport crisis. A power outage caused the airport to shut down - and it quickly became known that Heathrow's CEO was asleep when the de...
Jan 07, 2026•10 min
Most of us are guilty of it. A problem looms or a crisis kicks off and the knee-jerk reaction is often to ignore it and hope it goes away. Newsflash - it rarely does. In this latest episode of our mini-series on PR's Golden Rules, David Yelland and Simon Lewis explain why doing something is usually better than doing nothing. Two great examples from 2025 involve the BBC and the Royal Family. Both faced enormous crises - both faced accusations of not saying or doing the right thing quickly enough....
Dec 31, 2025•10 min
This episode will change your life. Seriously. It's a big claim and carries an enormous risk of over-promising. Welcome to the latest episode in our mini-series on the Golden Rules of PR. This week, David Yelland and Simon Lewis look at the risks of rolling the pitch - of laying the PR groundwork - for a forthcoming announcement. As the Chancellor Rachel Reeves found out in the run up to the Budget, trying to manage expectations can seriously backfire. But we all do it - we try to soften people ...
Dec 24, 2025•10 min
It may be the season to be jolly but there's not a lot of good cheer going around at the moment. With so much unrelentingly bleak news, how do you persuade anyone that not everything's as bad as it seems? This week, David Yelland and Simon Lewis look at the power of optimism. It's not just a useful PR tool, it's vital. When optimism is authentic, it can inspire and be incredibly infectious. The trouble is, it can also feel totally out of step with people's own experiences. That's why it's such a...
Dec 17, 2025•25 min
It's panto season and panto villains don't come much bigger than Simon Cowell. The music mogul's made a career and fortune playing the Bad Guy on TV talent shows. But is there more to him - and crucially, is it good PR for him to show a different side? This week, David Yelland and Simon Lewis wade through the blizzard of publicity created ahead of Simon Cowell's latest show - to piece together a PR jigsaw that hints at his attempts to stay relevant while also offering glimpses into his world tha...
Dec 10, 2025•29 min
It's not easy winning a PR fight when you're up against three octogenarian nuns whose story has become a global smash. This week, David Yelland and Simon Lewis look at the case of Sister Bernadette, Sister Regina and Sister Rita. They ran away from the care home they'd been sent to and broke back into the Austrian convent where they'd lived for more than 60 years. In the process, they've gained huge support on social media. Now, they've been told they can stay at the convent - so long as they st...
Dec 03, 2025•30 min
Imagine being able to read the private emails sent between some of the most powerful people on the planet. This week, David Yelland and Simon Lewis do exactly that. The release of thousands of pages from the so-called Epstein files shows the ways in which the elite communicate with each other. The exchanges reveal what one New York Times columnist describes as the 'nomadic bat signals' the rich send the rich. Epstein's criminality and cruelty are already crystal clear - but the legacy of these e...
Nov 26, 2025•31 min
When a top job becomes available, there very soon follows a list of potential 'runners and riders'. But how do you get your name on it? And how do you get your name off it? This week, David Yelland and Simon Lewis reveal the PR secrets of The List. Whether it's the BBC, HSBC or Apple, there are suddenly lots of big names being touted around for some very serious jobs. But there are PR traps along the way. Being seen as the frontrunner doesn't always end well - and if you didn't put your name for...
Nov 19, 2025•29 min
"They make really stupid basic mistakes and they are hopeless at PR." If you're a podcast about PR, then that quote - made about the BBC this week - is a good place to start when assessing the reputation of the Corporation. This week, David Yelland and Simon Lewis examine the crisis engulfing the BBC. One which began with a leaked memo, resulted in two huge resignations and now has President Trump threatening to sue for $1bn. How did we get here and did the BBC make some cardinal PR mistakes alo...
Nov 12, 2025•28 min
It was barely a fortnight - but in that time everything seemed to change. This week, David Yelland and Simon Lewis look at the dramatic way Buckingham Palace responded to the growing crisis over the then-Prince Andrew. Going from an initial statement that seemed - to many - to get almost everything wrong to a second statement that went further than almost anyone was expecting. Behind-the-scenes, just what was going on for the Royal comms team? What powers were at play, how was there such a gulf ...
Nov 05, 2025•32 min
As PR moves go, it would surely have earned a '10 from Len'. But what about the BBC's own communications team, who were seemingly as surprised as everyone else when Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman announced they were leaving Strictly Come Dancing? This week, David Yelland and Simon Lewis look at what happens when a PR team is left blindsided by events. And while not strictly a double act, Tess and Claud are a Strictly double act - so it's a chance to discuss the challenges of how to bow out when...
Oct 29, 2025•36 min
No more Duke of York, no more Order of the Garter. But he is still Prince Andrew. And he is still the King's brother. This week, David Yelland and Simon Lewis look at how Buckingham Palace is trying to distance the Royal Family from the constant slew of damaging headlines. But many questions remain about the way it's being handled. Why was Prince Andrew allowed to sound like he was giving up his titles voluntarily, in a statement that may be argued to show little contrition, focussing instead on...
Oct 22, 2025•26 min
Victoria Beckham is no stranger to headlines. And now she's revealed that intense media scrutiny led to her developing an eating disorder. Cue more headlines. One particular article stood out, which asked why those around Victoria - including her PR team - didn't seem to address the problem at the time. This week, David Yelland and Simon Lewis look at what this tells us, not just about Victoria Beckham’s story, but the delicate line that people in the world of PR must tread when they are dealing...
Oct 15, 2025•28 min
This week, David and Simon look at Michelle Mone's meteoric rise and spectacular fall - and examine the PR decisions that have come back to haunt her. The Baroness has come out swinging after a judge ruled a company linked to her and her husband Doug Barrowman must pay £122m in damages for breaching a government contract for the supply of personal protective equipment during the Covid pandemic. She says she's been made a scapegoat and is the victim of sexism and classism. Is playing the blame ga...
Oct 08, 2025•32 min
It was all going so well. Just a couple of weeks ago, it looked like a genuine reconciliation was on the cards between Prince Harry and his father, the King. But in the past few days, there's been a blizzard of headlines, anger and yet another breakdown of trust. At the heart of it, a leak about a private meeting between Harry and his father. Harry's side have blamed 'the men in grey suits' for trying to sabotage any such reconciliation. This week, David and Simon look at the timing of the leak ...
Oct 01, 2025•28 min
