Faking It

“The only time I’ve heard of stuff like that is when we cover the ‘don’ts’ for media training,” says Bill McIntyre, EVP of Grassroots Enterprises and former chief spokesman for the National Rifle Association. “It’s a stupid con carried out poorly.”
- as reported in PR Weekly

It’s a bit ironic that the disaster relief specialists - FEMA - created their own media disaster by hosting a fake news briefing. In a series of flubs, FEMA called a press conference with only 15 minutes notice and when no live reporters appeared (some reporters were on the phone), staff pretended to be reporters.

Pat Philbin, External Affairs Director at FEMA, has taken full responsibility. Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security Secretary, said “I think it was one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I’ve ever seen since I’ve been in government.”

While Chertoff’s statement is pretty far-reaching, especially when you consider such communications missteps as the response to Hurricane Katrina, the actions by Philbin have been widely denounced. The FEMA head who conducted the press conference - Harvey Johnson - claims that he was unaware that employees were asking the questions, even though he called on one fake reporter by name.

Last spring I was at Harvard’s School of Public Health, along with some of the top disaster and health crisis specialists around the world, to study best practices related to Risk Communication. Homeland Security sent a senior staff member - but FEMA did not. Too bad, because the Philbin and Johnson team would have learned the number one most important goal in risk communication: public trust. Nobody wants to have an agency in charge of disasters that is considered “dumb” by its own administration.

Few people really know how these series of missteps occurred, but public relations professionals can imagine last minute decision-making that resulted in a hastily called press conference and the panic of having a boss at a lecturn facing an empty audience. That’s the heart of crisis situations - bad decisions like this are generally made quickly with a short-term goal temporarily devoid of consideration for long term consequences.

Philbin follows in the footsteps of many notables who have been publicly exposed for faking it. Wikepedia’s founder Jimmy Wales was criticized for changing his own entry eighteen times, and said “I wish I hadn’t done it. Its in poor taste”. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey was criticized (and investigated by the SEC) for secretly posting blog comments on Yahoo stock forums using a pseudonym that hailed his organization and criticized his competitor. Last year the Center for Media and Democracy exposed 77 television stations who had taken prepackaged news segments from public relations firms and “actively disguised the sponsored content to make it appear to be their own reporting”. And a teenager posted a fake news release in a prank which ended up being treated as a credible news story around the world.

New communications technologies make it increasingly important to maintain the highest level of accuracy and authenticity. Faking it comes with a hefty price tag when things fall apart.

Story update Nov 12, 2007:
FEMA conducted an “internal review” of its media operations and found poor internal quality. Russ Knocke, Head of External Communication for FEMA told PR Week that the report identified “bad decision-making”. Knocke attributes some of the poor performance to the fact that no one on staff at FEMA headquarters had journalism experience and therefore didn’t understand the journalism culture, however many effective media relations operations are run by communications professionals who are not journalists. Two staff have lost jobs - the press secretary and the communications director. Among policy changes: reporters calling in to briefings will no longer be put on listen-only mode, and the agency is considering a professional partnership with PRSA.

High Stakes Media Advocacy

Almost 45 months ago a teenager named Genarlow Wilson was convicted of rape and sent to prison in a case that received almost no media attention. Yesterday Genarlow Wilson was released from prison in the glare of a national spotlight on racism and the criminal justice system. Georgia’s high court declared yesterday that Wilson’s imprisonment represented “cruel and unusual punishment”.

After more than two years of imprisonment for consensual sex with a girl two years his junior (he was 17, she was 15), Wilson provided a quote that made the Associated Press Quotations of the day “At times, we’ve dealt with adversity. Now my family, we finally get to deal with happiness”.

Wilson also offered advice to other teens: “They should be very hesitant before they join certain crowds and make certain decisions”. Remarkably, this quote mirrors the message that Wilson’s mother, Juannessa Bennett, has been giving throughout the incident, first broadcast in August 2004: “I’m not saying that we should be able to beat the rap. I just feel like the punishment is too harsh”.

Georgia Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson used the opposite tone when he remarked on the high court decision to release Wilson: “[Georgians] may cheer the release of Genarlow Wilson, but they should be scared to death of what that means for their own safety and the safety of their children. This is scarier than Halloween”.

