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.