You Can’t Pour Perfume on a Skunk

This is the time of year for “best” and worst” lists - and there’s plenty in the world of communications. In 2007 a US Senator explained that he had a “wide stance” in the bathroom stall, and US Attorney Alberto Gonzales repeatedly said “I can’t recall”. Several big corporations published fake blogs, and plagiarism at student newspapers was on the rise.

PR expert and author Fraser Seitel predicts that the current Bush administration will be known as the worst PR administration in history. In case you aren’t familiar with Seitel or his classic “The Practice of Public Relations”, his politics are Republican, and he voted for Bush twice. As a public relations professional, however, Seitel is anything but a loyal Bushie. Seitel recently used the famous skunk analogy to describe the White House attempts to put spin on failed administration policies. One of his key critiques of the administration - in addition to describing Bush as “virtually inarticulate”, is the lack of candor. A basic PR premise is that if mistakes are made you acknowledge them and maintain your credibility with the public, “the cardinal rule [in public relations] is you never lie”.

Not every communications professional followed Seitel’s advice this year. Among reporter gaffes were a San Antonio columnist caught plagiarizing from Wikepedia, and a CBS News producer plagiarizing from the Wall Street Journal. A kid got caught in the plagiarism tangle when he/she sent in a poem to the Washington Post, not realizing the submission was supposed to be original.

But the media error of the year had to be a Russian submarine story first produced by the Russian TV Network and distributed worldwide by Reuters. A 13-year-old Finland boy noticed that the submarine footage was actually swiped from the hit movie Titanic, prompting NBC Nightly News and others to run corrections. You can find this and other terrific information about media errors from regrettheerror.com, which is published by Craig Silverman, author of Regret the Error. According to Silverman, newspapers have an error rate ranging from 40-60%.