Just in case you're not completely sick of year-end or top 10 lists yet, here's a quick rundown of The Art of the Great Media Interview's top 10 posts of the past year based on numbers of web views and social sharing stats:
Read MoreRob Ford and his brother Doug launched an ambitious media blitz last week to hit back at critics. But how effective was their strategy? I had a chance to chat with Elissa Freeman of Canada.com a few days ago to give her my two cents about Rob Ford's PR strategy (or lack thereof). Other PR folks who weighed in with their opinions were Jodi Echakowitz of Echo Communications and Diana Conconi.
You can read the article here. Thanks to Elissa and Canada.com for asking me to participate.
Read MoreThanks to the six-month long Crackgate scandal and the ensuing media coverage Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is one of the most recognizable people in the world. Ford has become a running segment on The Daily Show. He's been ridiculed by David Letterman, Jay Leno, the Jimmies (Kimmel and Fallon), Howard Stern and Saturday Night Live. It seems like the whole world is talking about Toronto's mayor. But is there an objective way to see how big the Rob Ford story really is?
Read MoreAnother day, another media circus around Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. CBC reporter Steven D'Souza just posted this Vine video of one of the Mayor's aides physically shoving reporters out of the way. As you can see from the video, this is pretty aggressive stuff. D'Souza said in a later tweet that the shoving was much worse inside the office area.
Read MoreMayor Rob Ford is (once again) dominating news headlines after Toronto Police announced they have a copy of the infamous cellphone video from last May. But just how big is the Rob Ford story? To give you an idea, here's a Google Trends comparison of worldwide news search volumes over the past 30 days. To put the media attention around the Rob Ford story in context, I wanted to compare search volumes around other big names in the news this month...
Read MoreA little over five months. In the end, that's how much time Toronto Mayor was able to buy himself by stonewalling the media when faced with accusations of appearing in a video smoking a crack pipe.
Ford was swarmed relentlessly by the media for weeks last spring. At his home. At his office. At official events. His response was to ignore their questions. His most fulsome statement, made on May 24, 2013, one week after the allegations first surfaced, included the following quote: "Number one, there's no video, so that's all I can say. I can't comment on something that doesn't exist."
Read MoreOn May 25, I wrote a post about the scope of the Rob Ford scandal as seen through the eyes of Google Trends. The post quickly became the most popular since I started my blog in 2008. Like by a lot. This blog, which typically gets a few dozen visitors a day, had over 4,000 page views within two or three days...
Read MoreThe Rob Ford 'crack allegations' story has dominated headlines in Canada and parts of the United States for the past week. In addition to the salacious nature of the allegations of drug use by the mayor of one of the largest cities in North America, there have been surreptitious meetings between journalists and drug dealers and high-profile references to a secret videotape that allegedly shows the Mayor smoking from what appears to be a crack pipe.
Read MoreTo say that Rob Ford's relationship with the media has been rocky since he became the mayor of Canada's largest city would be an understatement. Even with this kind of media relations track record, this is a very, very bad day for Rob Ford.
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