Baring all

A wonderful article by Kira Cochrane in The Guardian looks at how even the highest paid, successful and talented female stars in Hollywood like Nicole Kidman, Kiera Knightley and Scarlett Johansson take their clothes off for high-profile magazines like GQ, Vanity Fair and Esquire. Is that the price they must pay for publicity? Cochrane wonders if that is what it takes for the women to remain stars, even though they have careers that most actors would kill for. It sure doesn't guarantee positive PR, as is evident from the recent controversy about Knightley's slim figure. So why is baring flesh for magazines and advertisements the only sure-fire route to success?

Paying tribute

Jane Tomlinson was a true hero, an inspiration for millions of people around the world. She fiercely fought cancer for 17 years, battling back the disease for seven years when she was given just six months to live. She never gave up, holding out hope not just for herself, her family and friends but also for other sufferers of terminal illnesses and their loved ones. She ran several marathans, participated in some of the toughest triathalons and cycled across Europe and America to raise £1.75 million for charity. She did it all, often despite chemotherapy, so that, in her own words, in future people wouldn't have to hear a doctor tell them that they have only six months to live. She received an honorary degree and PhD, an MBE, CBE and many other awards. Sportsmen and women, royalty and even politicans admired and respected her. She acheived all this by being honest, courageous, strong, and determined. All she wanted was to be with her family and watch her children grow up. That is why she received worldwide publicity which helped her raise funds for charity. She wanted to make life better for cancer sufferers, and so others responded to her calls for help. She will be deeply missed. Her life was a ray of hope.

The Camilla controversy

It was a another Royal public relations disaster. Diana's sons invited Camilla to attend their mother's memorial service on August 31, her 10th death anniversary. The presence of most members of the royal family (excluding the exes) would have portrayed a united front on the one issue that divided the household and created a rift between the
Queen and her subjects.

But Diana's supporters were not content to let sleeping dogs lie. Many went public about their outrage at the person they (and Diana) blamed for her failed marriage. The Queen ostensibly stepped in and gave her permission for Camilla's absence from the service (incidentally at the same church where Camilla married her first husband).

Whether she actively discourage Camilla from going or merely acted to save her further embarassment is not entirely clear. Neither is how much of a part Prince Charles had to play in the controversy -- did he want her at his side or did he prefer her to remain in the shadows? Rumours suggest he encouraged her
to agree to attend, although she had her misgivings.

In the end, Diana's memorial service was marred by the Camilla controversy. She, on the other hand, is reportedly miffed with her husband and is off on a Mediterranean holiday in a few days with some family and friends -- but without Charles.

The Royal PR machine is studiously avoiding any further comment on the matter and are understandably keen to play down the issue. When will they ever learn that when Diana and Camilla are mentioned in the same story, there is bound to be discord?

Random Musings

Brad Pitt has been playing father to one of his two daughters in New York's Central Park recently, while partner Angelina Jolie visits Iraq. Zahara was seen accompanied by her stuffed penguin, her adoptive father and a bunch of bodyguards. But what escaped the attention of most star-struck fans was the handsome Hollywood star's new tattoo on his left forearm.

It was none other than Oetzi the Iceman, a naturally mummified body dating back to 3,300, BC, found buried in the Alps bordering Austria and Italy in 1993. Certainly makes for a refreshing change, although perhaps it won't generate as much publicity as Beck's tattoo in Hindi of his wife's name (spelt wrongly), but it's sure to create a fair share of curiosity. Pitt's pulicist says he has "no idea" about the rather strange choice of design.

Philip Pullman fans will be waiting with so small measure of anticipation (not all of it positive) for the first in His Dark Material trilogy from the New Line Cinema stable. But the Golden Compass has already been mired in controversy. Not entirely unexpected, considering the essentially atheistic and anti-god concept.

"The heroes include a pair of gay angels, a band of witches, and a lapsed nun who traded her vows for a life of sex and science; among the villains is a zealous priest who doubles as an assassin. A successful resolution of the plot requires God to be euthanized and an adolescent girl to give into sexual temptation," Jeff Bercovici aptly puts it.

According to The New York Times, "the books' religion-touched heavies were massaged into more generalized, authoritarian villains". But what would be the point? It would almost be like Harry Potter fighting an even-tempered Voldemort who never kills, merely stuns his victims.

