Jan. 12 (UPI) — The Miami Heat suspended center Dewayne Dedmon for one game after he swatted a massage gun onto the court at FTX Arena, the team announced.
The Heat announced the suspension, which is without pay, late Wednesday. Dedmon was involved in the incident in the second quarter of the Heat’s 112-111 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday in Miami.
“The Miami Heat have, in consultation with the NBA, suspended Dewayne Dedmon for one game without pay for conduct detrimental to the team for actions that took place in the bench area of [Tuesday’s] game vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder,” the Heat said.
Dedmon played for 4:47 on Tuesday before he was taken out in the second quarter. He then exchanged words with coaches as part of an outburst. Dedmon went on to swat his arm and hit a massage gun, launching it onto the court and nearly hitting teammate Max Strus.
Dedmon was then ejected from the game. The Heat went on to the narrow victory, fueled by a record 40 of 40 night from the free throw line. Heat forward Jimmy Butler scored a game-high 35 points.
Dedmon logged two points and three rebounds in his limited action. The 10-year veteran is averaging 2.0 points and 3.7 rebounds per game over 29 appearances this season. Dedmon joined the Heat in the 2020-21 season and is signed through 2024-25.
“It’s the Miami Heat,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra told reporters, when asked about Dedmon. “We are all a bunch of gnarly personalities. That part was unfortunate. Everything before that was the Miami Heat, but that part was unacceptable.”
The Heat (22-20) will host the Milwaukee Bucks (27-14) at 7:30 p.m. EST Thursday in Miami.
Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.). Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) on Wednesday called for fellow Long Island Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) to resign over revelations he fabricated major portions of his resume and background while on the campaign trail.
Why it matters: LaLota adds to a growing chorus of New York Republicans demanding Santos resign amid an array of probes into his financial disclosures, campaign finances and outstanding legal issues.
What they’re saying: “I definitely share their sentiments,” LaLota told Axios of the Nassau County Republican Committee officials’ and New York State Republicans’ calls for Santos’ resignation.
“What he’s done is disgraceful, dishonorable and unworthy of the office. I think he should resign,” LaLota said during a brief interview at the Capitol.
LaLota said Santos’ actions since arriving in D.C. have only reinforced his view: “He hasn’t shown any remorse, he hasn’t corrected any of the behavior. He still has antics like showing a white power sign on the House floor. It’s not appropriate for our conference, for our country.”
He joins Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.), who is also from Long Island, and Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.), the state GOP chair. Another, Rep. Brandon Williams (R-N.Y.), said in a statement later on Wednesday: “He must resign.”
What caught our eye: Thefourth member of the Long Island delegation, Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), told Axios, “I can’t comment on [Santos] because I’m on the Ethics investigation subcommittee.”
Two House Democrats filed a complaint against Santos to the Ethics Committee on Tuesday.
The backdrop: Last month, LaLota became the first House Republican to say Santos should be probed, calling for a “full investigation by the House Ethics Committee and, if necessary, law enforcement.”
“I hear a lot of feedback from my fellow Long Islanders about us wanting to raise the standard or at least keep some standard among elected officials,” LaLota told Axios on Wednesday.
“Santos has fallen far below that standard, and that’s why I was the first to call for his investigation … and now I’m one of the few to call for his resignation.”
The other side: Santos has been defiant in the face of intensifying calls for his resignation, tweeting Wednesday: “I will NOT resign!”
Two New York City hospitals have reached a tentative contract agreement with thousands of striking nurses that ends this week’s walkout that disrupted patient care, officials announced Thursday.
The nurses, represented by the New York State Nurses Association, walked out early Monday after negotiations with management ran aground at Mount Sinai Hospital, in Manhattan, and Montefiore Medical Center, in the Bronx. Each has over 1,000 beds and 3,500 or more union nurses.
Nurses for both hospitals were to return to work Thursday morning, the union said.
The union has stressed staffing levels as a key concern, saying that nurses who labored through the grueling peak of the coronavirus pandemic are stretched far too thin because too many jobs are open. Nurses say they have had to work overtime, handle twice as many patients as they should, and skip meals and even bathroom breaks.
