On Burson-Marsteller, Facebook, and ethics in PR

News broke this week about global PR giant Burson-Marsteller pitching untrue stories about how Google's Gmail Social Circle feature breaks FTC rules on users' privacy. 

According to various reports, two Burson-Marsteller account executives, one a former CNBC reporter and the other a former political columnist, attempted to persuade influential bloggers and mainstream media to report on (ultimately false) allegations of Google's violations of privacy rules -- and refused to name their client. (The emails between Burson-Marsteller's John Mercurio and blogger Christopher Soghoian, whom Mercurio was trying to persuade to write an Op-Ed on the topic, are posted here.)

Honesty and transparency in PR: the rules are clear

PR has been fighting its own bad PR for at least a generation. An article on the story in AdWeek included the following infuriating (to me) statement: "While sleazy PR firms trying to spread scandalous stories is old hat..."

Ethical, moral, honest practitioners of public relations face this kind of slag on a regular basis, thanks to unethical, immoral, dishonest practitioners of backroom dealings who've come before them and branded their work "PR."

I've heard it myself from former journalists, in the context of joking around. I'm in PR, so I must be all about spin, right? I'm likely a very good liar, right? I must be, I'm in PR!

No, not right. (And on my cranky days, not even funny.) But what can we do about it? It's not as though those impressions are baseless; PR has gotten that reputation because people speaking on behalf of organizations, in the role of "public relations," have taken actions that have brought that reputation on us all.

Here's what we can do: prove that reputation wrong. 

The best thing PR people can do to combat PR's bad rep is to work honestly and ethically. Nothing is more persuasive than personal experience: most journalists, whether or not they buy into the "PR people are liars" storyline overall, have worked with PR people who deal in good faith, and whom they trust. The more above-board PR people they deal with, the less they'll be inclined to believe the old story.

Many PR professionals like me join professional associations like the Canadian Public Relations Society, the International Association of Business Communicators, and the Public Relations Society of America, among others. Each of these associations has a code of ethics or of professional business conduct that details the requirements for its members to conduct business ethically, honestly and transparently.  You don't need to belong to one of these associations to perform ethically, of course -- but by actively participating in them, you make a commitment to your clients that your work will follow their publicly-stated standards.

The more real PR people consistently deal openly and ethically with their audiences, the less that "sleazy PR firm" image will endure.

At least, I hope.

A point worth making

As I followed this story on Twitter yesterday, I saw a Tweet from British PR educator Heather Yaxley that said something I had been thinking.

(Thank you to @jgombita for re-tweeting it to her followers, including me.)

It's not lost on me that the PR practitioners in question are both former journalists. I wonder whether they also joked about how sleazy PR people are, in their journalism days. 

Even the big guys have to follow the rules.

Here is Burson-Marsteller's statement, posted earlier today on its website.

"Now that Facebook has come forward, we can confirm that we undertook an assignment for that client.

The client requested that its name be withheld on the grounds that it was merely asking to bring publicly available information to light and such information could then be independently and easily replicated by any media.  Any information brought to media attention raised fair questions, was in the public domain, and was in any event for the media to verify through independent sources.

Whatever the rationale, this was not at all standard operating procedure and is against our policies, and the assignment on those terms should have been declined. When talking to the media, we need to adhere to strict standards of transparency about clients, and this incident underscores the absolute importance of that principle."

Without its reputation, the product of integrity and ethical dealings, a PR firm can't be successful in building relationships with any of its audiences. Professional PR people almost have to be more honest than everyone else -- or they'll be out of work.

Burson-Marsteller has a big job to do. 

Reading What Happened

I picked up What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, by Scott McClellan (George W. Bush’s Press Secretary from 2003-2006), curiosity piqued by his widely-reported criticism of the Bush White House. To be honest, it sounded like good blood-sport with some potential for professional development built in: a PR geek’s summer reading dream!