"The books' theology (atheology?) is integral to their appeal; without it, they're just stories about talking bears and a plucky street urchin. And it's not as though controversy doesn't also sell tickets. Just look at The Da Vinci code which managed a similar worldwide take despite terrible reviews. Shouldn't a tie go to the author?" writes Bercovici. I couldn't agree more.

Dubious honour

It's a dubious title for Britain's most famous spin doctor, but it's certainly winning him more free press coverage. "Alastair Campbell's book on his time in government is selling well but his first literary accolade is an unwelcome one. The Blair Years has topped a list of the books most often left behind in hotel rooms," writes the Independent.

"In the rather less coveted list of books left behind by hotel guests, Mr Campbell was in the company of people he might prefer to avoid. Piers Morgan, the former editor of the Daily Mirror, with whom he had plenty of run-ins during his years in Downing Street, was runner-up with his book Don't You Know Who I Am? and Katie Price, better known as the model Jordan, was third with her A Whole New World," the newspaper goes on to add.

Surprisingly (or not, for those who failed to failed to retrieve the weighty book), number 10 on the list is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. If you left behind your copy in a distant hotel room and would like to refresh your memory before (or after) reading the last in the series, the best bet would be your local Travelodge (since they conducted the study, I'm guessing they have more than a few copies clogging up the lost-and-found room). I doubt they would ask for identification.

Pulped Faction is the story's headline on Channel 4's website.

Battle to regain reputation

Two countries as different from each other as possible, yet both struggling to regain there reputations for being great nations. At the heart of the matter for both the US and China is one of the biggest PR wars they have ever had to wage...

USA
The domestic PR war over Iraq is about to begin in earnest.
When the war in Iraq did not progress as quickly as the Administration had hoped, President Bush resisted comparisons with Vietnam. In 2005, he said, "I don't see the parallels."
But as this discretionary war has dragged on and on, he has relented. Almost a year ago, he conceded in an interview that the escalation of violence last October might be comparable to the Tet offensive, which marked a turning point in Vietnam.
Wednesday Bush is going one step further.
In a speech to the VFW Missouri, Bush will argue that Iraq is like Vietnam ... but unlike Vietnam, we shouldn't pull out because our departure won't stop the killing. (Reminder: he did not serve in Vietnam.)
In other words: let's think of Iraq like a mulligan, a do-over: we caused a bloodbath by leaving Vietnam so if we don't leave Iraq, there won't be a bloodbath.

Read the story Bush Compares Iraq With Vietnam; PR Battle Begins

China
China has launched a new campaign to restore international trust in its products with a weeklong television series defending the country's safety standards.
The new television campaign titled "Believe in Made in China" follows discoveries of high levels of chemicals and toxins in a range of Chinese exports from toys to toothpaste and fish.
The first program in the series aired Sunday on China Central Television's economic channel and featured the head of a quality watchdog criticising the recent furor over the quality of Chinese exports as "demonising" China's products.
"Personally, I believe it is new trend in trade protectionism. Although recalls are necessary, it is unfair to decide that all products made in China are unqualified," Li Changjiang, director of China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, said on the 90-minute segment.

Read the rest of China's tainted-products scandal gets PR makeover

Power to the people

Universities, government agencies, corporates, big organisations, politicians even media companies -- in short, people and institutions in power have abused it at some point. Not always are there reliable measures in place to keep checks and balances on the misuse of power, particularly when it comes to the spread of false information in a deliberate attempt to hide the truth and dupe the public.

One Wikipedia fan has however come up with an ingenious method to name and shame the worst of the offenders. Try the WikiScanner and delve into the dark secrets of the online misinformation campaigners. Just type the name of the organisation you wish to find out about, or alternatively the Wikipedia entry you are interested in. Lo and behold, there appears a list of IP addresses. A click or two away is the list of entries where anonymous edits were made by the online offenders.

PR is good for companies and necessary for the dissemination of information through the right channels. But using spin to hide uncomfortable truths from the public sphere is unconscionable. The tool devised by Virgil Griffith will go a long way in restoring the faith in Wikipedia and the Internet, while damaging the reputations of the individuals and institutions that hoped to gain favourable publicity through underhand means.