The agreements with both hospitals include concrete, enforceable staffing ratios, the union said. The agreement with Montefiore also included what the union described as community health improvements and nurse-student partnerships to recruit local nurses from the Bronx.
Protestors march on the streets around Montefiore Medical Center during a nursing strike in Bronx, N.Y., on Wednesday. John Minchillo / AP
“Through our unity and by putting it all on the line, we won enforceable safe staffing ratios at both Montefiore and Mount Sinai where nurses went on strike for patient care,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said in a statement. “Today, we can return to work with our heads held high, knowing that our victory means safer care for our patients and more sustainable jobs for our profession.”
The privately owned, nonprofit hospitals say they have been grappling with a widespread nursing shortage that was exacerbated by the pandemic.
“Our bargaining team has been working around the clock with NYSNA’s leadership to come to an agreement,” Montefiore said in a statement. “From the outset, we came to the table committed to bargaining in good faith and addressing the issues that were priorities for our nursing staff.”
The hospital said it focused on ensuring the nurses had “the best possible working environment, with significant wage and benefit enhancements” through the deal with the union.
“We know this strike impacted everyone — not just our nurses — and we were committed to coming to a resolution as soon as possible to minimize disruption to patient care,” the hospital said.
Mount Sinai said in a statement it was pleased to have reached a tentative agreement and that the strike was over.
“Our proposed agreement is similar to those between NYSNA and eight other New York City hospitals. It is fair and responsible, and it puts patients first,” Mount Sinai Health System said.
Several other private hospitals around the city reached deals with the union as the strike deadline loomed. The agreements included raises totaling 19% over three years.
Mount Sinai and Montefiore said before the strike that they had offered the same pay boosts.
KYIV, Ukraine — The head of a Russian mercenary group is emerging from the shadows to challenge Moscow’s rulingestablishment, using battlefield success in Ukraine to burnish his credentials as a new face of the war.
The Ukrainian government said its soldiers were still holding out under a fierce onslaught after a monthslong battle on the eastern front lines, however, while Russia’s defense ministry appeared to contradict Prigozhin — the latest hint of growing discord at the top of Moscow’s war effort.
NBC News was not able to verify any of the claims.
Capturing Soledar may not prove decisive in the course of the war, but could offer Prigozhin a launching pad for his own personal campaign that appeared increasingly at odds with the military leadership in the Kremlin.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, center, with soldiers in what they said was a salt mine in Soledar, Ukraine in this image released on Jan. 11. Concord / Telegram
The new role for Gen. Valery Gerasimov and demotion of Gen. Sergei Surovikin could reflect a desire to squash Prigozhin’s ambitions, some analysts said. Prigozhin has accused Gerasimov, Russia’s top military officer, of incompetence.
“This reasserts the MoD’s position overseeing the war,” Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a think tank, said on Twitter. “This may also partially be a response to Wagner’s increasingly influential and public role in the war,” he added.
On Wednesday, Prigozhin posted a photo of himself among soldiers at what he said was a mine in Soledar, which along with the nearby city of Bakhmut has been devastated by some of the most intense fighting since Russia’s invasion last year.
“The units of the Wagner PMCs took control of the entire territory of Soledar … I want to emphasize once again that no units participated in the assault on Soledar except the fighters of the Wagner PMCs,” said a statement attributed to Prigozhin posted on a Wagner-linked Telegram messaging channel.
NBC News has not been able to confirm where the photo was taken.
By contrast, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov neither confirmed that Soledar had fallen to Russian forces or mentioned the Wagner group’s involvement in attempts to take it.
“Let’s not rush and wait for official statements,” he said.
Russia’s defense ministry said that its “Airborne troops blockaded Soledar from the northern and southern parts of the city” but added that “assault squads are fighting in the city.”
Prigozhin’s post — and his emphasis on his own troops’ success — comes amid a flurry of online statements, photos and videos in recent weeks that analysts said constituted a brazen campaign of self promotion and open antagonism toward the military leaders behind a war that has been faltering badly since the invasion in February.
