Tom Gable, APR and PRSA Fellow, is founder and CEO of Gable PR.

Over the years, Tom has represented a range of clients from startups to Fortune 100 companies, often in complex strategic programs with multiple goals and in new and emerging industries. His Guru Program® is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a unique approach to building image and reputation for leaders and experts in almost any field of endeavor.

Prior to starting his first firm, The Gable Group, in 1976, he was business editor of the San Diego Tribune and a correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and other business, travel and regional magazines. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting and holds many awards for public relations, including four Silver Anvils from PRSA. Tom speaks regularly at national conferences and contributes to business and marketing media on trends in public relations, reputation management, jargon-free PR and crisis communications.  He is now working on the fifth edition of his book on agency management, The PR Client Service Manual, which is sold through PRSA.

Tom established a high standard for accuracy in PR from his first day in the agency business. He interviewed writers and editors from around the country to learn their likes and dislikes about the PR profession. He found an aversion to jargon, hype and unsubstantiated claims. Some companies put out one or more news releases a week and most sounded alike. Releases issued over PR Newswire and Business Wire touted one new “solution” every eight minutes on average with half of all companies claiming to be “leaders” of something. One WSJ editor told Tom that if certain words could be measured like radiation, contamination sirens would be going off in newsrooms all over the country. Others said the daily deluge was so bad they created “bozo and jargon filters” to automatically delete messages that contained certain words or were from companies and agencies known for their hype.

To generate awareness of the problem, Tom created a Web site called www.jargonfreeweb.com. The goal: position PR at the highest level and encourage agencies and in-house staff to stop using hype, spin and jargon. The site featured the “Jargonator,” where visitors could paste in copy, hit “Submit” and a clever algorithm would measure the jargon content, issuing a rating from “Newsworthy” to “Birdcage Lining Fodder” based on a Jargon Trash List compiled from Tom’s media research. The Jargonator received coverage in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and many trade publications. Agencies began having their writers (and clients!) run draft releases through the Jargonator. The site was discontinued when the Internet boom faded. Tom kept writing and speaking about jargon-free, fact-based PR. With the surge in social media and a proliferation of blogs and Web sites, he felt the time was right to be pro-active again in promoting professional PR and launched the Authentic PR blog to shine additional light on the best examples of high-quality, fact-filled public relations and hold up a few from the bottom of the barrel for readers to enjoy and comment on. Contact Tom at tom@gablepr.com or for more background, check www.gablepr.com