Last newsletter of the year—can you believe it? Welcome back to Comms Rundown, MA Family’s newsletter on PR and communications.

Sorry for ghosting you in November; it’s been a rush. This one's a two-for-one, covering both November and December.

Let's dive right into the roundup, make it quick, and get ready for the Christmas parties!

Blitz 🎯

1. X, formerly known as Twitter, plans to create a new wire service called XWire, according to Bloomberg. The product would rival existing services for press releases, like Cision’s PR Newswire.

2. Former Kotaku reporters started Aftermath, an independent, worker-owned website about video games and internet culture.

3. Insider changed its name back to Business Insider to mark a new beginning for this company.

4. Bullish, which is run by former NYSE President Tom Farley, bought 100% of CoinDesk from crypto-focused investor DCG.

5. After a career of covering video games for MTV News, Kotaku, and Axios, Stephen Totilo launched Game File, a reader-supported site and newsletter for his reporting about video games

6. CoinDesk has shut down its video unit, CoinDesk TV.

7. One Page Crypto, a new compact crypto news aggregator, was launched.

OpenAI Case 🆕

In late November, OpenAI fired and swiftly rehired CEO Sam Altman, sparking a lot of discussion within the industry. While things have calmed down, this incident is a great case that proves the importance of building an expert brand image and highlights the importance of communication and PR.

Anastasia Loureiro, the CEO of MA Family, has shared her perspectives and takeaways from this case:

People are afraid of AGI but what they should be really afraid of is other people. The story is as old as an ancient Greek tragedy. If you recall most of the plots, all tragedies happen because of emotions - fear, anger, greed, etc. Those things are driving the worst world’s decisions.

AGI would logically run a couple of probability scenarios and analyze the potential outcomes. It would knew that an old PR trick of public companies to share bad news on Friday night before Thanksgiving would work for a medium-sized company, not OpenAI and Sam with a huge Twitter following and the support of millions. As The New York Times reported last night Humans (board of members) were scared of the possible future with the aggressive innovation Sam implemented. As using FEAr to push the decision.

Dear founders, invest in your public presence. As we all work in companies where you have multiple investors, sometimes without a majority of your ownership, you need to have a strong affiliation with your company along the way publicly. Publicity and community support make you immune to most of the shady behind-the-scenes scenarios. I had cases in my practice when boards of directors tried to both fired CEO/founder and get read of any association with him/her, take over the shares but because of the strong publicity it didn’t work. If you have a strong personal brand, if you have a supportive community, your side of the story will always be valid.

Who's where? 👀

1. Anne Sraders joined Sifted — she’ll dive into the biggest tech and startup stories in Europe and bring the latest in the daily newsletter.

2. Madeline Renbarger started covering much more news around early-stage AI startups and VCs for Business Insider — drop her a tip!

3. Elliot Gulliver-Needham leaves Investment Week to become an investment reporter at City AM.

4. Alice Ross will take up a new role at the Financial Times in January as acting International Economy news editor.

5. VICE announced Michael Lang as the new interim executive chairman.

6. Helen Nianias joined BBC News as a senior journalist, where she will be curating, editing, and writing newsletters.

Heads-up 🔜

We’ve compiled a list of major crypto, security, and tech events for the upcoming 2024 year — check it out!

Mood of the month 🧐

Workbook 📝

Gabe Rivera, founder of the indispensable news aggregator Techmeme, joins the Talk Show with John Gruber to talk about the state of news and social media — the episode worth listening to!

Tips and insights📚

Thank you for joining us for the seventh edition of our newsletter on communication and PR!

If you don't feel like this is something relevant for you, you can always unsubscribe below — otherwise, see you in 2024 🙌

Aleksandra from MA Family