This week I had the privilege of attending an all-employee meeting for one of my clients. It was the first such meeting in quite some time; increasing business demands had pushed these gatherings into the shadows.

From what I could see, their return was quite welcome. Between lunch, conversation, a business update and several fun activities, employees left the meeting feeling informed and appreciated. Most important, they seemed reconnected.

Although I wasn’t tasked with taking photos, I snapped a few dozen anyway. When I reviewed them later, I realized that most of them were group shots. At first I chastised myself for not getting more individual views. Only later did I realize that a different thought process had been at work.

We all know the old saying, “You can’t see the forest for the trees.” It refers to becoming so wrapped up in the details—the “trees”—that you miss the collective value. The details are essential, of course, but they also serve an even more critical purpose.

That’s what I found my camera capturing that day. It was fun to see the smiles and animated discussions of the individual employees, yet my camera was drawn to the energy and enthusiasm of the whole. It preserved the beauty of the forest even as it preserved the unique identity of the trees.

Communicating across an organization must encompass both views—the needs and skills of the individual, and the value of the collective staff. Both must be heard, both affirmed. When leadership settles for the occasional email or newsletter as the whole of communication, rather than open and sincere dialogue, the trees begin to wither and the forest fades.

At the employee meeting, I found great joy in seeing the forest.

Organizational strength comes from a united, respected, mission-focused staff. Leaders who fail to consider the forest and the trees risk losing much.

Every morning when I wake up, I try to wake with a Smile on my face, Enthusiasm in my voice, Joy in my heart and Faith in my soul.
-- Dick Beardsley, 1982 Boston Marathon “Duel in the Sun” competitor

Tomorrow morning I will rise at my usual, bleary-eyed hour. I’ll sip my morning coffee, check my email, study my Bible, then lace up my shoes for a run. At the moment, I’m skeptical that smiles or enthusiasm will show up. I hope a semblance of joy and a deep-seated faith will somehow carry me.

As the whole world knows by now, two bombs exploded today within yards of the finish line of the Boston Marathon. As of this writing, three people are dead and scores are injured, some critically. Newscasts are looping video continually, repeating that ugly moment when the first bomb detonated, sparking screams from some and snuffing them in others.

I’ve competed in two marathons in my 34-year running career, never managing to qualify for Boston. But I did attend that storied event once. It was in 1982, the most historic (until today) Boston Marathon ever. That year, world record holder Alberto Salazar—whom I’d interviewed just a few months earlier in one of my first assignments as a journalist—and fellow American runner Dick Beardsley battled across the 26-plus-mile course in unseasonable heat to finish within two seconds of each other.

I still have photos from that trip, and the memories are razor-sharp: steeping myself in the simmering eagerness at the starting line in Hopkinton, scaling a stately evergreen for a bird’s-eye view of the start (which earned me a blurry appearance in The Runner magazine), a desperate car drive to Newton to catch runners at the 10-mile mark, then a second ticket-tempting ride into Boston in time for the breathless finish.

What I remember most about the ’82 Boston was the pure bliss that permeated the event, flowing in and through every runner and every spectator. We were sharing something magical, something joyous. Maybe, just maybe, the tiniest glimpse of Heaven, or a world where politics, ideologies and selfish gain are surrendered for something greater.

After my accident in 2004, I gave up ever qualifying to run Boston. But I’ve never abandoned reconnecting with that feeling each April as I consumed marathon coverage.

So in the midst of my grief for the victims and families who suffered so much today, I grieve, albeit selfishly, for the loss of the innocence I embraced every year at this time.

And yet I will rise and run tomorrow. I will think upon the words of Dick Beardsley—a man who has faced incredible trials of his own, and yet manages to find the smile, the enthusiasm, the joy and the faith.

Perhaps the secret is not to await their appearance. The secret is to seek them out and embrace them, regardless of the ugliness, the inhuman acts of heartless monsters.

That may be what’s needed to summon the healing we all need in the wake of this horror.

I’ve seen this word once too often, and it’s time my colleagues in the public relations field stop using it. The word is newsjacking.

Coined by marketing and PR strategist David Meerman Scott, newsjacking is the practice of inserting one’s brand, ideas or perspective into breaking news. At its simplest, it’s about making emerging news relevant to a reporter by providing a local angle or a unique element that involves your client’s product or business.