Once known as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “chef” for catering state events, Prigozhin, 61, long publicly denied leading the Wagner group, a private military company that has also operated in countries including Syria, Mali and the Central African Republic. Russia has consistently denied the involvement of the Wagner Group in its official military operations.
Now a wealthy oligarch, the close Putin ally was banned from entering the U.S. for his alleged involvement in attempts to influence the 2018 election. Misha Japaridze / AP file
But he has embraced the public eye during the conflict in Ukraine, where his fighters are leading the charge against Kyiv’s troops in the eastern Donetsk region at massive human cost.
Private military companies are technically illegal in Russia, but in November Wagner opened offices in St Petersburg emblazoned with the group’s logo.
Prigozhin has donned military fatigues and appeared in videos apparently showing him recruiting prisoners or in the thick of the action at the front line, in contrast to the city-dwelling elites he derides in some of his posts.
He has openly criticized Russian military top brass, and a Wagner-linked social media channel shared a rant by two men who claimed to be Russian soldiers criticizing army chiefs amid reports of low morale and organizational disarray, with Prigozhin subsequently vowing to “make them (the military) solve” the problems on the frontline in an audio post.
Such tactics are highly unusual in a top-down political system where dissenters are routinely imprisoned and even poisoned or found after mysteriously falling from hotel windows and balconies.
With the Kremlin’s military campaign in Ukraine largely stalled and Putin up for re-election in 2024, some experts say the time may be right for a power play.
Prigozhin during the funeral of Wagner group fighter near St. Petersburg, on Christmas Eve. Aleksey Smagin / Sipa via AP
Tatiana Stanovaya, Russia expert at the Washington.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank, wrote of a looming tussle between pragmatists wishing to de-escalate the conflict, and hawks who want to double down and radically restructure Russia’s political system.
“Their struggle for supremacy is set to be one of 2023’s key political fights, and one that hinges largely on events on the battlefield: the worse Russia performs militarily, the more vicious the pragmatists’ battle with the hawks,” she wrote in a research note published on Monday.
“The hawks will take the offensive, targeting the military brass and politicians,” she added.
To date, the hawks have been far louder than the pragmatists, and a chorus of hard-right bloggers have excoriated Russia’s military performance, while television pundits have called for a tougher approach.
Prigozhin has fostered a tough image online — appearing with a sledgehammer in one video and, according to Reuters, commenting in approval of another that showed an accused deserter being executed with a sledgehammer with a sledgehammer.
In a Jan. 1 video, Prigozhin is shown appearing to inspect a pile of bodies described in the clip as Wagner fighters in black bags in a makeshift morgue, saying: “Their contract is over, they can go home.”
Ukrainian officials accuse Prigozhin of using his mercenaries as cannon fodder, throwing them into the fight to wear down Kyiv’s defenses and secure a high-profile victory no matter the human cost.
After months of fighting, that strategy may have just secured its first battlefield breakthrough — and a Kremlin response.
Read More
Mo Abbas and Matt Bradley and Ostap Hunkevych
Nurses strike and hold a rally outside of Mount Sinai Hospital on Monday. The union representing the nurses said the strike ended Thursday. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
Jan. 12 (UPI) — The New York State Nurses Association announced Thursday an end to strikes two New York City hospitals after reaching tentative agreements addressing salary and staffing.
The union said nurses at the Mount Sinai and Montefiore Bronx hospitals would return to work Thursday morning after reaching deals to ensure “concrete enforceable safe staffing ratios.”
“Today, we can return to work with our heads held high, knowing that our victory means safer care for our patients and more sustainable jobs for our profession,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said.
The nurses had been on strike since Monday, charging that hospitals were putting the lives of nurses and patients at risk because of staffing shortages that left its members overworked and shifts unfilled, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hagans said that new staffing ratios for all inpatient units at Mount Sinai would take place immediately, ensuring “there will always be enough nurses at the bedside to provide safe patient care.”
