As previously discussed here, I've been quite skeptical about whether MSNBC's Dan Abrams had a viable business plan when he created his Abrams Research, a new PR shop that claims to use working journalists as corporate communications consultants.
Dan is speaking this morning at the Bulldog Reporter Media Relations Summit, so I've got some fresh insights into his "secret sauce."
First off, his team: while Abrams says he has a database of 2,500 journalists willing to work on one of his projects, Abrams says that he has only used a tiny fraction of those, and they were people he and his colleague, Rachel Sklar, have recruited.
And they're not full-time working journalists, naturally -- they are freelancers and others on the margins and gray areas between PR and media. This is actually not terribly new -- I've known people who straddle the line for years.
My other question was clients -- who has actually stepped up to take his counsel? Abrams admits that so far, he has gotten litigation crisis work, which makes sense, since he is a trained lawyer. Abrams joked that as a lawyer, journalist and PR person, he may be a "walking, breathing axis of evil."
Aside from these nuggets, I would say that Abrams came across as a newbie communications professional who has some basic insights into business communications (e.g., "you've got to a build a tunnel of trust before the water can flow through it."). Clearly, with his name recognition, he is getting and is going to get clients, but time will tell if he's really got anything novel to offer.
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