As a philosophy, much of it makes sense. The ever-urgent, hypercompetitive world of journalism demands exclusive angles and content that’s relevant and meaningful to the audience. Outlets that aren’t relevant will not survive. If there is an opportunity for a PR professional to make that connection, then everyone benefits—the reporter, the consumer and the client.

But as a term, newsjacking is the worst choice imaginable.

Let’s start with connotation. The word is ugly and dark, reeking of wrongdoing or, at the very least, moral grayness. Rather than helping the media generate coverage that’s relevant to their audience, newsjacking sounds as if it wants to co-opt the news by nefarious means.

And, sadly, there is a touch of darkness when it is unethically or incompetently applied. As Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast last October, the online dating site HowAboutWe posted “18 of Our Favorite Hurricane Sandy Dating Ideas.” Incredibly, a web designer’s blog called this insensitive post “a light-hearted piece that also represents the identity of its target audience.”

I’m sure the 285 people who were killed by the storm would beg to differ. If they could.

Putting aside the misuse (or just plain stupid use) of the tactic, the word itself is one that the serious PR professional should rebuff. Our industry struggles with reputational issues; does it make sense to embrace a term that sounds “trendy” yet hints at ethical ambiguity?

Many of my colleagues in PR opt for newsjacking’s synonym, real-time media relations. True, it’s not as macho, but I’ll argue it’s more accurate—assuming the practice is about relevancy, not co-option.

So, with all due respect to Mr. Scott, an accomplished author and consultant, I hereby banish newsjacking to the same abyss to which I sent spin years ago. Words having meaning, and these do a disservice to our craft.

Although I haven’t been an active journalist for many years, I still get a thrill whenever I visit a newsroom. The venue isn’t quite as frenetic as it once was, given the silent electronic wizardry at a reporter’s fingertips these days—does anyone remember the choirs of clacking IBM Selectrics, telephones that actually rang and noisy teletypes spewing rivers of paper? I thought not.

For a newspaper reporter, there’s something almost religious about the atmosphere of the newsroom, a worship center for the faithful of the Fourth Estate. And if the newsroom is a sanctuary, the building in which it resides is its cathedral—old, stalwart, constructed in a manner suggesting strength, permanence, resilience.

Or rather, that’s how it was in the olden days. Not so much now.

An article in the April 1 edition of The New Republic discusses yet another victim of the upheaval in print journalism: the demise of the newspaper building. Once representing the power and influence of a free press, these facilities—some dating back over a century—are now considered too big, too outmoded and too much of a barrier between journalists and the communities they cover.

“It is impossible to imagine anyone being drawn to a downtown newspaper building today to receive the words of reporters on a still-warm paper product,” writes Inga Saffron, an architectural critic. “[A]s news has ceased to be a physical commodity, so too has the big-city newspaper building lost its meaning.”

I’ve seen this happen in my hometown. Last year, the Kalamazoo Gazette moved its news center to a remodeled retail space downtown, a block away from its mammoth home of 87 years. From a practical point of view, the move made sense; the Gazette simply didn’t need all that space anymore. The newspaper had cut its staff and embraced a digital-first approach. (It still provides a daily print product generated at an out-of-town facility.)

And yet … it saddens me when I pass by that empty old building. There is so much history there, so many tales still seeping from its darkened corners. Sure, a developer has plans for the facility—thankfully, no wrecking ball—but it won’t be the same.

And that, says Saffron, is the point.

“The traditional newspaper building, with its hierarchies and tribal rituals, is a thing of the past, left over from the days when news traveled in one direction—handed down from the great newsrooms to the working masses. Nowadays news is dispersed from multiple directions and from multiple content producers, some professional, some not,” Saffron writes.

I’ve been to the new Gazette, and I admit I’m impressed by what I see. It’s an open office layout surrounded by windows that offer a view of (and by) the downtown populace. There is no sense of being removed from the heartbeat of the city. Conference rooms host everything from impromptu editorial boards to community groups to live online chats. Reporters move in and out, laptops in satchels, filing stories there or on location.

It’s new and familiar all at the same time—the old energy of community journalism expressed in a different way.

Journalism remains a field in turmoil, so time will tell if this energy has the staying power of yesteryear. But I’m hopeful even as I am nostalgic.