PR Hoax Hurts Integrity of National Press Club

Whether you work in the field of Public Relations or just happen to be a news junkie, chances are you already know about the PR hoax perpetrated this Monday to call into question the stance taken by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on climate change.

In fact, a quick search of Google news for the terms “chamber commerce climate change” (not inside quotation marks) finds several hundred news stories on the subject.

The event was staged at the National Press Club (in Washington, D.C.) by an activist organization that calls itself the “Yes Men,” and it’s a group that has punked the news media before. As reported in the New York Times, the fake press conference also featured fake journalists and fake press materials designed to look as if they were produced on Chamber of Commerce materials. And a number of major news outlets were fooled by the hoax, notably CNBC and Reuters (both of which later corrected and retracted their stories).

However, lost in all the hubub, hoopla and news coverage about the hoax is one critical point: I’m convinced that the Yes Men organization have also attacked and hurt the integrity of the National Press Club. Call it another example of the Rule of Unintended Consequences.

Certainly there are widespread examples of biased news organizations or media outlets that lean one political direction or the other. I get that, and I hope that most people are savvy enough to understand this fact too.

Regardless of one’s viewpoint on any subject (including climate change), the United States of America was founded on several key principles, one of which is freedom of the press.

The National Press Clubbills itself as “The World’s Leading Professional Organization for Journalists,” and none other than noted CBS commentator, Eric Sevareid called the NPC the “sanctum sanctorum of American journalists.”

By choosing to hold its fake news conference at the National Press Club, the Yes Men organization have besmirched the good name and integrity of the National Press Club.

Please note that I am NOT suggesting that the Yes Men were wrong to stage a fake press conference. I’m only suggesting it should not have been held at the National Press Club.

And for that, I bestow a Sad Betty Award on the Yes Men for choosing to stage their PR hoax at the National Press Club. 

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P.S.  To get a sense of what happened during the press conference when it was interrupted by a real representative of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, you might check out this YouTube video. It’s about six minutes long.

It’s a Question of Ethics

I was very happy to see PRSA finally respond to the recent controversy involving Scott McClellan–the former White House press secretary who just released his book that includes, among other controversial acknowledgments, his confessions about knowingly lying to the press corps on behalf of the president on more than one occasion.

First of all, with all the political mumbo-jumbo ongoing right now, my personal opinion is that once a liar always a liar. I’m not saying you can’t change if you lied in the past, but I am saying that we don’t have to believe you ever again. Think of it as the “fool me once” principle.

How can McClellan expect anyone to know he is telling the truth now, and not just trying to capitalize on the current animosity towards Bush and politicians in general? As a student of public relations (PR), he knows that playing on trends makes for a much more compelling story than if he launched his book a year after being asked to resign. Oh, did I just say he was (allegedly) asked to resign? If he was indeed asked to resign his credibility is even less than moot. But I digress.

His actions and those of other questionable PR professionals inspired me to write a little about the ethics of PR work, especially as it relates to Web 2.0.

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In PR, Transparency Should Always be a Policy

On our blog, we clearly state that we represent clients who pay us to help with their marketing communication campaigns. This means we speak highly of them. Luckily for us, it’s easy to do because the companies we work with are companies we can believe in and support.

However, and this surprises me, not everyone in the profession adheres to similar standards. Well, it doesn’t surprise me that their are unethical people out there who are trying to manipulate the system for their own or their clients benefit, but it surprises me that they feel it is an acceptable tactic.

So why is this news? Cisco recently ran into legal problems because they did not have a disclosure policy in effect. How could they and many other companies avoid a potential lawsuit or loss in the trial of public opinion, be transparent. (more…)

Misrepresenting the Truth - Never do it!

There is a saying that goes: “It’s better to tell the truth poorly than to lie well.”

Recent events have shed light on what this saying truly means; two highly publicized and one not so publicized events show that it does no good to lie about or embellish the truth.

In the first example, Kwame Kilpatrick, the 37-year old mayor of Detroit, has “been booked on charges of lying about steamy text messages with his former chief of staff.” He is accused of “multiple counts of perjury, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and misconduct” in a scandal that will, in all likelihood, land him behind bars and end his political career. Telling the truth may not have saved his political career, but it certainly would have saved him from being sent to the clink.

In the second example, in an effort to establish her “battle-tested” leadership, Sen. Hillary Clinton said last week during a campaign rally speech that during a visit to war-torn Bosnia in 1996, she had to land “under sniper fire”, “without a welcome ceremony” because she and her party had to run “with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.” But a CBS correspondent who was with the former First Lady on that trip produced video evidence that what Senator Clinton had said was simply not true. Now, her media relations team is doing some manipulating of the facts themselves, which will probably continue for the next couple of days until the press gets tired of writing about it. But instead of boosting the “battle-tested” leadership image she is so desperately trying to portray, it shoots holes in her claim to any previous leadership experience at all. What stories are embellished, which are fabricated, and which ones are completely imaginary?

The third example comes from a recent job application we received. We had previously worked with the applicant and knew about some of the information on this person’s resume because of our working together. However, the “facts” claimed on the resume for work performed while with us did not mesh with what we knew the applicant did, nor did the facts match what was reported on a client’s Web site. The applicant knowingly embellished information on the resume, probably thinking we would not catch it, or that if we did, we may not recall the exact details. However, when the embellishment was caught, the application process ended. We probably would have progressed further with the application process, but the trust was now exhausted.

We could go on for days; there are many more examples of individuals who flat-out lie, possibly under the impression that they’ll never get caught. But eventually, the truth always comes out. Elliot Spitzer found out the hard way; so too, has Kwame Kilpatrick. The simple fact is, they didn’t have to find out the hard way. They just needed to tell the truth.

It may be hard to do in the moment, but giving the facts is much better in the long run than falsifying information.

Qtrax Lands “Bewildered Betty Award” for Announcing Deals with Major Music Labels Before Said Agreements Are Signed

Major PR faux pas by Brilliant Technologies puts future of nascent free music download service — QTRAX — in serious doubt

Can you think of ANY reason why a company would ever want to “announce” it had closed deals with one or more major partners at a HUGE industry event without having such deals actually signed?

Me neither.

Amazingly, that’s apparently what happened this past weekend at the MIDEM music conference held in Cannes.

According to media reports from around the globe, New York-based Qtrax — a subsidiary of Brilliant Technologies (Pink Sheets: BLLN) — spent close to £500,000 to host a launch party that featured such recording artists as LL Cool J and James Blunt and was designed to promote the “fact” that Qtrax was going to announce Monday it had

• Signed deals with the four largest music labels – EMI, Universal, Sony BMG and Warner Music Group; and that
• These deals would provide more than 25,000 free downloadable songs for users of the new free ad-supported QTRAX music download service.

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Public Relations 2.0 Ethics

Just as the public relations industry is beginning to get a handle on how to use Web 2.0 technologies, we’re also getting really adept at abusing these new found superpowers!

Richard Edelman’s 6 a.m. blog recently had a good post on new media ethics. I’ll post more on this topic down the road.

What do you think? Do the ethics change just because the media changes? (post your answers in the comments)