NY Times Pans Syria Assad Media Campaign, and the PR Profession

Posted on June 12, 2012 by rgeller

Long time readers of Flack’s Revenge know that I am a defender of the field and a little prickly when it comes to its image and treatment.  You may remember a post I wrote a few years ago: PR 2009: The Color of the Brand. It showed the words and phrases that surround PR in news articles, via a word cloud.  Here is an excerpt from that post:

If you are involved with PR, then you must be dealing with some kind of problem, right? Or do you have a crisis? Are you caught up in a PR meltdown or an issue?  These are the modifiers often used in conjunction with the phrase “public relations.”  Much less frequently do you hear words like boon, bonanza, dividend or benefit. 

When people think of PR, they most associate negative things like spin and problems.  I understand that in many if not most cases, the words relate to the situation at hand, not the profession or practice; still, there is a certain guilt by association that negatively colors PR as a result.

I don’t think much has changed since then. By way of example, I saw an article in the NY Times yesterday: Syria’s Assads turned to the West and Glossy P.R.  The article discusses how the royal Assad family of Syria used PR to burnish its image. Here is an excerpt:

With the help of high-priced public relations advisers who had worked in the Clinton, Bush and Thatcher administrations, the president and his family have sought over the past five years to portray themselves in the Western media as accessible, progressive and even glamorous. Magazines and online outlets have published complimentary features about the family, often focusing on fashion and celebrity.

Are the Assads, who are behind murderous campaigns against their own people, entitled to PR representation?  It is an interesting question, and one I am not tackling now, although I did write about ethical dilemmas for the PR field previously.

Hwoever I do want to point out that here the reporters repeated tired cliches and stereotypes about PR, and cut some slack for a compliant media in the process

How did the article editorialize (and irritate)?  Let me count the ways:

  • The words in the title “Glossy PR” – what does this even mean?  A little too close to “slick” for my taste
  • With the help of high-priced public relations advisers – what does the cost of services have to do with the story?  The amount of $5K per month is mentioned later; most in the field would not consider this to be “high-priced”
  • This web of politics and public relations ensnared Barbara Walters recently. – “ensnared” makes her sound rather helpless, while PR is mostly to blame for her poor choices.
  • [A PR agency] did not set up interviews for Mrs. Assad directly, but advised her on how to set up a communications office in Damascus to help shape her image. A few years later, positive articles began to appear. – tthis seems like the slimmest of threads and is laughable, for anyone who knows how PR works; c’mon Times!  You are a great paper and should not be so sloppy in your reporting.
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Panic at the Opera Part 2

Posted on May 23, 2012 by rgeller

I guess I am a little out of touch with finer culture and admittedly have little experience with opera. (OK almost none, really; my girlfriend Sine took me to a production of Kafka’s The Penal Colony in Brooklyn recently, it was very nice; that is about it).

Who knew that the opera world was filled with rabid fans, scathing reviews, and hardball media relations tactics? I refer of course to the controversy over the Metropolitan Opera, and their efforts to stifle bad media and blog coverage, which I wrote about in my post yesterday.

My friend Adam shared an article in today’s NY Times that said the Met had reversed itself.  Here’s an excerpt:

The Metropolitan Opera…backed away from its decision to bar reviews of its productions in Opera News… The Met said an “outpouring of reaction” from opera fans on the Internet caused it to change course a day after the New York Times [article]

“I think I made a mistake,” said Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager. “Clearly the public would miss Opera News not being able to review the Met, and we are responding to that…”

I like to think it is pressure from blogs like Flack’s Revenge that was the final straw, although of course the NY Times takes all the credit in their article 🙂

Anyway, the Met and Mr. Gelb must be getting some very good PR counsel, to eat humble pie so quickly and get the crisis behind them. I applaud the decision, and am glad Adam alerted me to this.

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Extreme Media Relations: PR Drama at the Opera House

Posted on May 22, 2012 by rgeller

It has been awhile since I wrote about extreme media relations.  An article in the NY Times today gave me Opera%20House%20Budapestfodder for a new post.

When you think of hardball, take-no-prisoners PR, you might think of a number of areas – politics, sure, the tech field, OK, sometimes.  But opera?

Yet there it was in the Times, an article about how the Met is trying to silence media and bloggers.  Here’s an excerpt:

Opera News… said on Monday that it would stop reviewing the Metropolitan Opera, a policy promoted by the Met’s dissatisfaction over negative critiques…The decision by the magazine, which is funded by a Met… affiliate… is the latest sign of sensitivity from the Met under its general manager Peter Gelb, in the face of criticism over its productions.

