Today Oprah is airing a piece with Madonna discussing the adoption of 13-month-old David Banda amidst the allegations of the pop star using her power and status to swoop in and “rescue” an African child.  So before it airs and anyone sees it, we want to add to the discussion.

We read an article out of Canada – the news coverage of this adoption is global.  

The thing that bothers us the most is this quote, “If you want to be perceived as Mother Bountiful, you have to make sure you get it right,” Gossage said. “Look at the way people like Princess Di and Angelina Jolie conducted themselves in the Third World. They were committed to their cause for years, and they got it right. You have to show consistent and ongoing commitment for quite some time before you just drop in and grab a kid.”

So if you adopt a child in Africa, with or without parents, do you have to “get it right”?  Do you have to be committed to the cause for years?  Or can you go through an adoption agency and adopt a baby that needs to be educated or needs parents?  

Madonna told ABC News that David’s father “looked into my eyes and said to me that he was very grateful that I was going to give his son a life, and that had he kept his son with him in the village he would have buried him” just as he had buried his wife and three other children.

If you adopt a baby, do you need to hire a publicist so your motivations are seen as true and not as
self-serving?  We would hope any publicist would help their client see that adopting a baby, no matter the circumstances, is making the world a better place.

As PR experts ourselves, we don’t think Madonna handled her adoption poorly; he was in fact in an orphanage with 500 children.  We don’t think she’s hurting her own image by not clearly stating her motivation for adopting this child.  She is Madonna, after all, and little David Banda Ritchie is going to have a better life than anyone in his genealogy could have ever imagined.

Spin sucks!

The October issue of California Progress Report has a retired soil scientist commenting on why “we abandon science in favor of PR”.  Part of his commentary discusses the “shuck and jive being put out by these experts and their PR machine effort…it’s pretty hard to sell the truth when misinformation and distortion seem to sell so easily.”  He even goes on to say that “a good PR message makes a normally sensible person take leave of their senses.”  

I think his original message is to help his readers understand how ecoli has gotten into spinach and lettuce.  He quotes an October 25, 2004 story from the Los Angeles Daily News about a reclamation making Orange County drought proof.  But he gets wrapped up in how warped the PR is as a profession and how we’re ruining science because we pitch stories.

He even calls out a specific PR firm and what they did to help Monterey County “sell their program of using tertiary treated sewage”.  

How do we fight back?  How do we fight against destructive spin?  How do become so ethical as an industry that people can’t help but sing our accolades?  We once heard PR people are down there among the bottom feeders of IRS people and attorneys.  We want to change the perception and we need your help!

Game Daily Biz wrote an op-ed last week about PR manipulation.  While a very funny, very well written article, Mr. Media Coverage discussed how to manipulate reporters in order to get your story covered.

Some of the examples were pretty decent, “don’t send gifts”, “do give exclusive angles”, and “don’t talk to the boss”, nearly all of his examples could be considered bribery.  

The story, “PR Manipulation 101: How to Get Good Coverage for Bad Games” is a very witty take on how to get your client’s product mentioned by an industry reporter.  

I’m having a hard time determining whether or not he’s serious.  I’m also having a hard time determining what he thinks would work (a media tour in Hawaii) or what wouldn’t work (“I’m in no position to receive any of these goodies”).  But what I can determine is he believes very few “PR folks have mastered this talent”.

Go back to basics.  Read the publications that you are pitching.  Know what the reporter you’re working with will cover.  Be helpful.  And always provide ethical, un-biased research or background information to avoid being labeled a spinster.

I just re-read an article written earlier this year called “’Spin’ is the enemy of PR pros”, written by Fraser P. Setiel, which ran in the February issue of O’Dwyer’s.   

The article states, “The first task of any PR professional is to make sure the performance is solid, proper, and successful.  If it isn’t, then it’s the responsibility of PR practitioners to work to fix the performance before publicizing how terrific everything is.”  In other words, “your credibility — with clients, coworkers, and reporters — depends on truth, not on spin.”

Our industry is fraught with the perception that all we do is make up lies to benefit our clients.  If our client is Tom Cruise and we want to make him seem less nutty, we invite Vanity Fair to stay with him and his family for a week to report on their normalcy.  If our client is Terrell Owens, we spin the story of him taking too much pain medication as an “allergic reaction”.