The November issue of Essence explores why some civil rights cases attract the spotlight, while others are virtually ignored. In the Essence piece, two brutal crimes are detailed, both of which have received very little national attention or support, and the author questions why these cases are virtually ignored on the national landscape. Yesterday Southern Christian Leadership Conference President Charles Steele remarked “There are many, many more Genarlow Wilson cases before us in society throughout this country”.

So how did Juannessa Bennett create the national public outcry that led to her son’s release? Bennett and her attorney (a high power litigator with a history of media advocacy) used online strategies, persistent media strategies, message discipline, authenticity, and third party validators to rewrite the story of Wilson’s incarceration.

A website www.wilsonappeal.com was established; the site gave updates on the case, collected petition signatures, collected donations, and tracked media coverage. The site was clean, crisp, and credible. A wikepedia entry was posted and updated regularly.

Prominent voices were drawn in to the debate, including Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, Rev Al Sharpton, the Congressional Black Caucus, Jesse Jackson, and others. At least one prominent rally drew supporters and media attention.

Media advocacy included outreach to news media, political media, sports media (such as ESPN who picked up the promising football player angle), legal media, and celebrity media. Lengthy feature stories helped turn the framework from a rape case to a consensual sex case. The call to action was consistent from beginning to end: Wilson made a mistake but the punishment was too harsh. The message tone was consistent from beginning to end: regretful of the youthful decision but resolute in standing up for the truth. The media sparks largely fell into three areas: new legal activity such as hearings or rulings, in-depth stories published on the case, and grassroots activity such as protest rallies.

It took almost two years of media advocacy before the story received some momentum in national media coverage, and nearly three years of media advocacy before the story received major widespread coverage. The differences between the first public mention of the Wilson case in 2004 and the coverage yesterday about his release merit a close look at the media advocacy in this case.

Genarlow Wilson was convicted in February 2004. The first national story about the case appeared on August 3, 2004 when the AP reported on the guilty plea of two of the six teenagers charged in the case. The prevailing attitude then was that this was a case about the gang rape of a 15 year old girl. In that 175-word AP story there was no mention of “consensual oral sex”, the term used in the AP lead yesterday. The original story reported on accusations of “rape”, “child molestation”, “sex acts”, “sexual battery”, and “aggravated child molestation”. The prosecutor in the original story says he “offered them a chance to plead guilty to lesser charges and recommend a 15-year sentence with five years served in prison”. A reader looking at the original AP story would walk away with a wholesale different impression of Genarlow Wilson than a reader looking at yesterday’s AP story.

The first national broadcast interview occurred less than a week after the AP story on Fox’s O’Reilley Factor. Despite the sometimes-hostile tone to the interview, it was an important venue to add nuance and momentum to an otherwise difficult story. O’Reilley quickly turned to the issue of single motherhood in an attempt to focus not on the justice of the sentence but rather the blame for the sex act. O’Reilley asks Wilson’s mother, “Miss Bennett, your son didn’t have a father. The father, left, correct…And do you believe that you supervised your son enough to keep him out of trouble like this…” Despite that difficult exchange, Bennett was able to convey important background information about the case and stay on message about overzealous prosecution.

Following the Fox report, the Atlanta Magazine began an in-depth look at the case. On December 28, 2005, MSNBC’s Abram’s Report did a segment on Wilson sparked by the impending release of the Atlanta story. In this segment the nuances of the case began to sincerely emerge, and Atlanta reporter Chandra Thomas pointed a finger at the “overzealous prosecutor”.

Two months later, on March 9, Good Morning America broadcast a segment, sparked by an appeals court hearing in the case. The graphic read “Was Teen’s Punishment Too Harsh?” For the first time Genarlow Wilson appeared on national news, saying about his refusal to agree to a plea bargain “It’s all about doing what is right. I’m just standing up for what I believe in”. That segment was part of a longer Primetime Live special that aired on the same day. The headline story was “Teen Sex Tape; Outrage After Teen Gets 10 Years for Oral Sex”.

MSNBC then re-entered the fray with a debate about the case, using a callous tone that cast doubt on the legal strategy employed by the Wilson team; the host asks Wilson’s lawyer “Do you think Genarlow Wilson might really ever see the light of day as a result of what you’re doing in the appellate court, or do you think he’s a cooked goose under the statute?”

The story then built momentum in the national press. After a December 2006 rejection from the Georgia Supreme Court, the national story exploded. On December 21 the New York Times published an editorial with the headline, “Free Genarlow Wilson Now”. That was followed by a second editorial by the New York Times on April 30 titled “Georgia’s Shame”. That same month Maureen Downey from the Atlanta Journal Constitution headlined her column, “Break legal ranks to right a wrong”.

