Consumer Reports looks to restore tarnished image

Hamilton Nolan of PR Week writes that Consumer Reports is working to rebuild its image as a leading consumer magazine after being tarnished by a story earlier this year where the research proved faulty.

Nolan wrote, “Fundamentally, CR believes that its operations are impressive enough, and its aims pure enough, that a determined focus on simply getting the word out will be enough to keep the magazine as a firmly respected institution. And it seems to work.

“The communications team must react to stories of the day to place expert commentary, proactively push out the magazine’s all-exclusive content, and accommodate frequent prop-driven media requests that could require anything from a group of new cars attractively positioned in Times Square to a cart filled with boxes of cereal and an accompanying expert to rate them for the hungry public.

“Lauren Hackett, the communications manager who oversees the Web site, among other things, calls the nonprofit magazine ‘a publicist’s dream job,’ but admits that it sometimes requires her to be a jack-of-all-trades.

“‘It’s sort of a broad range of categories,’ she says. ‘It’s not like we only do cars, or we only do electronics. So we’re dealing with a wide range of topics and, also, from the media, a wide range of interest levels.'”

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