Flacks Take Flak

Oh boy.  The bad news for the PR industry just keeps coming.  As a second generation PR person and past practitioner of “career arson,” I’m enjoying this with relish.

washingtonpost.com 
Local PR Firm Caught in Worldwide Web of Bad Press

By Annys Shin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 7, 2005; Page E01

In early February, Scott Johnson, a partner in a small communications firm called Rock Creek Creative, issued a news release touting the company's role in the Orange Revolution -- the public protests that led to the election of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko in December.

“Hey, didn’t we have a minor role in that campaign in the Ukraine?  Anything we can milk with a press release?” 

My late father developed Ted Klein’s 10 Commandments for successful Media Relations. The 3rd Commandment is “Thou shall make the client available to the media—and then leave.”  A PR person in the room with a reporter and a subject is, to borrow an analogy from Princess Diana, like three people in a marriage.

Johnson said he hoped the release would lead to "a nice local technology story" about the Bethesda company in one of the local newspapers, perhaps focusing on how a Web site the company designed had become the "virtual freedom plaza for the democracy movement" in the former Soviet state.

Oooo. Bonus points for lying about the lie you lied. Mr. Johnson, no one sends out a press release hoping only for a “nice local story.”  Just like no one in politics doesn’t have a plan to be President.  And your web site was a “virtual freedom plaza” for the democracy movement?  Nice analogy, guys, but you should have compared yourselves to Tom Paine, Gandhi, maybe Jesus .

The release did catch the attention of news editors.

Here comes a joke –drummer,rim shot please!

Just not in Bethesda.

Badda-bing!

Within hours, a Russian government news agency seized on Rock Creek's release as proof that the United States had meddled in the Ukrainian presidential election.
Hate e-mail trickled into the nine-person firm.

It would have a better line if it had been, “caught the attention of editors –in the Kremlin.”  I mean, what’s funny about Bethesda?  And how does hate mail “trickle” and why is it important in this sentence to say how many people work for the company? Were some of them offended they didn’t get any hate mail of their own?

Russian newspapers speculated about the firm's prior work for such groups as NATO and the CIA.

Yushchenko was quizzed about the company by the BBC, and Rock Creek's local client -- the nonprofit that had hired the firm to develop the Web site in the first place -- disavowed the company's statements.

“Hey Viktor Yuschenko--you just survived poisoning, electoral fraud and two national campaigns –what about this line item on the 43rd page of your budget about a web designer in Maryland?” 
(Silence)
“Can we say that’s a disavowal, then?”

For a PR company, it was a PR disaster.

More deadpan wit from the Washington Post.

"People [in Ukraine] were talking about it immediately. . . . The commentary in the Ukrainian media was 'What the hell are they talking about?' " said Taras Kuzio, a Ukrainian scholar who teaches at George Washington University.

Sometimes information wants to be a little too free, and the Internet superhighway moves too fast.  What happens when an obscure striver taps into a voracious media?  That’s right, you get the Drudge Report.  And also, sometimes, an entire nation saying, “huh?”  Or in this case, “vot?”

At a time when public relations firms have been under fire for obscuring their affiliations, the incident with Rock Creek stands as a cautionary tale of saying too much at the wrong time, particularly in an era of instant global communication.

Armstrong Williams. Armstrong Williams. Armstrong Williams.
In the wake of revelations that government agencies hired public relations firms to seek favorable media coverage (are you shocked?)  we’re seeing the revival of what the Nixon White House called the “modified limited hang out".  Also known as the non-denial denial.  Watch for  the new trend of apparent transparency as news stories start to include more product labeling:

“The New York Times received eleven news releases, three conference call invitations and was sent links to 48 websites and chat rooms in preparation of this story.  I’m Arthur Sulzberger, and I approve this message.”

"The policy is do the work and don't talk about it," said Robert Chlopak, a partner with Washington crisis management firm Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter and Associates. "There is no such thing as a local audience anymore."

Such a fine line between fair play and greedy self-promotion.  How does any company know where to tread?  Can anyone say “code of ethics?” Oh.  Guess not.

The company apparently knew the sensitivities involved when it was hired in 2003 by the Global Fairness Initiative, a Washington nonprofit affiliated with former president Bill Clinton, to develop a Web site and strategy for a February 2004 conference in Kiev called "Ukraine in Europe and the World." The company, which says it has led branding campaigns for such U.S. agencies as the CIA and for NATO and the French aerospace company Thales S.A., was paid $15,000 for its work.

How exactly did they demonstrate such sensitive knowledge?  There’s nothing in this paragraph that explains what the company knew and when they knew it.  Extra points for the Clinton mention –more Google hits will be coming your way!

In its news release last month, the company said that in taking on the contract, it realized the challenge was to create a site that was not only secure from hackers "but that would also not be seen as a vehicle for any U.S.-driven political message."

"Which," the company added, "it was not."

