Read some of today's best PR and Comms industry news clips:
How AI Is Impacting the Communications Field (PR Newswire - October 7, 2026)
Wendy's Chili Finger Hoax: A Crisis Comms Case Study (Everything-PR - October 8, 2026)
Stanley's comms leader on viral moments and deepfakes (PR Daily - October 8, 2026)
PRNEWS Celebrates 2026 Platinum Awards Winners, People of the Year and Agency Elite 120 (PRNEWS - October 7, 2026)
How Organizations Can Communicate DEI With Integrity (Institute for Public Relations - October 6, 2026)
Global PR bodies launch survey to assess mental health in industry (Mumbrella - October 7, 2026)
The Trusted Advisor Initiative: Leadership Is About Tomorrow (CommPro - October 8, 2026)
Reputation Health: What It Is and Why It Matters (Part 2) (Landis Communications - October 7, 2026)
Sacred Cows: Why Agencies Are Afraid to Tell Clients the Truth (PRovoke Media - October 7, 2026)
What Gen Z wants from their internal comms (Ragan Communications - October 7, 2026)
Leadership visibility: what employees really mean when they say leaders aren't visible enough (Influence (UK) - October 2, 2026)
Your Buyer Is Already Researching You: The Communications Side Of Acquisition Readiness (Forbes - October 8, 2026)
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Summary Section:
How AI Is Impacting the Communications Field
By Jeff Goodsmith
PR Newswire - October 7, 2026
AI is changing how people discover brands, take in information and make decisions, which means that AI has already had an outsized impact on communications professionals. As AI continues to evolve, communications professionals must change their approaches.
Wendy's Chili Finger Hoax: A Crisis Comms Case Study
Everything-PR - October 8, 2026
Wendy's lost an estimated $2.5 million in sales after Anna Ayala falsely claimed she found a human fingertip in a bowl of chili at a San Jose location on March 22, 2005. Investigations by Wendy's, the health department, and police found no evidence the finger originated from an employee or supplier. Ayala was later convicted of planting the fingertip herself.
Stanley's comms leader on viral moments and deepfakes
By Isis Simpson-Mersha
PR Daily - October 8, 2026
Erica Samadani is shaping the story of Stanley 1913, a brand built on more than a century of heritage. As global vice president of communications and public relations, Samadani leads the integrated team behind the company's internal and external narrative.
PRNEWS Celebrates 2026 Platinum Awards Winners, People of the Year and Agency Elite 120
PRNEWS - October 7, 2026
The winners of the 2026 PRNEWS Platinum Awards were announced during the program’s annual gala celebration, which took place Tuesday, October 6, at The Lighthouse venue in New York City. Nearly 400 PR and comms professionals, including the People of the Year and Agency Elite 120, gathered to honor the people, teams and campaigns that exemplify industry excellence.
How Organizations Can Communicate DEI With Integrity
By Ingrid Wahl, Ph.D., Sabine A. Einwiller, Ph.D.
Institute for Public Relations - October 6, 2026
Despite the current backlash against DEI initiatives, organizational commitment to DEI remains essential for fostering an inclusive workplace. Our findings suggest that what matters most is not simply whether organizations communicate their support for DEI, but whether employees perceive that support as genuine and meaningful.
Global PR bodies launch survey to assess mental health in industry
Mumbrella - October 7, 2026
Global PR bodies have launched the Global Mental Health and Wellbeing Survey to assess mental health issues within the industry, aiming for at least 5000 responses. The survey seeks to establish a global benchmark for understanding the wellbeing of communications professionals.
The Trusted Advisor Initiative: Leadership Is About Tomorrow
CommPro - October 8, 2026
In this third excerpt from Influencing Leaders: The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor, Jim Lukaszewski and Fred Garcia turn to tomorrow. Leaders, they argue, operate in the future tense.
Reputation Health: What It Is and Why It Matters (Part 2)
By Polly Winograd Ikonen
Landis Communications - October 7, 2026
The discipline the industry is converging on is anticipatory communications: the shift from responding to what has already happened toward detecting what is still forming.
Sacred Cows: Why Agencies Are Afraid to Tell Clients the Truth
By Jeremy Baka
PRovoke Media - October 7, 2026
Launching Sacred Cows, a periodic contributed column taking on industry conventions, Jeremy Baka argues that agencies' fixation on keeping clients happy can come at the expense of honest counsel.
What Gen Z wants from their internal comms
By Sean Devlin
Ragan Communications - October 7, 2026
Gen Z is changing how internal communicators write for their audiences. Sarah Vasquez, head of executive communications at Mozilla, told Ragan that communicators need to understand both the change in audience and the impacts of AI.
Leadership visibility: what employees really mean when they say leaders aren't visible enough
By Jenni Field
Influence (UK) - October 2, 2026
Employees who say their leaders aren't visible enough may not be asking to see more of them, but for better communication, greater trust and more authentic leadership.
Your Buyer Is Already Researching You: The Communications Side Of Acquisition Readiness
By Valerie Chan, Founder and Principal of Plat4orm
Forbes - October 8, 2026
Most CEOs preparing a company for acquisition know what they need to get the deal they want: clean financials, defensible forecasts, strong margins, customer retention, contracts, intellectual property and a capable management team. But there is another dimension of acquisition readiness companies often address too late: What does the market already believe about your company?
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All reports made with the help of Report Mule.