Trash, Rats, and Garbage Juice: A Case Study in PR

This week, in episode 119, Liz Picarazzi tells Jay Goltz and Sarah Segal about her first brush with bad publicity. Liz’s debacle started with a negative post that appeared in a prominent local blog. It was about a Times Square pilot program for which her business, Citibin, is supplying trash bins. The problem? The bins were not being maintained properly, and there were photos to prove it. At the time we recorded this conversation, Liz was bracing for additional stories in both the New York Post and The New York Times. Both of those stories have since been published—we’ll talk about them in a coming episode—and you can find links to all of the coverage in the show notes. For Liz, perhaps the biggest challenge was defending her company without trashing her client.

Show Notes:

Here’s the Streetsblog post: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2022/07/20/gross-clean-curbs-bins-show-growing-pains-in-times-square/

Here’s the New York Post story: https://nypost.com/2022/07/30/nyc-citibins-leaking-garbage-left-open-in-times-square/

And here’s The New York Times story: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/06/nyregion/new-york-city-garbage-containers.html