There is a crisis in PR and it is internal. According to the CIPR, over one in five surveyed in its State of the Profession report are diagnosed with mental health conditions and the nature of PR is largely to blame. In response, the CIPR with mental health charity Mind, has published a skills guide and webinar called Understanding Mental Health and Wellbeing for workplaces.

There are two key concepts in managing corporate content: corporate comms professionals need to know what their communication pillars are and empower their stakeholders to tell personal stories. Communicate magazine and the brand newsroom builders at Speak Media recently hosted a breakfast roundtable of communications leaders from 10 of the biggest corporations in the UK to discuss best practice and the challenges in managing corporate content.

A drp white paper on the practice of communications has been debated in parliament by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) chaired by MP James Heappey. The report, ‘Perception vs. Reality,’ describes the dissonance between what’s stated and what’s practiced in corporate communications.

The Home Office has launched a campaign to raise awareness of hate crimes. Unfortunately according to law enforcement officials, hate crimes cannot be realistically enforced because of massive ongoing cuts to police departments, nationwide.

Creative Equals, an organisation promoting diversity in creative industries, is setting an overdue industry example by launching a pathway for women returning to the workforce. The ‘Returners’ programme is aimed at women rejoining mid-senior copywriting, IX/UX, art direction, production, strategy, data analysis, design and concept creation roles.

The Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) with Ginger Research has launched its 2018 Digital PR and Communications Report and its results don’t leave room for comfort. Digital is still dominated by Facebook and Twitter but the key takeaway from the report is that in-house and agency belts have tightened. Austerity continues in digital PR and comms budgets and, for the second consecutive year, digital is perceived to have a decreased ROI for brands, requiring those in digital to provide more for less.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has released a year-long study of how society views businesses in the UK, and its results require action. The public are only 56% confident in businesses – a 9% drop since October 2017. Public faith in businesses has dropped in 10 of 12 sectors and large corporate scandals are affecting businesses across the board. To alleviate this tension, the CBI study suggests that businesses talk about what matters to society, not about business.

As part of a campaign to mark the centenary of the first women’s right to vote, Transport for London and the City of London have £500k in advertising space up for grabs in their #BehindEveryGreatCity campaign to “challenge gender stereotypes, increase diversity and create more positive and inclusive [advertising] campaigns.” The initiative follows others where mayor Sadiq Khan has sought to bring Londoners together, including his post-Brexit endorsement of the ‘We Stand Together’ campaign to fight racial abuse and his London is Open campaign to market the city as a steadfast financial and cultural capital.

In light of Serena Williams’ experiences at the US and French Opens, sport has become the latest industry to garner wide discussion on gender inequalities, making this the perfect time for the Women’s Sport Trust to launch its Official Supporters’ Club with its ‘First XV’. The First XV will be made up of businesses committed to making women’s sport more “visible, viable and unstoppable.”.