PR Daily: This is why journalists may never quote you

Public relations pros dread the reaction from a client if the client is left out of an important story.

Especially if you’re a subject-matter expert or spokesperson, you may have had many interviews but never been mentioned by name in an article. Or your contribution rated just a few words.

We hear this often. After the interview, the interviewee feels that he or she spoke with the reporter for a long time, exhaustively covered the topic, and gave the journalist more than anyone could ever want to know about the subject.

Then the story appears. Competitors and other experts get quoted extensively, the information you gave to the reporter appears in the story but no attribution at all. The PR pro and client are angry, disappointed or embarrassed. Read More:http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/21961.aspx

AdvisorHub: Melissa Daly discusses public comments on competitors and previous employers.

Talk about hanging a competitor out to dry.  In a statement released to the press on Monday, Raymond James permitted the head of a three-person team it just hired in Burlington, Vermont, to say the brokers couldn’t work in their clients’ best interests at Merrill Lynch, the firm where each had worked for more than 20 years. Read More:  http://advisorhub.com/raymond-james-slings-mud-big-firm-rivals/

PR Daily: Melissa Daly offers advice on preventing a self-inflicted PR crisis.

 New Balance tried to be amusing with its play on words and failed to consider how their word choices would be interpreted by a broader audience. Whether you are publicly weighing in on a sensitive political issue, or sending an internal communication to employees, it's important to take a step back and consider what may be heard in a way that you did not intend. To avoid this, step away from your working group to get honest feedback. Read More: http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/21816.aspx

How a PR person started her own agency that works with biz journalists

Melissa Daly is the founding partner of MFD Communications in New York.

In the summer of 2011, she started her strategic communications business and has worked to build a niche offering, bringing value to her clients. Prior to starting MFD, she worked in communications at Goldman Sachs and Brunswick Group.

She spoke with Talking Biz News about the challenges of starting her own agency in the competitive world of financial services. What follows is an edited transcript.  Read more: http://www.talkingbiznews.com/2/how-a-pr-person-started-her-own-agency-that-works-with-biz-journalists/

Entrepreneur Interview: Melissa F Daly

What does your company do?

MFD Communications is a strategic communications consulting firm. We specialize in developing, refining, and delivering content through media, client presentations and materials. As we work with our clients to refine messaging and content, we can create and implement a media strategy to better position the firm and its executives with target audiences. Simultaneously, we will assess and improve materials and presentations so that they accurately reflect what needs to be communicated. We also provide media training and presentation coaching sessions that will enable you to deliver your key messages with confidence and clarity. We focus our attention on capturing what needs to be communicated and then help refine those messages so that the content is easier to understand, quotable and ultimately has an immediate impact and makes a lasting impression.Read more: http://businessinfoguide.com/entrepreneur-interview-melissa-f-daly-mfd-communications/#sthash.rWtaTpfm.dpuf

Praise for Dimon’s Mea Culpa Strategy

NEW YORK, May, 18 2012 (Bloomberg) -- One veteran Wall Street message maker has something for Jamie Dimon may be short on these days: a compliment. Melissa Daly, who worked at Goldman Sachs and merger specialist Brunswick Group and now runs the eponymous MFD Communications, says she’s a fan of the under-siege bank chief’s strategy of mea culpa on overdrive.

“The easiest thing to do right now would be to hunker down, keep journalists at arm’s length and decline to comment,” Daly wrote on her blog today in a regular commentary called, naturally, “The Daly Dose.” “It’s commendable that the executives at JPM appear to want to set the record straight, admit to faults, show their pain and demonstrate that they are not infallible.”

Pressed for more, Daly offered that a key point in fighting off the Dimonfreude engulfing Wall Street and the Beltway last week was reshooting the “Meet the Press” interview to answer questions about the $2 billion loss. “He wasn’t arrogant,” Daly said. “He was eating humble pie in front of Washington, and in the public eye.” Read More: http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2012-05-18/praise-for-dimons-mea-culpa-strategy/

Ex-Goldman PR Exec Sets Up Shop

Former VP of corporate communications for Goldman Sachs has set up media and presentation training firm MFD Communications in New York.

Read More: http://www.odwyerpr.com/blog/index.php?/archives/3321-Ex-Goldman-PR-Exec-Sets-Up-Shop.html

Ex-Goldman Sachs VP launches MFD Communications

NEW YORK: Melissa Daly, former VP of corporate communications at Goldman Sachs, has launched MFD Communications, a media and presentation training and consulting firm.
MFD will offer training sessions on how the print and broadcast press works, as well as how to manage relationships with journalists. The firm will also provide counsel on presentation and on-camera skills.

Besides working at Goldman Sachs for three years, Daly was a director at Brunswick, where she managed communications for hedge funds, private equity, insurance, and traditional asset management firms in the US. She has also worked in various communications and media relations roles at Fred Alger Management, The Hartford and Lipper.

Read More: http://www.prweekus.com/ex-goldman-sachs-vp-launches-mfd-communications/article/213051/

Goldman Veteran Daly Launches Media Training Firm

NEW YORK—Financial public relations veteran Melissa Daly has left her position as vice president of corporate communications at Goldman Sachs to launch MFD Communications, a media and presentation training and consulting firm.

MFD will specialize in developing, refining, and delivering key messages through media, client presentations and materials. According to Daly, the firm specializes in “capturing what needs to be communicated” and on refining that message “so it is easier to understand, quotable and ultimately more impactful.”

Read full article: http://www.holmesreport.com/news-info/10980/Goldman-Veteran-Daly-Launches-Media-Training-Firm.aspx