In an interview, Mr. Gelb defended his decision; the Times wrote:

…he never liked the idea that an organization created to support the Met had a publication that… “continuously rips into it”

I agree that Mr. Gelb has a point, and applaud his honesty. The topic raises interesting questions about editorial independence.  If you read further however, you might begin to wonder where internal politicking crosses the line and becomes thin skinned, maybe even extreme media relations:

Last month Mr. Gelb protested to WQXR over a blog posting that called his leadership into question… Last year the Met asked a blogger to stop revealing progamming choices… before the official announcement… the blogger complied.

Mr. Gelb has it in for bloggers that cause problems? Oh well.  A blog with the word Revenge in its name can’t tread lightly.  These are the risks we take.  If Flack’s Revenge goes dark for awhile, you will know why!

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Board Meeting Tonight, LMAO, JK, LOL – CFO Gets Fired for Dishing on Facebook and Twitter

Posted on May 17, 2012 by rgeller

My friend and fellow train commuter Adam pointed out an article in the WSJ yesterday. It was about a CFO 2333543899_lmao_answer_3_xlargefor a publicly traded fashion retailer who had been fired over Facebook and Twitter postings. Here’s an excerpt:

Mr. Morphis was chief financial officer of fashion retailer Francesca's Holdings Corp. The Houston-based company fired him because he "improperly communicated company information through social media." 

I read the article fully expecting to be shocked, but found his comments to be pretty tame – they did not reveal insider information (at least, in my opinion), he did not harass, swear, etc.  At worst, they seemed a bit sophomoric, like he was trying to be hip on social media, yet clearly wasn't getting the "everyone and anyone can listen and your words can live online forever and be used against you" part.

Here are a few examples:

  • …he tweeted: "Dinner w/Board tonite. Used to be fun. Now one must be on guard every second."
  • The following day, he posted "Board meeting. Good numbers=Happy Board."
  • Mr. Morphis posted on Facebook about a company earnings call: "Earnings released. Conference call completed. How do you like me now Mr. Shorty?"
  • Months earlier…he posted about another investor call. "Cramming for earnings call like a final. I thought I had outgrown that…"
  • Mr. Morphis also posted about an investor road show… "Roadshow completed. Sold $275 million of secondary shares. Earned my pay this week." (The retailer held an initial public offering last July.)

I asked my friend Bob, also a CFO, for his opinion about the situation. He pointed out that the company likely would not have fired this guy for the reasons stated if they liked him, and really wanted to keep him. Bob said, however: “This guy sounds like a self indulgent jerk; he deserves to get fired because he made comments that could hurt or embarrass the company.”

Many companies have policies that provide guidelines for how to use social media.  While it might seem to be common sense, they should spell out rules that vary according to job title and function – top executives should be held to a higher standard, especially at public companies where there is much sensitivity (and legal rules) about fair disclosure.

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Putting Pictures to Work in PR – Infographics Resources

Posted on May 15, 2012 by rgeller

My monthly column on Neal Schaffer’s Windmill Networking blog today is about visual content marketing.  I Images
thought that this might be a good opportunity to also talk about the use of images in PR.

As I point out in the article, PR has generally been more about words than pictures.  Given the growing use of imagery in content and story telling, however, it seems natural that we should embrace the trend and seek to master visual info.

At Fusion PR our main focus is tech. Infographics seem like a natural fit for tech since they can be used to simplify complex topics and present dense info and mumbers in an easy-to-understand way.

I thought I would share below some resources and articles about infographics that I kicked around with my team here. Hopefully others will find these useful too.

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“Threading the Needle”: Trial Shows Edwards and PR Team in Crisis

Posted on May 11, 2012 by rgeller

PR people are generally not the headline news. We toil behind the scenes, while the stories around our clients play out on a public stage.

In most cases the subjects of our campaigns cooperate with us. Of course, there is one in every crowd, and sometimes you do get the difficult ones; the people who are just tough personalities, or don’t want to listen to our counsel.

These situations usually get resolved quietly, out of the public eye; the client either shoots the messenger AKA fires the agency; or they get smart and learn to be better at dealing with their teams and the media. Over the past few days, however, the drama surrounding PR counsel and a challenging subject was thrust into the limelight during the trial of John Edwards.

The stories highlighted how Edwards worked with his team to put the best possible spin on the unfolding story about his affair with Rielle Hunter, resulting in a child, and legal troubles about how the coverup was funded. Ultimately, Edwards wanted to tie the loose ends together into a package that was just too neat and convenient for his former speechwriter and press secretary.