At Montefiore, nurses reached a deal to provide new safe staffing ratios in the Emergency Department, staffing language and financial penalties for failing to comply with safe staffing levels in all units, community health improvements and nurse-student partnerships to recruit Bronx nurses to stay on as union nurses.
The union added that nurses at Wyckoff Hospital also reached a tentative deal Wednesday night and withdrew their 10-day strike notice.
“This is a historic victory for New York City nurses and for nurses across the country,” said Hagans. “NYSNA nurses have done the impossible, saving lives night and day, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and now we’ve again shown that nothing is impossible for nurse heroes.”
More than 7,000 nurses took to the picket line as negotiations at the hospitals. The union, which represents 42,000 registered nurses, had negotiated at least tentative agreements with many of the city’s hospitals.
The nurses union had won support from state and local public officials going into the strike, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, Attorney General Letitia Janes, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and New York City council member Gale Brewer.
Jan. 12 (UPI) — Former USC star running back Charles White, who won the Heisman Trophy in 1979, died after battling cancer, the university announced. He was 64.
“He was the toughest player I’ve ever coached,” said John Robinson, who coached White when he played for USC and the Los Angeles Rams. “He was really unusual in that regard. He was a great player and just loved playing the game.
“Those are the things I remember the most. He was a really tough guy, and he was an extremely gifted athlete. But the toughness…wow!”
White was born Jan. 22, 1958 in Los Angeles. He attended San Fernando High School in San Fernando, Calif. He then went on to star for the Trojans from 1976 through 1979. White logged 923 yards from scrimmage and 11 touchdowns as a freshman. He totaled 1,616 yards and nine scores as a sophomore. White logged 2,052 and 2,195 yards over his final two respective seasons. He also scored 33 touchdowns over that span en route to All-American honors.
In 1979, White earned the Maxwell Award, Walter Camp Player of the Year Award, Pac-10 Player of the Year and UPI Player of the Year honors, in addition to the Heisman Trophy. He remains the Pac-12’s all-time leader with 1,147 rush attempts, 6,245 rushing yards and 6,786 yards from scrimmage. He also ranks No. 7 in conference history with 53 touchdowns.
He also was a two-time MVP of the Rose Bowl and set nearly two dozen NCAA, Pac-12 and bowl records.
“Charles White was one of the all-time great Trojans,” USC athletic director Mike Bohn said. “A Rose Bowl legend, a two-time unanimous All-American and a NCAA record setter, he made USC proud donning the Cardinal and Gold.
“He will always be remembered by the Trojan family for the history he made on the football field and the legacy he left at Troy. Fight On Forever!”
White was the No. 27 overall pick in the 1980 NFL Draft. He spent his first five seasons with the Cleveland Browns. White spent his final four seasons with the Los Angeles Rams. He led the NFL with 1.374 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns in 1987 en route to an All-Pro and Pro Bowl selection. White also earned Comeback Player of the Year honors for that campaign.
After his playing career, White served as USC running backs coach from 1993 through 1997 and also appeared on the show American Gladiators.
White, who spent the last years of his life in an assisted living facility, is survived by five children.
Jeff Beck
Rock legend Jeff Beck performs in 2011. Beck, a rock and metal pioneer who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist and as a member of The Yardbirds, died at age 78 following a short bout with bacterial meningitis on January 11. Photo by A.J. Sisco/UPI | License Photo
U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Suzanne Clark, in an annual “State of American Business” address, on Thursday will say business “demands better from our government.”
Driving the news: “Because when it comes to Washington, the state of American business is fed up,” Clark will say.
The polarization, the gridlock, the regulatory overreach, and the inability to act smartly and strategically for our future is making it harder for all of us to do our jobs, fulfill our roles, and move this country forward.
Clark will unveil an “Agenda for American Strength” that includes “bolstering strength” through building, people, energy, global leadership and rule of law.
Go deeper: U.S. Chamber’s “State of American Business Data Center” … Register here for today’s 11 a.m. ET event.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, is set to visit Poland and Germany later this month to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day and to hold meetings aimed at combating rising antisemitism in the U.S. and around the world.