Maybe in the lives of celebrities and professional athletes, publicists have to spin stories to counter act the egos and large personalities of our clients.  But as PR professionals dealing with companies, associations, organizations, the government, and other entities that affect how we live our lives, it is our job to remain ethical and credible.  Just as Setiel states, “in public relations, if you lie once (or even stretch the truth), you will never again be trusted.”  And that’s a disservice to you, to your colleagues, to your peers, to the reporters with whom you work, and most of all, to your clients.

We might be slow, but we just discovered FAIR, a Web site dedicated to the fairness and accuracy in reporting.  One of their “issue areas” is the PR industry. 

According to the site, “the drive to maximize profits compels corporate news outlets to produce more and more news with fewer and fewer reporters. With less time to do each story, journalists are increasingly pressured to rely on the public relations industry to do much of their work for them: Reporters can rewrite press releases rather than do their own independent research, and TV stations can broadcast promotional videos that are designed to look like news footage. This symbiotic relationship between news outlets and the industries they cover, however, is a bad deal for the public.”

On this site, you can view at least 20 articles on how the public relations industry is hurting the news and lying to the public.  

At some point we must stand up for ourselves!  Please post any and all ethical media relations programs you’re doing.  How do you work with reporters?  How do you help them report on the news?  How do you find angles that aren’t always self-serving?  

Remember we think spin sucks so we only want to hear about programs that are helpful and keep extremely high editorial ethical bounds.

Last week Anna Griffin (not to be confused by the paper company of the same name) at the Oregonian wrote a story about public relations “flaks” placing stories.  She called out the Metropolitan Group, which has offices in Portland, Chicago, and Washington D.C., because they claim on their Web site they placed a story in USA Today.  

Where do we, as PR professionals, draw the line?  It’s industry jargon to say we placed a story, if we worked with a reporter, helped schedule interviews, provided background and research, and answered questions.

It’s our job, as PR professionals, to be as helpful as possible to reporters, provide them with real news, and be respectful of their deadlines and editorial ethics.

Does that mean Anna Griffin has never worked with a PR professional?  Or that she just doesn’t like the word “placed”?  Is this considered spin?  If so, does it suck?

In yesterday’s St. Petersburg Times, Washington bureau chief editor, Bill Adair, discusses what corporations are doing to receive “independent and credible” coverage from reporters.

They are paying for it!  GASP!

The article draws three examples of how big corporation views wind up on the opinion pages of national newspapers.

One, my favorite, says that James K. Glassman, a prominent syndicated columnist, denounced Super Size Me in many articles, columns, and op-eds.  A quick Google of his name shows that McDonald’s is a major sponsor of his Web site called Tech Central Station.

Are there PR people out there who would advise their clients that this is a good idea?  If so, I’d like to hear from you.

Until I am convinced otherwise (and it’s highly unlikely that will happen) I am moved to say how appalled I am that some journalists would run something without checking their sources.  It’s our job, as PR professionals, to make the job of the reporter easier, but this takes the cake!

I hope that PR professionals read Mr. Adair’s article and provide ALL information to the journalists they pitch; even if it’s negative.  In the end it will help your story and could potentially avert a crisis.

Click here to see the complete Times article.

Skilled spinners manipulate the facts and deceive the public, pushing their own agendas and clients with a complete disregard for journalistic integrity and common decency.  We have had enough of destructive spin, and we are putting an end to the strategic deception and outright lies.

Spinners have tainted the reputation of public relations with their tall tales and twisted lies, but they are not alone in stripping away the integrity of our field.  Hollywood has imposed itself on our industry, using party planning bimbos and political hypocrites to portray our profession on “reality TV”.  But these shows don’t represent reality, and they’re tainting our reputation one half-hour at a time.

FADS is committed to improving the reputation of our industry and educating the public.  PR is misunderstood, so FADS educates the public about what we do and the important role we play in society.  We disprove the Hollywood hype and expose the “reality” as fiction.

Okay, so we might be dreaming.  I mean, “you never get rid of roaches no matter how much you spray,”* but we’re going to keep trying so the number are small and less influential among our peers (thanks Ray!).

We are proud to be PR professionals.  We love what we do, and we want to restore the integrity of our profession.  Join the Fight Against Destructive Spin today.

Who we are:

We are a group of PR professionals concerned about the reputation of our industry, committed to raising the level of professionalism in public relations and putting an end to destructive spin.   

*Dominick Rosario – Insect terminator and philosopher