A NY Times article that ran on Wednesday recounted his work work with Wendy Button to write a speech and prepare for questions from the media. I have been through many, many media training sessions in my time, but this one must have been a doozy. Here’s an excerpt:

Mr. Edwards… listened to Ms. Button recount how shocked she had been when she learned … that rumors of the affair were true, but how she had believed him when he said that an aide, Andrew Young, was the father.

Within a year, she would discover that that was a lie. …he told her that he had wanted to tell the truth for nearly a year, but “things were difficult inside his house…”

First and foremost, she said, Mr. Edwards wanted to make a public declaration to Frances Quinn Hunter, the girl he fathered with the campaign videographer Rielle Hunter and then distanced himself from by having Mr. Young claim paternity.

Mr. Edwards suggested this language: “I made a mistake, she is not,” Ms. Button recalled.

Ms. Button said she continued… to coax Mr. Edwards to be completely honest. They debated how to best present the statement and practiced how he would answer questions from reporters.

If they asked why did he do it, he would answer, “I didn’t think I would get caught.”

If they asked why he lied about it, especially in a national TV interview? “To protect my family.”

Do you love Ms. Hunter? “Yes. It’s complicated.” Is the affair still going on? “You’re not entitled to all the details.”

Regarding the preparation of the media statement, Ms. Button conceded that she went along with a lie, albeit grudginlgy: 

The one thing that did not sit right with Ms. Button, she said, was his statement about the money, the very thing for which Mr. Edwards is on trial.

Mr. Edwards and Ms. Button finally decided on this: “Some people, without my knowledge, supported Quinn.”  It made Ms. Button uncomfortable. “There I was, typing a lie,” she told the court.

In the end, the line would be erased from the statement, which would not be issued until January 2010.

An article in the NY Times today cites an earlier episode, in which Edwards first went public about the affair, via an exclusive interview with Bob Woodruff on ABC Nightline.  The prosecution showed the video segment before resting its case – talk about a dramatic finish!

Watching Mr. Edwards watch himself lie was the most electric moment yet in a three-week trial that has been relatively light on federal campaign law and heavy on dramatic narrative.

…he thought he could make the story go away by confessing to a brief affair but deny that the baby, at that point 6 months old, was his.

So he asked Jennifer Palmieri, his former press secretary and a close friend of his wife, Elizabeth, to help arrange an interview on the ABC News program “Nightline” with the reporter Bob Woodruff…

Mr. Edwards was going to use a “thread the needle” strategy, said Ms. Palmieri, who is now a deputy director of communications for the White House.

That is, he would confess to a brief affair and claim that it was over and that he and his wife had reconciled. He would deny both that the baby was his and that he arranged to pay to support Ms. Hunter.

Ms. Palmieri advised him against it. She had come to believe the baby was his.

“I told him I didn’t think he should do an interview if he was going to lie,” she told the court. “He didn’t need any more press attention at this point.”

She knew his political career was essentially over, she testified Wednesday.”He was deluded for thinking otherwise,” she said.

Still, he went ahead with the interview.

He went ahead and lied about all relevant details:

Mr. Edwards watched a younger, happier-looking version of himself sitting forward in a chair in his Chapel Hill home, taking question after question.

Was the affair over? “Oh, yes. It’s been over for a long time.” Is that your baby? “That is absolutely not true.”

Two weeks earlier, he had been photographed at the Beverly Hills Hilton holding Quinn. But in the interview, he claimed no knowledge of who the baby was or where the photo had come from.

The articles and trial show a communications team trying be eithcal and do their best for a subject who was going down in flames and did not feel bound by the same scruples.

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So a Lobbyist, Bin Laden and a Banker Walk into this PR Firm…

Posted on May 7, 2012 by rgeller

Call us flacks, spinners, or spammers. Whatever name and negative association you may have for PR, I love it that just about everyone at some point wants to git them some.

It was kind of funny that the NY Times had not one, but three articles on Friday about companies and institutions seeking image makeovers: lobbyists, Goldman Sachs and Al Qaeda.  While each of the above would likely cringe at the association with the others, there you have it.

PR is the great equalizer.  Please see below for links and descriptions.

Recovered Bin Laden Letters Show a Divided Al Qaeda

The article reported on the contents of letters that were recovered when we raided Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan and took him out.  They revealed that Bin Laden obsessed about the organization's image and legacy, here is an excerpt:

He considered a marketing campaign to change the infamous network’s name...And he fretted about how he would be remembered by history. “He who does not make known his own history,” he wrote to one of his lieutenants, runs the risk that “some in the media and among historians will construct a history for him, using whatever information they have, regardless of whether their information is accurate or not.”