Power of e-PR

New media tools have become quite the popular PR tools, from social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo to blogs and webpages like Blogspot and Google Pages. Podcasts, webcasts, YouTube, MySpace and other similar online devices familiar to GeneratioNext are being used more regularly by the Baby Boomers. Politicans and professionals use it propogate their message, businessmen and entrepreneurs utilise it to garner customers and clients, and just about anybody is free to spread their opinions and communicate with the world.

This inevitably means that the same methods which helped Iraqis caught up in the war tell the world about their personal experiences firsthand, is also open to abuse mainly by messengers of misinformation like the formidable spin machines of senior politicans, corporates, big businesses and government security agencies. So why would anyone take these tech tools seriously? Because they help people connect on an unprecedented level.

Just ask Bubba Waring. Actually, he's not born yet. In fact, no one is sure whether the child to be is a boy or girl. Dubbed Australia's most famous foetus, Bubba already has a facebook with over 100 friends. Created by his parents Claire Gillis and Luke Waring of Sydney, it was meant as a way of keeping their friends and family updated about the baby's wellbeing. But Bubba became an instant online celebrity, and the couple's inbox was flooded with messages and friends requests. But no one quite knows whether Bubba is a boy or a girl.

For Oli Young, also of Australia, the social networking site has turned into a campainging portal. He wants to name his baby son Spider Pig, after the porker in Simpsons Movie. His wife will allow it only if 100,000 people sign a petition. Oli so far has 48,000. One can only hope the list of signatures falls short, for the sake of the toddler's confidence and self-esteem.

The power of e-PR is too often underestimated. John Sweeney's outburst on the Panorama show about Scientology and the posting of the clip on YouTube generated more free PR for the show than any amount of TV advertising. The ratings rose and the BBC journalist had his own online fan clubs and hate clubs.

The CNN and YouTube collaboration that involved in direct video questions from the US people to the Democrat presidential candidates resulted in more free publicity than any amount of media stories on policies. It made possible direct contant between the public and the politicians on issues that mattered to both sides.

Plenty of companies like supermarket chains Wal-Mart and Tesco have profiles on Facebook, SNP posts broadcasts on YouTube, WebCameron was much written about and corporates like PricewaterhouseCoopers has employee blogs. But should they be allowed to pervade the publich sphere to such an extent that it proliferates places that some think is all about community connection?

To get an answer, run a search for BNP on Facebook. The British National Party's official group, BNP, which promotes the party's policies, has 370 members. The Anti-BNP group has 1,880 members. A BNP news group has 21 members, while the Ban the BNP from Facebook or we walk group has 426 members.

News in brief

Here are some stories in the PR world making it in the news this week, from Ghana to Germany. It speaks volumes about the proliferation of public relations...

Bali to host IPRA conference next month

Bali will play host to the first ever International Public Relations Association (IPRA) conference held in the ASEAN region in September.
The conference, specifically targeted at IPRA members in the South East Asian countries, is a two-day regional affair. It will see notable speakers from Brussels to Beijing and the IPRA fraternity converge to share their thoughts on the power of public relations in building relationships among various societies, communities, and countries of the world.
Bearing the theme Building Bridges through Dialogue, this event is expected to attract approximately 300-400 delegates from all over the world.Open to all public relations practitioners this conference is a Malaysia- Indonesia collaboration, supported by a steering committee which includes IPRA board member 2007/08 Millicent Danker (Malaysia), and former IPRA board member, Dr Elizabeth Ananto (Indonesia).

Public relations week launched

The Institute of Public Relations Ghana (IPR) has launched its 2007 Public Relations (PR) week in Accra.The one-week event has been billed to discuss ways in which PR should be performed in a country that is poised to transform its economy and join the ranks of middle income community in 2015. Mr. Kojo Yankah, President of IPR Ghana in his address, noted that the Institute considered it a professional duty to engage Ghanaians whether in academia or in the intellectual community, in active discourse on the PR implications. He said Ghana is undertaking various reforms to enable it join the emerging market economies, as such it is expected to exhibit both transparency and efficiency.The theme for the event was “Managing The Reputation Of Ghana As An Emerging Market”.

Public relations industry utilizes new tools

Posting videos online may be standard drill for members of Gen X and Gen Y, but interest in blogs, podcasts and social networking sites also is increasing in corporate media rooms.
The new tools are becoming widely accepted in the public relations industry, according to recent surveys by the Public Relations Society of America and Dow Jones & Co.
Nearly 100 percent of industry professionals and students surveyed agreed that technology has positively affected public relations practice.
About 19 percent of student respondents said that social networking sites such as MySpace and YouTube present the most significant opportunity for the industry, compared with 10 percent of professional respondents.