High profile and credible voices helped propel the story. In May 2007 former President Jimmy Carter wrote Georgia authorities in support of Wilson’s petition to be freed. In July 2007 Barack Obama weighed in, saying “He has now been in prison for two years and they have not been willing to commute his sentence. Just gives you some perspective on our justice system at the moment”. That same month Al Sharpton led a rally at the courthouse.

Even with major momentum in the media, maintaining a framework in support of Wilson was difficult. In July 2007 the prosecutor’s office released the amateur videotapes of the sexual encounter between Wilson and the teen girl. Fox’s O’Reilly Factor and some other outlets broadcast the videotapes. Bill O’Reilly said “The reason we’re reporting this story is sometimes the media glorifies people who don’t deserve to be glorified.” The tapes emerged as lawmakers were considering legislative relief for Wilson. Johnson claims that watching the tapes “changed my mind”, and he become a strong voice in support of Wilson’s incarceration.

Yesterday’s media coverage hailed Wilson’s release as a major victory. The legal and civil rights story about Genarlow Wilson certainly will continue to be amplified. But the compelling advocacy story is about Juanessa Bennett, who in a one-woman campaign turned a small and routine news story about rape into a national spotlight on injustice in the criminal justice system.

Mudslinging Strategies

Authenticity and trust are the two pillars of reputation management. People like Ellen have it - so when she ends up publicly spilling tears over a dog custody dispute you can bet the public is going to believe that she was genuinely concerned about the dog’s welfare when she inadvertently broke the rules of her adoption contract. This week Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said “Barack Obama” when he meant “Osama bin Laden”, but plenty of pundits are not willing to believe it was an innocent slip.

This month Ken Silverstein writes an excellent article in Harper’s about Mitt Romney’s efforts to shore up his reputation. Specifically, Silverstein explores strategies among Romney’s Presidential campaign team to deal with a flip-flopping public perception. Can a candidate win if voters believe they will do - or say - anything to create a winning persona? Ironically, Romney’s publicity machine is accused in the article of employing manipulative tactics to create the impression of authenticity. So, in the world of public relations, the question boils down to this: do you actually need to be authentic to create an impression of authenticity? Do you have to be trustworthy to be trusted?

Someone at Romney’s PR firm decided to put up a website titled PhoneyFred.org which appeared to be an independent critique of Romney’s opponent but ultimately was unmasked as an inside job. Romney has displayed a penchant for hiring tough communications consultants who have engaged some of the roughest publicity battles. His opposition research, for example, is headed by Barbara Comstock who has been engaged in such issues as the Whitewater investigative efforts of the Clintons, the Scooter Libby trial, the 2000 Florida vote recount, and the nomination of John Ashcroft for Attorney General. Recently Comstock took Obama to task for supporting age appropriate sex education by accusing him of supporting “kindergarten sex education and funding abortions for everybody”.

Sometimes these aggressive public relations tactics can carry the day for politicians, but for long-term reputation management they are generally ill-advised. One Romney consultant likens electoral campaigns to checkers, not chess. Moving the game forward in a short-lived campaign is remarkably different than building a reputation for an organization, an idea or a product.

The public has a remarkable ability to recognize authenticity. Not always, and certainly not consistently. But ask the marketing pros at entertainment giants like Nickelodean and they will say emphatically that serving kids programming that is authentic to their lives and interests is the only winning strategy. Just ask Ellen, who suddenly found herself tearful on television, about the value of trust.

Chatting About Britney and Lindsay

There is only one thing worse than being gossiped about, and that is not being gossiped about”.
- Oscar Wilde

This week the National Academy of Sciences published a study that speaks to the power of gossip. The frightening news is that gossip can influence what others think about you (or your company) even when eyewitness accounts refute the gossip. The bottom line: gossip, even unreliable gossip, can be a powerful way to shape or reshape reputations.

Youtube and other social networking sites have made cyber-gossip a multibillion dollar industry. Understanding how to create “buzz” can be the difference between smart, low-cost public relations campaigns and advertising-heavy, big budget campaigns. But knowing how to use the most trendy online gadgets is useless if you don’t understand the essential human nature of social communication, and for that reason it’s a good idea to study the power and the insidious potential of gossip.

