Crisis management

PR comes into its own when clients are in deep trouble – whether of their own making or not. Speed, intelligence, guile, contacts, PRs need them all when the chips are down.

Categories: Crisis management / Culture Wars

27 January 2018

10 comments

Say no to the PC mob: bring back darts sexy walk-on girls

Following the scandal over the groping of girls at the Presidents Club’s reportedly debauched charity gala at the Dorchester Hotel in London, the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) has axed its leggy showgirls. To appease feminists and the PC brigade that hates darts, with or without its girly appeal, the PDC finally caved into requests to kiss goodbye to the pretty women who walk male darts stars on to the stage. Darts fans have been betrayed. Read on ›

Lessons from Paperchase’s retreat: corporate cowardice predates social media

A few thousand tabloid-loathing Stop Funding Hate campaigners, exercising their wrist action on Twitter and Facebook, have persuaded Paperchase to abandon an advertising promotion, which offered readers of The Daily Mail two free sheets of Christmas wrapping paper. What should the advertising and PR community make of this debacle? Read on ›

German media scores own goal in the Culture Wars

A just published report from the Hamburg Media School, commissioned by the Otter Brenner Stiftung, accuses the German media of succumbing to steamroller journalism in support of Angela Merkel’s refugee policy in 2015 and early 2016. The researchers looked at 35 000 articles published over a 20-week period. They found that the media ceased being professional regarding the refuge crisis, when they adopted an overwhelmingly emotionally-involved tone in favour of the government’s actions. Read on ›

Categories: Crisis management / Culture Wars / Political spin / Trust and reputations

12 July 2017

2 comments

Bell Pottinger South Africa, a reality check

What unites all the major political parties in South Africa: the African National Congress (ANC), the Democratic Alliance (DA), the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)? The answer is their determination to divide the country along pre-existing racial fault lines. Yet the DA, South Africa’s main opposition party, has had the audacity to lodge a misconduct claim against Bell Pottinger (BP) with the UK’s Public Relations and Communications Association, accusing it of “sow[ing] racial mistrust, hate and race-baiting, and [encouraging a] divided society”.  Read on ›

Categories: Crisis management

20 June 2015

2 comments

The PR industry’s part in professor Tim Hunt’s downfall

Health warning 21st July, 2015: I made two errors in this piece that were pointed out by the author (Louise Bagshawe) and former British MP Louise Mensch.  I am pleased to note that I was not correct to write ‘nobody laughed’ because evidence has emerged demonstrating that there was laughter in response to Tim Hunt’s joke. I was also wrong to write that he made a fool of himself. In my defence, as Louise Mensch kindly tweeted,at the time he [I] wrote this, the falsity of the account of TH joke getting a ‘stony reception’ wasn’t known”. The new news merely strengthens what follows. Read on ›

Categories: Crisis management / Media issues / Political spin / PR issues / Richard D North

1 January 2013

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The Beeb, Plod, HMG and PR

By Richard D North

The big picture

Anyone who cares about Britain, its government and its wider official culture is shaken and stirred by recent media storms. PR professionals ought to be a great position to understand what’s been going on. After all, they are media-obsessed, and narratives and messaging are at the heart of the problem faced by our institutions. Read on ›