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When spokespersons let go of PR briefs
By Editor on Jul 8, 2007 in clientservicing, mediarelations
The last time Microsoft PR agency accidentally sent off a spokesperson briefing document to the journalist instead, it let loose of a tirade from the shock journalist. This time round, supposedly, a Times of India journalist had an interview of Scott McNealy, chairman of Sun Microsystems, and the latter decided to dump his brief from his company’s PR department.
So it resulted in another story - journalist shock over how PR people train company spokespersons on how to deal with the media. ‘How can you do this?’
This is an excerpt of the story in today’s Sunday Times-
“Like every other visiting CEO, all McNealy has to offer are inane niceties on what a wonderful country India is and how significant it is in Sun’s scheme of things. As McNealy would say, you know it is bullshit. Every journalist knows no foreign CEO ever speaks the truth — they only parrot lines scripted by their spin-doctors on how to deal with the Indian media. And just when you begin to look at his American public relations manager in disgust and think of terminating the interview, the irrepressible McNealy opens up. It is his PR person’s turn to scowl in disgust. Clearly, this wasn’t meant to be part of the script. And the script, in the spin-doctor’s textbook, is everything. They call it image management.
“Guess what,” he says. “Steve and I are good friends. We went to high school together.”
“So why did you call him butt head?” “That was theatre.”
“You mean, you knew exactly what you were saying?”
“Yeah. Most of the outrageous things I say are, well, just theatre. I call him names. He calls me names. Then we have a drink and laugh over it.”
His PR manager is starting to get nervous. “We should be talking technology,” she says nervously. McNealy doesn’t seem to hear that. Maybe it’s the jet lag after having logged 40,000 miles in less than a week. Maybe, it’s the fact that he hasn’t slept and is awfully tired. Whatever.”
Some more- “I guess this isn’t the kind of thing that gets written about in the media,” he says. “Everybody likes the image. Without that, I’m just a boring guy with nothing to talk about,” he says, rather pensively. At the end of this unexpected conversation that terminates as abruptly as it begins, you walk out and wonder what is real and what is unreal? Who speaks the truth and who practises theatre?
Do Indian CEOs work hard at building their images? Off the record, head honchos at PR companies talk of the banker who hired their firm to build a flamboyant image for herself. And the ad guru who has worked with agencies to create a devil-may-care image, always seen in print, drink in hand, flanked by pretty women. And the former CEO of a white goods firm who hasn’t done too well for himself, but has plotted a strategy that portrays him as a turnaround man.
In any case, CEOs, particularly the expatriates, are given meticulous tips on how to deal with the Indian journalist. Like holding mock press conferences to prepare them for the real thing. Or even briefing them on how much the journalist they are going to meet understands the business, what kind of questions are expected, and how the bloke ought to be treated.
The Rule of Four
Few guidelines culled from a note circulated by an agency for a CEO form the Middle East:
1. Check that they have enough material, facts, and figures to construct a story - they may not necessarily admit they need help but please offer it to them.
2. Refer directly to India and the importance of India to Country X. All positive statements about India are greatly appreciated by the nation’s press.
3. Comment on the similarities between India and Country X wherever possible - it will be appreciated.
4. Feel free to give them a small gift - there are no issues with this and the Indian media appreciates taking something back to their families.
On Jul 9, 2007, Janani said:
There’s a lot worse! In so many cases, the PR people not only ‘brief’ the spokespeople, but also write all the responses for them (in the case of email interviews) and since they don’t really know the technical points, they just Google, pick stuff from the Web and put it together. And the ‘picked’ stuff is not just from the client company’s website but from any and every website! Sometimes, when I see really out-of-mode answers I wonder why and go and Google for excerpts from the responses and find them picked from the Net!
Sometimes, when we pull up a journalist for plagiarism, he/she shows us records that those were responses to interviews.
That’s really unethical. They don’t understand that the accusation of plagiarism is transitive. It begins with the PR person but the journalist ends up facing the brunt.
In my two years as a journalist and one year as an editor (so far), I have had to deal with such instances at least two dozen times! Just the last Friday I sent back a set of responses to a PR person saying I cannot quote his client because all the responses are plagiarised!
Cheers!
On Jul 9, 2007, Bella said:
Hey Hob & Janani
Interesting topic you have started here. But I shall not say that it’s PR agency’s or PR professional’s fault all the time. Will you not agree with me, had Mr. Scott McNealy stick to PR Person’s briefing all this mess up would not have happened??
I think PR people respect deadlines more then their respective clients, I have experienced chasing my clients for almost 5 days to get quotes from them for an eminent pink paper and the story(after 5 days of calling my client day and night) appeared on the front page.
It’s not that PR person like to do a Google search to answer quarries, who in their right mind would like to spoil relationship with journalists, as we all know how long it take to build a repot with them. To my understanding we (PR) and journalists need each other to server our purpose. So the first rule is to respect each other and to have sense of time.
I have also suffered journalists calling me late in the evening and asking for quotes of my clients with in half hour , but they should also understand that it’s not that easy spokesperson can be busy, or out of station, or what ever. We try our best to get the right information for the journalists but at the end of the day we are also mortals not some robot ready with all answers.
It’s very sad to know, that some PR people, just to get a story for their busy- to - quote -client practice such unethical things and kill the first rule of the relation.
Good post and real good insights from Janani.
Cheers!
On Jul 9, 2007, hobbithob said:
some wonderful inputs from bella and janani….thanks a lot, ladies.
On Jul 9, 2007, Janani said:
Hi Bella!
I completely agree with you! The PR person is not always at fault. I have some very good friends in the PR industry and their experiences show how tough it is to liaise between the industry and the media!
That said, I just wish PR people will be more forthright and frank with the journalists — if you can’t get the inputs, say you can’t — it’s not possible in such a short notice. If the spokesperson has not responded, say you’ve not got the inputs yet. But when they resort to emergency measures like putting together answers themselves, that’s when the problem arises
Fortunately, most PR people who know me are very very frank and outspoken with me in such issues. Because they know I’ll understand, and more so because they know I’m very serious about my work - in my career so far I have attended just one press conference and even in that I refused to partake of lunch
I am very very very old-school!!
So, it is a mutual respect between PR people and me. And I have problems only in one-off cases, but not so with all journalists and I find my team faces lotsa problems like the one I’ve stated in the above post!
Cheers!
Janani
On Jul 10, 2007, Bella said:
Dear Janani,
It’s really good to know you.
I am also very true to my profession well as to the journalists. I don’t wish to get them landed in any trouble because of some stupid act of mine.
Wish people start respecting each other and their respective jobs/ profession.
But what’s wrong in attending press conferences?
On Jul 13, 2007, Janani said:
Hi Bella!
Nothing wrong at all in attending press conferences, just that I find I never get the kinda info I need at press conferences, because I dig into the technology while they focus on business aspects at most PCs. So, when I get an invite, I usually wait for the post-conference release and if I find it interesting, I request a personal interview
That works better for me, because then the PR people fix the interview with an R&D guy or techie at the organisation and I can get all technical details.
Cheers!
Janani
PS: And I also developed a bias against attending PCs no thanks to hearing many accounts of journalists attending PCs only for the lunch and the freebies and then writing articles based on the post-conference release… true or not, I don’t know… but I wanted to stand apart.