I wrote on Fusion Forum awhile ago about Al Qaeda's rebranding efforts. 

This article (Tired of 'Tainted' Image, Lobbyists try a Makeover) hits close to home as some consider lobbyists to be not that far removed from the PR field.  It said: 

…some of Washington’s leading lobbyists are mounting a concerted push to earn, if not respectability, then at least something less than public disdain.

Finally, this article (Once Remote, Goldman Sachs Puts on a Friendly Face) describes the normally secretive banking firm's new PR offensive


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The Shush Heard Round the World; Republicans Fumble in Foreign Policy Flack Flameout

Posted on May 4, 2012 by rgeller

The New York Times reported the circumstances that led to the resignation of Romney foreign policy Dribbble-shush
spokesperson Richard Grenell earlier this week. 

The Romney team had asked him to keep quiet on an important call with the media – one that Grenell had helped to organize. This followed media coverage about outcry from Christian conservatives over Grenell's support for gay marriage, and some of his snarky Tweets.

There's not much sense in a spokesperson with a muzzle, and that was apparently the final insult that led Grenell to resign.  Here's an excerpt from the article:

It was the climax of an unexpectedly messy and public dispute over the role and reputation of Mr. Grenell, a foreign policy expert who is gay and known for his support of same-sex marriage, his testy relationship with the news media and his acerbic Twitter postings on everything from Rachel Maddow’s femininity to how Callista Gingrich “snaps on” her hair.

While the Romney team showed some open-mindedness in hiring Grenell, they clearly fumbled in not taking a closer look at his digital breadcrumbs.

They also broke some basic rules about crisis management, because they wanted to have their cake and eat it too, i.e. hire someone with talent who happens to be gay and does not toe the party line in certain areas.- yet not be too "out" with this.

Basic crisis management principles say that you don't go quiet in a crisis, doing this can make a bad situation worse; indeed, that is exactly what happened here.

 

 


 

 

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Foremski Praises Tech PR, Buries Tech Journalism

Posted on May 1, 2012 by rgeller

Tom Foremski has written about the rise of tech product journalism and corresponding growth in the tech Wpid-i_love_my_gadgets_tshirt-p235662477158837295y3gd_400
PR field.

Foremski has blogged quite a bit about public relations, and its need to adapt to new realities (see my post The Circle of Life in PR).  But this piece is great PR for tech PR. If anything, it is a knock against tech journalism.

He starts by asking:

Why has tech reporting become such tedious product journalism? Why are reporters competing to scoop each other on news that is essentially a spec sheet about a mass-produced product? Why are we reading about products as a news story and not in an ad?

Foremski goes on to answer, saying things like:

Tech journalism became product journalism for one simple reason: it was created.

Over the past two decades tech companies have been steadily shifting their substantial marketing funds into public relations…The reason is simple… PR is much more efficient than advertising, you get far more marketing bang. You sell far more product through news stories and that’s what public relations firms do for their clients…

He concludes by saying

…. the PR firms do their job well, and the tech industry gets what it pays for: lots of news stories about their products. It’s not because the media are independent thinkers. After all, there are far more interesting stories to write.

I’ll add a reason or two Tom didn’t cover, and in doing so cut some slack for the great tech journalists we work with.

Tech journalism is often product-focused because that is what people want to read. We love our gadgets (see my post Bye Bye, Blackberry). We fetishize them. We love the drama behind them, and the stories about how they were created and how they live and die in the marketplace.

Product-focused tech journalism attracts readers and sells the ads, subscriptions and pays media salaries.

Posted in PR, PR Tech, Reading Files | 2 Comments

What is Reputation’s Impact on Company and Brand Value Today?

Posted on April 27, 2012 by rgeller

Back in 2007 I blogged about a Businessweek article that shared some interesting research. My post From Madmen to PR’s Holy Grail pointed out the very real and quantifiable impact of reputation on a company’s stock price. Here is an excerpt:

[the article] reported on the growing trend of turning reputation management into a science, and cited research isolating and identifying the specific premium (or drag) that a company’s reputation can add to (or subtract from) its stock price.

That was almost five years ago. Flash forward to my post last week on Social Fluency, which cited a Wall Street Journal article that maintained that corporate crises cause little lasting damage to reputations, stock prices and balance sheets these days.

It is interesting, if you believe it – and I am wondering if things have changed to the extent that reputation matters less, in terms of quantifiable financial impact. Stay tuned to this blog for more on this topic.

Meanwhile, it would be good to know what your thoughts are.

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