This week’s study follows a litany of investigations about the role that gossip plays in our decision-making. Psychology Today writer Robin Westen calls gossip “the social glue that holds us all together”. Author Jack Levin wrote a book about gossip and argues that “its primary function is to help us make social comparisons.” But not all gossip is equal. Kids gossip differently than adults, men tend to gossip differently than women, older adults are impacted by gossip differently than younger adults, and so on. Personality type also plays a role. Dr. Susan Anthony of Gallaudet University studied gossip among the deaf population, and found that “Anxious people are not only more susceptible to gossip, but they’re the ones who will transmit information to a larger number of people”.

Of course gossip runs the gamut from complementary to cruel, but many of the studies published agreed that even neutral gossip can lead to lying. In one experiment conducted by Levin: “researchers posted notices inviting college students to a wedding that never took place…a suprising 12% of the students later questioned claimed to have attended…some even described the wedding dress.”

In the world of communications, managing gossip and rumors can become a critical component to reputation management. For some, gossip becomes word-of-mouth and that can be a powerful marketing strategy. Chrysler created buzz about its new line of cars by lending them to about 6,000 community influentials for a weekend - 98% of those target influentials said they would recommend the cars to their friends. For others gossip can be a malicious and pose a threat to a worthy cause.

Parents Speak Up

In a national spotlight, a Portland Maine school board voted 10-2 to approve birth control access in school-based health centers, without parental notice.

Surveys repeatedly show very strong public support for access to birth control and comprehensive sex ed. Nevertheless, in the last decade the number of public schools mandating real sex education has plummeted, and the assault on birth control has continued to escalate. The federal abstinence-only campaign has not only muzzled educators, it seems to have muzzled parents and the public who fear controversy and isolation if they speak up for adolescent sexual health.

That wasn’t the case in Portland, where health educators and parents of middle school students took the microphone and supported access to birth control for all adolescents. In a hostile national climate where President Bush continues to appoint activists who oppose birth control to head the nation’s family planning programs, and where parental notice laws continue to be pushed in embattled communities like Aurora Illinois, it was a breath of fresh air to see the Portland story take center stage.

From a public relations perspective, the voice of parents in this debate was critical. Far more important than health statistics are parents simply saying they want to make sure teens stay safe.

Investigate This

It’s old news that major media conglomerates have been trimming their reporting and research staff. Good media advocates know that reporters need reliable help with research and new information.

What’s new is the announcement of a well-funded media company that plans to deliver investigative news segments to major media outlets. Pro Publica, a non profit group headed by former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, plans to conduct its own investigative news reports and push these news products into major media outlets, as well as its own web site. The articles will be provided free of charge to media outlets, will be produced by a few dozen fulltime reporters, and will be supported entirely by philanthropy. This relatively large staff will make Pro Publica one of the best funded investigative reporting organizations in the country. The intent is to “uncover misdeeds in government, business and organizations”.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported that “the move reflects a growing concern within the foundation world about cutbacks in investigative reporting and other public-interest journalism as traditional newspapers shrink their staffs in an effort to remain economically competitive in the Internet era”.

Media professionals widely praised the effort, including investigative journalist Richard Behar (Time, Forbes, Fortune) who said “Most major magazines and newspapers have cut back dramatically on the little investigative reporting they were doing even 10 years ago…[Editors] expect that award-winning pieces can be knocked out within a week or two of reporting…Anyone who cares about great journalism better hope that Paul succeeds.”

Predictably, Fox News criticized the announcement. Brit Hume said that Pro Publica was “not a politically neutral operation” and pointed to the major funders, who have “been longtime critics of President Bush” and “are major Democratic political donors, who have all their campaign contributions to Democrats in 2006.”

The major funders are California billionaires Herbert and Marion Sandler, contributing $10 million annually. Other funders include the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Atlantic Philanthropies and the JEHT Foundation.

Birth Control Under Fire

“We’re quite pleased, because fertility is not a disease”
Susan Orr on a Bush proposal to stop requiring all health insurance plans for federal employees to cover birth control.

President Bush appointed another birth control foe - Susan Orr - to head the nation’s family planning program. Ms. Orr is formerly with the Family Research Council, a conservative organization that opposes comprehensive sex ed and is a strong advocate of abstinence only education.