And finally...

Economy ministry fires PR firm over ad deals

Germany's economy ministry has fired its public relations company, saying the firm offered to buy advertising space in a newspaper in return for the paper running stories on ministry policy. The company breached Germany's media code by tying ad sales to a campaign to promote the ministry's revamped policy toward small and medium-sized companies, Steffen Moritz, a Berlin-based ministry spokesperson, said yesterday. The action was "unauthorised" and "improper," said Moritz, who didn't identify the newspaper or the public relations agency. The ministry sought editorial "partnerships" such as participating in conferences to promote its policy, he said. Jan Flaskamp, a board member of the Flaskamp AG agency, said his company did not offer the prospect of ad sales in a swap for editorial services.

And so we are all tarred with the same brush, giving PR a bad name.

Wiki-spin

Wikipedia revolutionised the concept of online information. Gathering data, researching topics and sharing information became as easy as a few clicks of the mouse. Create an entry on almost any topic under the sun, add details or edit matter, delete wrong information, update news as and when it happens -- there are very few limits to what one can do.

There are no substitutes for going through archives online or otherwise, but Wikipedia proved a valuable starting point for the information gathering process. From teachers and students to the CIA and Microsoft, millions of people freely edit and get information from the internet encyclopaedia.

But it's open nature, at the very core of its popularity, has left it vulnerable to vandalism in the past, from pranksters playing an April Fool's joke to multinational corporations subtly rearranging words and phrases to their own advantage. This has left many critics and fans of Wikipedia questioning the integrity of its information.

The worldwide online community is the guardian of Wikipedia, protecting against vandalism. But where defacement of a malicious nature is easier to pinpoint and correct, it is sabotage of the spin kind, by politicians, big companies and organisations that is more difficult to detect. US congressmen have edited their own entries, as has supermarket chain Wal-Mart. Clever tweaking of information makes it look like the basic information is intact. But in fact it lends a more favourable outlook. That, in essence, is spin.

One of the more prominent cases was of Diebold Election Systems. A significant portion of the company's entry questioning the integrity of the electronic voting system was found deleted. Following the trail, it was later traced back to the company itself. The discovery of Diebold's duplicity was perhaps more damaging than the dubious spin tactic would have helped in the first place.

And what about that institution of disinformation -- intelligence agencies and their spy networks? Very few people would refuse to believe that the CIA and MI5 have not removed information or planted misinformation in a deliberate attempt to dupe the public. OhMyNews has this interesting article about Wikipedia and the Intelligence Services.

What then is the future of Wikipedia? Wired has discovered CalTech student Virgil Griffith who has discovered a method to expose the anonymous editors of Wikipedia. Follow the IP trail in See Who's Editing Wikipedia.

The fight is far from over yet. Strike one for spin.

Love's Farewell

Fingers have already been pointed at faulty PR for the mistaken message that documentary filmmaker Paul Watson had actually filmed the death of Malcolm Pointon for the ITV documentary Malcolm and Barbara: Love's Farewell.

The film, broadcast on Wednesday 8 August, was a moving, poignant and tragic portrayal of one man's descent into dementia caused by Alzheimer's disease and the consequences of the fatal illness for his wife. The 11-year project was a testament to the strength of the Pointons, the ravages of Alzheimer's, the sad state of healthcare in the country and the commitment of a filmmaker to telling a story as honestly as possible.

Unfortunately, the significance of the film was lost beneath a storm of controversy initially stirred by tabloids about the voyeurism of broadcasting the death of a human being. What caused it was an ITV press release that declared: "The film ends when Barbara calls Paul to ask him to come, as Malcolm is about to die .... In moving scenes, Malcolm is surrounded by his family and Barbara strokes his head as he passes away."

The press release was approved, but Paul Watson says he never saw it. In interviews, he says he never alluded to the fact that he had actually filmed the death. In fact, as Malcolm Pointon's brother Graham said in an online statement, Watson had stopped filming a few days before the event in February this year. He had wanted to give the family some peace.