Emhoff, the first Jewish person to be married to one of the top two nationally elected U.S. officials, will visit Krakow, Poland, including a stop at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. He will then travel to Berlin join a meeting of European special envoys and coordinators working to fight antisemitism.
The Jan. 26-31 trip comes as Emhoff takes on an increasingly vocal role in working to address anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence globally. It will serve as one of his most high-profile solo engagements since Harris and President Joe Biden were elected.
At Auschwitz-Birkenau, Emhoff will participate in a wreath-laying ceremony during the International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration. He will be joined on parts of the trip by Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism. He is also expected to meet with local Jewish communities and civil society leaders and tour local historic and cultural sites.
Ahead of the trip, Emhoff on Thursday will meet with the Democratic and Republican co-chairs of the House bipartisan task force for combating antisemitism.
Emhoff’s focus on global antisemitism comes a month after he addressed rising domestic extremism during a roundtable with Jewish leaders at the White House.
“I understand the weight of this responsibility — I do,” he said. “And as second gentleman, let me reiterate, I will not remain silent. I’m proud to be Jewish, and I’m proud to live openly as a Jew. I am not afraid. We cannot live in fear. We refuse to be afraid.”
In recent months, former President Donald Trump hosted Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust-denying white supremacist, at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida. The rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, expressed love for Adolf Hitler in an interview. Basketball star Kyrie Irving appeared to promote an antisemitic film on social media. Neo-Nazi trolls are clamoring to return to Twitter as new CEO Elon Musk grants “amnesty” to suspended accounts.
Emhoff, a successful entertainment lawyer in California when his wife was elected vice president, has also spoken publicly about his great-grandparents fleeing persecution in what is now Poland for the U.S.
“As long as I have this microphone, I am going to speak out against hate, bigotry and lies,” he said. “I am going to speak out against those who praise fascist murderers and idealize extremists. I am going to speak out against Holocaust deniers. I’m going to call those out who won’t do it.”
___
Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
A Virginia bill would deem a pregnant person’s fetus a passenger in a car, thereby allowing the vehicle to use the car pool lane on highways.
Reproductive rights activists say the legislation amounts to a thinly veiled attempt by anti-abortion Republican lawmakers to further curtail abortion rights by advancing so-called personhood laws that seek to protect the rights of the unborn through unconventional avenues.
HB 1894, which a Republican legislator pre-filed in the General Assembly on Tuesday, “provides that a pregnant woman shall be considered two people for the purposes of determining occupancy” in high occupancy vehicle and high occupancy toll lanes on expressways in the state.
The legislation would require pregnant people to show “proof” of pregnancy, obtainable by having “certified” their pregnancies with the state Transportation Department. Under the bill, the certifications would then be “linked” to toll collection devices — typically E-Z Passes — in vehicles.
The bill is the second of its kind ever proposed; last year, Texas Republicans introduced a similar measure. Texas’ HB 521 also would have allowed a solo pregnant driver to use high occupancy lanes, proposing that the unborn child being carried amounted to a person deserving full human rights.
Legislators proposed the bill — which never advanced in the GOP-controlled Legislature — after a pregnant Dallas woman made headlines for arguing to police officers that her unborn child counted as a second person in the car when she was pulled over for illegally using the car pool lane.
High occupancy lanes require drivers to have at least one passenger in their vehicles when they use the lanes.
Like Texas’ HB 521, Virginia’s HB 1894 is unlikely to advance in the state’s politically split Legislature.
Still, reproductive rights advocates warn that the bill is the latest attempt by anti-abortion Republicans to cut away at abortion rights by pushing “personhood” laws that aim to establish measures that equate a fetus with a human life.
“Granting legal rights for fertilized eggs from the moment of conception would have sweeping and harmful consequences across the board for people,” said Tarina Keene, the executive director of REPRO Rising Virginia, a reproductive rights group. They could include “vast” impacts on stem cell research and the freedom to undergo in vitro fertilization, she added.
Such measures, other advocates cautioned, would help restrict abortion access by defining a fetus as a person.