In it, McClellan gives an interesting insider’s perspective on the events that marked his tenure in the White House press office. He is clear in his denial of having knowingly misled the American people about the Valerie Plame affair; he also discusses at length the “permanent campaign” culture in Washington, in which positions and decisions on both sides of the aisle are predicated on political strategy rather than what’s really right for the country.

McClellan acknowledges that the effects of the “permanent campaign” mentality have broken public confidence in government, and makes an impassioned case for government to work more openly and transparently if that is ever to be repaired. And he’s right.

I did find, though, that McClellan’s attempts to position himself as the honest guy calling for change seemed a bit disingenuous. His own hands aren’t entirely clean; and while his motivations may not be directly tied to the “permanent campaign,” to me at least, the end result (i.e. damaged credibility) is the same.

Early on, he recounts hearing Bush say he “honestly” couldn’t remember whether he had used cocaine during the party days of his youth.

“I know Bush, and I know he genuinely believes what he says. He isn’t the kind of person to flat-out lie, particularly when speaking in private to a supporter or friend. So I think he meant what he said in that conversation about cocaine. It’s the first time when I felt I was witnessing Bush convincing himself to believe something that probably was not true and that, deep down, he knew was not true. And his reason for doing so is fairly obvious: political convenience. ”

(49)

McClellan compares Bush’s selective memory to that of a courtroom witness who claims not to remember things to avoid implicating himself, and seems to accept it because he doesn’t think the issue (i.e. possibly having tried cocaine in his youth) is germane to Bush’s ability to govern in the present. While that may be valid, the problem for me is less the possibility of having tried cocaine once in his youth than the readiness to be dishonest about it now. As the logic goes, if you’re willing to be dishonest about issues that don’t matter, why should we think you’ll be honest about issues that do?

For me, McClellan shows the same willingness to be selective that he criticizes in Bush. McClellan suggests Bush doesn’t want to admit he took cocaine – I suspect McClellan doesn’t want to admit he chose to speak for someone he knew to be dishonest.

In PR, our reputations are our stock-in-trade; if people don’t think they can trust us, we’re no good to our clients. If you decide you can represent a client who isn’t going to be honest with you (and therefore, your audiences), you have to accept that your credibility may pay the price. And I don’t think you can consider yourself a victim of their dishonesty when it does, as McClellan seems to.

For me, the most valuable section of What Happened was the chapter on the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. McClellan openly admits the government’s mishandling of the disaster – and the chapter gives an interesting insider’s account that shows how quickly public goodwill can be lost in a crisis. I felt for him as I read this chapter, as I always do for communicators dealing with really tough issues. We’ll be discussing that chapter in class this fall.

While I don’t think it achieved what McClellan was going for, What Happened was worth the read. If you’re looking for a behind-the-headlines perspective on some interesting PR case studies, you might want to check it out.

Socrates! Blogs and tweets are public!

Steve Martin did a bit in 1980 in which Socrates complains that, despite all the time he and his students spent together, no-one ever mentioned that hemlock is poisonous [note: the part related to this topic is over by the 2 ½-minute mark].



Conservative Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is finding out this week that sometimes, what seems obvious (or at least, common knowledge) isn’t so obvious to everyone. He and his party are doing a little damage control after Edmonton-Calder MLA Doug Elniski posted some ill-considered “advice” to high-school girls on his blog [another note: this clip is preceded by a 30-second commercial, and followed immediately by other news stories].

Mr. Elniski reportedly has also had to apologize for comments he made on Twitter.

Everywhere we look these days, there’s discussion of how social media tools like blogs, Twitter, and Facebook are revolutionizing communications by allowing organizations and people in power to converse directly with their customers or constituents online. With that free access to “the people”, though, must come the recognition that what you say using these tools is “out there.” Sometimes, it can feel like a tweet is just a short-lived, offhand comment to your friends – but when you have a public reputation you care about, you need to make sure your tweets (or blog posts, or Facebook status updates) reflect who you are professionally.