The controversy then shifted to another level, following in the footsteps of the recent TV-related scandals about broadcasters deceiving the public en masse. It turned into a story of another incident of a broadcaster misleading the public. Michael Grade has launched an investigation into what has now been classified as false information. Heads will soon roll, no doubt in ITV's press office.

Sadly, Barbara and Malcolm's love story was diluted. Few seem to realise that Barbara Pointon has no complaints against Watson or ITV. She insists that the film was true to their story. In fact, she considered her husband to have died when he slipped into the coma, as shown on the film. The last scene of the film, called into question because the still image of Malcolm was ostensibly meant to indicate his death, showed him to be lifeless rather than dead. Which is what he was at that time.

The press release says that he "passes away", not that he died in the last scene of the film. It is perhaps a play on words, but the fact is that he had passed away. Malcolm Pointon was in a coma, he was a lifeless shell of the man that he was, destroyed by Alzheimer's disease.

Making Waves

An Australian scuba diver reading a copy of the new Ocean Geographic magazine during its official launch at the Sydney Aquarium on August 3. Now that's what I call a stylish public relations stunt. Making a splash is what matters when first impressions are at stake. Go grand and the guarantee is that it will stay in public memory.

Waging a worthy PR war

Public Relations is going where it has never gone before. The Chinese government is waging PR war to get the good citizens on its side, using more sensitive slogans to encourage family planning. Classic one liners like "Raise fewer babies but more piggies" and "One more baby means one more tomb" will be lost forever in favour of more polite options like "The mother earth is too tired to sustain more children". The government is worried about its tarnished image apparently. Better late then never.

Meanwhile in faraway Seattle, the local authorities organise and an obscure online poll to select a poet who is then paid the princely sum of $500. In return, the winner has to turn up as required at official events and read poetry. Bizarre but true. Nothing is free they say, not even in the land of opportunity. Another futile PR excercise or a worthwhile effort? Read on...

The Press Trust of India reports:

In a bid to win the hearts and minds of the Chinese people on the country's unpopular family planning policy, the government has decided to clean up stiff or even crude slogans on rural walls that ask people to have fewer children.

The National Population and Family Planning Commission issued a circular this week demanding local officials to substitute those stiff, offensive and bad-taste slogans with 190 recommended ones which it said had been selected from a 'national collection campaign'.

The commission acknowledged that currently many slogans promoting the family planning policy are poorly worded, or full of strong language that leave an impression of simply forcing people to give up having more babies, causing misunderstanding on the policy and even tarnishing the image of the government.

The slogans sometimes are full of wrongly written words and are also poorly painted, with an unorderly design of character size, colour, typeface and position, the commission said.Widely posted slogans on BBS and blogs range from earthy ones like "Raise fewer babies but more piggies" to forcible or bloody ones like "Houses toppled, cows confiscated, if abortion demand rejected" and "One more baby means one more tomb."

If such low-quality slogans, which may cause public complaint and resentment, are not corrected and remain where they are, the country's family planning efforts in the new era will be hindered, the commission said, proposing a list of more amiable slogans including "The mother earth is too tired to sustain more children" and "Both boys and girls are parents' hearts".

The Seattle Post Intelligencer writes:

Nick Licata's a good guy. Obviously he's a good guy. You're looking for a good guy, look no further.

As Seattle's City Council prez, he can be counted on to advocate a populist approach, which is why he's the chief supporter of Seattle Poet Populist. Each year, arts organizations great and small, mostly small, nominate somebody, and the people vote online for the winner.

The lucky duck gets $500. For that princely sum, he/she is expected to pop up at various official events and read poems.

Licata is undoubtedly the only City Council member to insist that poets read at his committee meetings. Why they would want to is a mystery.

Follow the above link, and you can cast your e-vote, due Aug. 15.

Here's my problem. I go the site and read about the life experiences of these poets. What I can't do is read a poem. Oh, by following a maze of links, I can uncover a few poems, but mostly I uncover more information about the poets and the organizations that sponsored them.

Why? Because this feel-good event is not about poetry. It's about using poets to well-wish the government. It's about poetry as PR for political functionaries.

Nick: Instead of shaking hands with poets and paying them a pittance, why not support the organizations that support them? Instead of an e-vote for a meaningless position, why not have experts (yes, I mean celebrated leaders in the field) chose one and write that person a real check?

Poetry is not a populist enterprise. When it matters at all, it's the opposite of populist. It starts with talent given to a precious few and denied to the multitude.