“Anti-abortion groups have been looking for ways to change laws in ways that change the definition of a pregnant person from one person to two,” said Elizabeth Nash, an expert on state legislation at the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization that works to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights.
“By doing that, they grant personhood throughout pregnancy. And by considering a pregnant person as two people — in this case, allowing a pregnant person to use an HOV lane — you’re ultimately making it harder to uphold abortion rights, because you have essentially imbued a fetus with personhood,” Nash added.
Nicholas Freitas.Steve Helber / AP file
The Virginia bill’s sponsor, Republican Del. Nicholas Freitas, did not respond to questions about his legislation.
According to Guttmacher, which closely tracks state legislation that seeks to curtail or ban abortion rights, the Texas and Virginia bills are the only personhood bills specifically targeting car pool lanes that have been introduced in the U.S.
Last year, however, legislators across the country introduced eight bills that would have either explicitly or effectively banned abortion by establishing fetal personhood, according to Guttmacher.
One, in Arizona, was enacted: a 15-week abortion ban signed into law by then-Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, that included a provision, carried over from a 2021 law, that reproductive rights advocates say granted personhood to fetuses. A federal judge blocked the provision in July.
Despite the Virginia bill’s limited prospects to advance, reproductive rights advocates nevertheless warned that even the concept of such a personhood bill could, at some point, lead to “absurd” new regulations and law about anything that has occupancy rules.
“You’re creating this legal nightmare about the number when you’re talking about building occupancies and that sort of thing,” Keene said.
“It could have implications for how many people are in an elevator,” she added.
I’ve seen dozens of content marketing trends come and go a decade into Co-Founding Digital PR agency Fractl.
These are the ones I recommend avoiding at all costs, since they can be catastrophic for your brand affinity and Google rankings.
1. Mass emailing (spamming) high-authority publishers with poor list building
Every day, I get an email that looks like this — this person represents a Fortune 500 computer software company, seeking a link from Fractl:
There are several hundred pages on Fractl’s site, and only nine have any brief reference to a PDF, most of which are white papers with digital PR research.
We have zero interest in publishing an article on “PDF merging tools,” and we’ve never accepted a guest post.
So, what’s going on?
The targeting is completely irrelevant.
For a decade now, I’ve cautioned marketers about the “robot invasion in Digital PR”, where agencies prioritize emailing hundreds of writers in one fell swoop, instead of building a relationship with the person on the other side of the inbox.
There’s only one way for writers to receive these emails: spam.
Sure, maybe your agency charges you less for this scaled outreach strategy, but the long-term negative impact on your brand authority in the newsroom can be severely detrimental.
In my 1:1 interviews with top-tier editors and our large-scale studies with thousands of writers, the universal truth is that poor targeting is the #1 way to get blocked from a publisher’s inbox.
If you’re going to waste an editorial team’s time spamming them with irrelevant content, why should they accept emails from your domain on their server?
Is a sitewide ban a risk you’re willing to take with your brand?
Instead of advocating for mass outreach at Fractl, I’ve worked to train our Digital PR team on…
How to personalize strategies from end-to-end, through:
List building
Social media networking
Subject lines, introductions
The pitch strategy
The closing
The follow up
This personalized strategy has resulted in every single person on our team earning compliments on our pitches, from publishers most agencies never even hear back from:
How can your team develop a better personalized Digital PR strategy?
Start by avoiding mass outreach, and improving your targeting to increase conversions.
We use these questions to help our team ensure accurate targeting, the #1 concern of all high-authority publishers:
Questions to ask yourself to make sure your pitching stays relevant
Is my client’s industry or campaign relevant to the beat this writer highlights in their author page or social profiles?
Has this writer covered a story that’s relevant to my client’s industry or campaign topic in the last 3-6 months?
Does my client or campaign help the writer build on a story she’s covered in the last 1-3 months, or will they simply be regurgitating what they already said?
Has this writer ever posted anything negative about the topic or client I’m pitching?
Have I built a diverse list of publishers across the multiple verticals my client, or campaign, is relevant to? (e.g. lifestyle, parenting, and health publishers oftentimes have overlap in their coverage)
Have I confirmed the writer publishes frequently and consistently with this publication (1-3x/week), so I can ensure my client and campaign will be covered in a timely fashion?