Another bone-headed PR move – the sardonic press release.  I know some might consider this impossibly quaint, but effective public relations is a truth business.  It’s not good PR to imply that sometimes the government does twist objectivity but this time it isn’t.

At least not until the company's news release was distributed Feb. 8 over the PR Newswire, a publicly accessible Internet service.

Which, by the way, you pay for.  It didn’t just appear on the Interent, the company paid to put it there. 

"US supporters of 'Orange Revolution' coming out of shadow," read the headline one day later on ITAR-Tass, the Russian news agency. The Tass story said the company provided "propaganda support" for the 2004 conference and made much of the fact that Rock Creek had done work for the CIA and NATO.

What a difference a headline makes!  I’m sure Tass could have run the company’s press release under that pointed headline and still made their point.  Nice going, comrades.

Rock Creek once helped develop marketing material for the CIA's venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, according to Johnson. It also created an 18-language summit agenda for the NATO 2002 Prague Summit Host Committee.
But in the Tass story, the affiliations took on a more sinister light. The article said it had interviewed one of the company's employees, who told them that money was "transferred . . . through several intermediary organizations, so that no one would suspect . . . the improper interference in the political process."

In response to the Tass story, Rock Creek issued a "clarification."

I don’t care what these boys say about all this attention ultimately being good for business, but around the PR club they’ll be forever known as the outfit that had to issue a response to Tass.

"By designing the official Web site and contributing to the communications strategy for the conference, Rock Creek helped raise the profile of Ukraine's issues internationally. . . . It was one of many contributions to an atmosphere of change in Ukraine," the statement said. It went on to note that "Mr. Yushchenko deserves full credit for building a political platform that the majority of Ukrainians supported in the election."

Oh, very nice.  Very magnanimous.  The two-byte American company that did one tiny little thing for the Ukrainian president thinks he “deserves full credit.”  Yuschenko can get on with governing, now that's cleared up.

In a phone interview, Johnson called the Tass story "a complete fabrication."

"My customer is not the U.S. government, nor has my client been paid by the government," he said. Rock Creek "did what we said we did," he said. "I stand by what's in the [Feb. 8] release."

No, Johnson, don’t!  Don’t stand there! Take a step back!

But officials with the Global Fairness Initiative, the nonprofit that hired Rock Creek to help with the Kiev conference, took issue with several of the company's claims.

See, here it comes, your former friends are gunning for you now.

Steven Bennett, the group's executive director, said the conference had nothing to do with the election. Instead, it featured former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright, Yushchenko and his future opponent for the presidency, former prime minister Viktor Yanukovych, talking about Ukraine's relationship with Western Europe.
He dismissed the notion that the Web site had become a "virtual freedom plaza" as "ridiculous."

This from the man who signed your checks, Johnson.  Aren’t you sorry now you trumped your client?  Let them worry about press, you stay behind the scenes.  Although now, you’ll be way, way behind the action.

"Until the release, there was very slow traffic to the site," Bennett said.

Just before the conference, a Czech firm took over the Web site, and Rock Creek had nothing to do with it thereafter, Bennett said.

It’s so ironic. A company that lost control over a Web site no one sees this as a contribution to the spread of democracy.  As Tom Lehrer said when they gave Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize:  “Satire is dead.”

"It was the most successful press release ever released, as measured by the amount of interest -- perverse interest," he said.

No, Johnson, you still don’t get it!  Were  you absent in flack class when they said watch out for superlatives like “best ever” or “unique” as nothing ever is?  The press release was a bad idea that’s getting you bad publicity.  Stop saying otherwise.

"What that press release did was fan a lot of flames especially in eastern Ukraine and in Russia where people believe the U.S. was involved in the election. . . . From our perspective, this has been a catastrophe."

Not good enough! It sounds like you’re explaining why the environment was so wired.  And who cares about your perspective anyway?  You’d be better off saying “oops! –our mistake!”

Public relations experts said Rock Creek ran afoul of one of the most basic principles of the trade.
"Rule number one: You shouldn't embarrass your client," said Helio Fred Garcia, a professor of management and communications at New York University who runs a crisis communications firm. "Even when you deserve credit, you should not crow about it without your client's permission."

You shouldn’t even ask your client’s permission.  I asked one public relations professional today how many times he’s tried to get publicity for his own firm, not for a client. 

“Never.”   Right answer.

But the incident also demonstrates another maxim of the public relations business: Any publicity is good publicity. Johnson said that since the controversy, he has been approached by companies that do business in the Ukraine about working for them. He said he turned down the offers because Rock Creek did not want to be seen as profiting from an incident that embarrassed the Yushchenko regime.
For the time being, Johnson said he does not plan on issuing more news releases. "We don't need to market ourselves," he said. "We have plenty of work."

Tee hee.  Always leave them laughing, right Scott?  This incident is good for business the way Eddie Murphy is good for movies – not!

Comments

Classical singer Russell Watson postpones his forthcoming UK tour after undergoing brain surgery.

[exchange scrap gold uk]

i hope he comes back safe...