Spitfire Sparks

Convincing the NFL to revise its player personnel policy after Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice committed domestic violence. Defending Planned Parenthood and the Affordable Care Act. Achieving progress at all levels on issues, including climate change, LGBTQ rights...

Communication professionals are no strangers to the challenges that journalists are facing today, from the demands of the 24-hour news cycle to budget shortfalls and understaffed newsrooms. We respect them for their tenacity and commitment to uncovering the truth, and we value...

An interest in politics isn’t new to Paige Swanson, a Karel Fellow who is working at Spitfire this summer before returning to Yale University for her senior year. But what is new to Paige is using strategic communication to make the case for political and social change. “I’ve...

Faridat Animashaun, a junior at Howard University, drafted the following blog post during her internship with Spitfire this Spring. Seen. Heard. Prioritized. A successful communicator is all three of these things. But as a young, Black woman at the start of my career, I know this...

2002. It was a big year. George W. Bush came up with the term “Axis of Evil.” Serena Williams won her first single’s title at Wimbledon. American Idol premiered and MTV unleashed “The Osbournes” reality show. I also started my own reality series – Spitfire Strategies. It is in...

Last week, I was thrilled to hear from Caty Borum Chattoo, an award-winning communication strategist, producer, author, professor and director of the Center for Media & Social Impact. Caty stopped by Spitfire’s D.C. office to share her fascinating work to bring comedy into the...

Kamara Jones loves to tell a good story. The new Spitfire Director started reporting professionally when she was 16 years old. While attending journalism camp in high school, one of her instructors saw promise in Kamara and convinced the editor of the local newspaper to give her...

In the first installment of this two-part series, I shared some insights from my years working in TV news and media relations, focusing on the best methods to get your pitches seen by reporters. In this part, I review some strategies for increasing the odds those reporters will...

April is National Poetry Month, which means there is no better time to dust off a volume or two from your bookshelf or tune into U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith’s five-minute podcast The Slowdown (there are new episodes every weekday and it’s incredible). Through my work at...

Anyone who’s ever made a pitch to the media — in any medium — knows it’s a big, competitive world out there. Every day, reporters field hundreds of requests for their attention. Like any other human being, they only have so much capacity. Before I joined Spitfire, I spent 15...

It’s Women’s History Month, and I am excited to celebrate the women whose shoulders we stand on. But more importantly, I want to address every leader, across all genders, who is in a position to set policies, practices, and precedents. Because every day offers a chance to make...

What exactly is space? Does it constitute a physical area or is it a state of mind? How is space used, who is it used by and for what purpose? We all interpret the different shapes and meanings of shape in our own ways. That made it an apt theme for this year’s frank – which has...