Have I found enough local publishers and news outlets for regional syndication, if I have applicable data to share?
Starting with an effective list build is the best way to build or ruin relationships with top-tier writers, so when you establish your PR strategy on this solid foundation, you’re off to a strong start.
2. Hiring offshore link builders to purchase specific anchor text links for your domain
I thought this strategy went back into the shadows along with anyone who called themselves “blackhat SEOs” a decade ago, but even Fractl has seen a massive surge in these emails recently:
Shockingly, in Q4, two of our clients also brought up the concept of “purchasing links with a specific anchor text,” which sent my Executive team into a code red for client education.
Agencies and clients should be strongly forewarned:
In December 2020, Google launched SpamBrain, which “neutralizes the impact of unnatural links on search results” using AI to “detect sites buying links, and sites used for the purpose of passing outgoing links.”
Google has always aggressively devalued link networks, and now through the power of AI, they’ll likely provide zero (if not) negative value.
Instead, agencies need to shift their PR strategy to earning links through developing valuable, interesting, and educational content and industry research that earns links naturally when pitched to relevant high-authority news writers and niche-relevant sites and organizations.
3. Prioritizing press releases via paid syndication networks
Press releases can get expensive, totaling several hundreds of dollars for a single press release on the most reputable newswires:
If ultimately your goal is to get your message out to the most influential writers or publishers in your niche, then all it takes is a little legwork to understand which writers or publishers to pitch to ensure a broader reach.
There are numerous ways to evaluate syndication using BuzzSumo, Ahrefs, and other SEO tools.
For example, Fractl has a client in the energy industry.
Our primary KPI is to earn our clients high-authority links (and brand awareness), which we back into by creating research and content around topics consumers and publishers care about.
Let’s start with a mid-funnel content marketing example, “How seasonal weather impacts power outages and how you could be better prepared in the next winter storm.”
In one approach, I’ll look at which publishers and writers are covering “power outages” in BuzzSumo’s Content Analyzer:
Next, let’s drill into the backlinks on the top posts to develop an understanding of both the publishers and the writers who have the largest number of backlinks (natural syndication) on their stories.
If you scale this analysis across numerous keywords related to your vertical, you can quickly build a database of both writers and publishers with the largest natural link syndication networks.
This research was built upon years of manually tracking the syndication of our content marketing campaigns to increase our understanding of industry-level link networks that would help us naturally scale our results:
Pro Tip
Quick hack
Always seek to build relationships with mainstream, national news publishers who cover your industry.
Here is a sample of the top 10 syndicators from our data:
nbcnews.com
cnbc.com
dailymail.co.uk
washingtonpost.com
businessinsider.com
What do these publishers have in common?
Generally, they have built-in syndication networks through their national and regional news outlets, and they’re industry-leading publishers that the outlets and bloggers look to and source when developing their stories.
4. Sending templated emails to crème de la crème writers instead of personalization
With offshore teams inundating publishers with pitches for years, it’s more important than ever for you to build relationships to stand out in the sea of growing inbox spam.
There are dozens of ways to stand out by personalizing your digital PR pitch, but here are my most favorite ways to invest in relationship building with top-tier writers.
1. Build Twitter lists of writers who cover your industry and connect with them consistently, or at least 3-5x prior to pitching them (preferably with a response beforehand).
Share articles they write and @ their handle
Add commentary to something they wrote when sharing it on social, trying to engage them in a discussion
Add a threaded reply and ask a question about something they recently tweeted
Comment on something personal in their bio or recent tweet
2. Forgo a descriptive brand subject line (“X Brand Does Y”) and lead with something personalized to that writer’s interests.
Do they share any personal information on their bios across Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, Author profiles?
I’ve written hundreds of pitches over the years where the target complimented my outreach in their reply.
Oftentimes, my subject line and intro have nothing to do with what I’m pitching, and everything to do with the in-depth research I did to understand who that writer was and what they cared about as an individual.