We give this same advice to our CreComm students at Red River College. What you post online contributes to how the world – including future employers – sees you; so resist the temptation to post things that will reflect poorly on your “personal brand”. Once you post them, they're “out there”, for far more than your close friends to see. People who don’t know you will make judgments based on what you post – and that may not tell the whole (or even an accurate) story.

OK, gotcha. Watch what I say using social media, check. Case closed?

Not quite.

In an article in The Globe and Mail online, Elniski says he will continue to use online communications – “but he may have his comments vetted, possibly by government officials, before they appear;” for his part, Stelmach’s chief of staff says he’s going to “send a letter to Tory MLAs in the coming days about the dos and don'ts of using social networking websites.” Certainly, that might help reduce the number of similar embarrassments to the party in future – but it doesn’t address the fundamental issue of the MLA’s personal views and judgment. [For the record, Elniski has publicly regretted and apologized for the comments, and Premier Stelmach has clearly stated that the comments don't reflect "my values, they don't reflect the values of our government, they don't reflect the values of the caucus nor of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party."]

Historically, many Canadians have voted for candidates without ever having had direct contact with them; they voted for the ideas and ideals attributed to the candidates, but didn’t have much opportunity to get to know them personally. Now, social media tools like blogs and Twitter allow politicians more opportunities to speak directly to their constituencies without the filters of the mainstream media (or even, apparently, party brass); they allow people to get to know their representatives a little better on a personal level, for better or for worse. Today, if your candidate has a less-than-politics-friendly sense of humour, people are going to notice it.

Vetting politicians' blog posts and tweets may reduce the potential for online embarrassments, but if they really represent their views, they're just as likely to express them in other forums. New media and traditional PR tactics aside, the most important ingredient in any successful PR campaign is your product: if there are characteristics of your product your customers won’t like, the best PR strategy for the long term is to address them.

"Raitt-gate" spurs my first blog post

Former Tory communications staffer Jasmine MacDonnell is this week's poster-child for the importance of remembering the little things (like "where you left your top-secret binder") in big PR jobs (like "Press Secretary to a federal Cabinet Minister").

In case you missed the story, Ms. MacDonnell was the Press Secretary for Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt; she reportedly left "a binder full of sensitive government documents concerning Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and the troubled Chalk River reactor at the CTV Ottawa bureau last week" (see Joanna Smith's full article on The Toronto Star's website here). 

The leak of the contents of that binder became headline news, and embarrassed the government. Minister Raitt accepted Ms. MacDonnell's resignation, and members of the opposition called for the Minister's job, as well. Smith quotes Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff  as saying "I don't like people blaming 26-year-olds"; but if published accounts are correct, the fact remains that Ms. MacDonnell had a job to do (i.e. enhance/protect her client's reputation) and didn't do it.

PR professionals handle a great deal of information: some public, some confidential, and some potentially embarrassing. We develop and implement communication strategies to help every client put their best foot forward, which can be heady work -- but which is all for naught if our own actions harm that client's reputation.  

I'm sure Ms. MacDonnell is a fine person; any online reports I've read about her performance outside this incident cast her as a capable PR practitioner. [UPDATE: further media reports are indicating that this may not have been an isolated example of poor judgement on Ms. MacDonnell's part. Apparently, the binder and a voice recording of Minister Raitt referring to cancer issues as "sexy" were left behind at different media outlets on different occasions; and when a reporter called to let Ms. MacDonnell know she'd left the voice recorder behind, she promised to pick it up but didn't. That reporter only listened to the tape after the AECL binder story had broken. And we haven't yet touched on the topic of trying to have publication of the found recording banned by the courts...] But she's learned an important lesson the hard way: in PR, professionalism is paramount. Especially if you're going to play with the big boys, there'll be people watching for slip-ups; so you can't slip up.  

I used to joke with a colleague that the ideal PR person has that perfect mix of strategic ability, common sense, clear communications, manners, work ethic, and OCD.  That last part -- the part that makes you check your briefcase eight times for that top-secret binder [and your voice recorder] before leaving the building -- might have saved Ms. MacDonnell's job, and given her client one less bomb to defuse.