The Washington Post was the first major news outlet to cover the appointment of Susan Orr, describing her as a “birth control foe” (Wa Post). The National Family and Reproductive Health Association was quoted in the Wa Post Story “We have another appointment that just truly politicizes family planning”.

Planned Parenthood issued this statement: “The appointment of Susan Orr is a nightmare for anyone who believes in birth control and sex ed, and further evidence that the Bush administration is intent on appointing an anti-choice extremist to head Title X…This is yet another example of the Bush administration putting politics ahead of women’s health care.”

Orr’s appointment does not need Senate confirmation, but birth control supporters will surely respond swiftly, much like with the Keroack nomination that was ultimately sidelined early this year.

What I Do, Not What I Say

This year’s buzz at the National Advertising convention is about “behavioral targeting”, which means paying more attention to what consumers do and less attention to what they say. The buzz is mostly about tracking what people do online - but can also be combined with consumer patterns offline. For example, Home Depot uses its stores as a virtual lab to better understand its customers.

One theory is that what people say and what they do can diverge - and so as behavioral targeting becomes more prominent, traditional research like polling and focus groups stop being a single driver for marketers. Instead understanding public support becomes more complex by tracking both what actions people take as well as what opinions they express. For example, opinion polls may indicate the country is divided on hot button issues like abortion and birth control, but online traffic patterns reveal that the demand for reproductive health information continues to rise and may therefore be a more true indictor of the nations attitudes on these issues. Professional pollsters have always known that getting unbiased opinion from consumers is tough, but with online tracking its now possible to peek into the public’s thought process by carefully tracking what choices they make when surfing the web or engaging a web site.

Big corporations are investing big dollars in online advertising. For example, Microsoft just spent $6 billion on aQuantive, which is a major worldwide online advertising firm. But behavioral advertising can also work for small advertisers, because it allows for micro targeting of particular audiences.

The recent annual gathering of the National Association of Advertisers kept a major spotlight on behavorial targeting, so advocacy groups can expect to hear their consultants pitch this strategy. There are huge success stories attached to this strategy-but as with any approach it needs to be analyzed with caution. Some consumer advocates worry about privacy issue. And it is only advertising, not a guarantee. For example, Snapple was among the first major voices to promote the “behavioral targeting” strategy when it published a landmark study on the tactic a few years ago. Snapple reported amazing results from its behavioral targeting campaign during a product launch for a diet drink called “Snapple A Day”, but some prominent media critics dismissed the companies health claims, and many consumers stuck to old favorites like Slim Fast.

In December I’ll be presenting at the “Future of Brand Strategy” conference in Miami, where marketing executives from corporations such as Subway, Motorola, and Telemundo will be discussing their strategies to boost company image. No doubt we’ll be discussing the integration of “behavioral targeting” at that forum, I’ll report back.

Business and Politics

Rail as they will about ‘discrimination,’ women are simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism
- Pat Buchanon

In 1994 in Central California, radio was dominated by Country Music and right wing talk shows. During campaign season I kept myself awake during long drives through the state by tuning into shows like Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura. Back then a favorite subject was disparaging the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which Clinton signed after a decade-long campaign for its passage during the Reagan and Bush years. The National Organization for Women (for whom I worked at the time) said that VAWA was “the greatest breakthrough in civil rights for women in nearly two decades”.

I was thinking about VAWA and talk radio as I listened to this week’s news about Fox’s ambitious plans to take over the business news market. The VAWA chatter in 1994 on talk radio had two central themes: VAWA would hurt families financially, and VAWA was a program designed to create jobs for feminists. The NOW message framework was about civil rights; opponents have consistently pushed a message framework about business (jobs and pork barrel). In fact despite major gains made by VAWA, Phyllis Schafley wrote in 2005, “there is no evidence that VAWA has benefited anyone except the radical feminists on its payroll”. And an influential lobbying group called RADAR claims that “VAWA stands in the way of a prosperous America”.

Although most political advocates focus their attention on the news and editorial pages, the business chatter also matter a great deal. Fox is launching its major effort to lure viewers from CNBC, a dominant business channel. That means the Fox Business Network will be pouring significant resources into its business stories. On the heels of the Wall Street Journal purchase by Murdoch, many have worried about the prospect of business news becoming strikingly more politicized. When Fox News took on CNN (and won a major market share), the “news” on Fox carried a heavy social and political perspective. As Fox Business takes on MSNBC, advocates need to make sure they have a business media strategy ready.