With all of today’s news, it was hard to decide on just one topic for today… address the latest on how Domino’s reacted to those gross videos posted online? Overdone by now. Comment on Pizza Hut’s latest announcement looking for a summer intern to run their Twitter? Yawn. Ponder how Freddie Mac will react publicly to their CEO’s suicide?  Too distressing.

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As one of the leaders in the fight against destructive spin within the public relations community, I am astounded to see Dewey Square Group astroturfing for one of their clients.

What’s astroturfing, you ask?

It’s a political, public relations, or advertising campaign designed to create the impression of being spontaneous, or grassroots, behavior (hence the reference to artificial grass).  According to Wikipedia, the goal is to “disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction” to an event, product, or service.

In other words, in the case of Dewey Square Group, someone within their organization wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper, urging their readers to contact their Congressman about the Medicare Advantage program.

When the newspaper investigated and called the person whose name signed the letter, the man had no idea what they were talking about. A few days later, the newspaper received a call from a person claiming to be the man who signed the letter and, when pushed about it, the person hung up.

The reporter then used this cool new technology called CALLER ID and discovered the call came from Dewey Square Group. Read the full story here.

I’m disgusted.

Isn’t that the old adage? The shoemakers children don’t have shoes?  That’s what I think of when I read the Feb. 10 review of “PR: A Persuasive Industry” in USA Today.

The article starts out with this…

Sleazy. Disingenuous. These are words used in U.K. newspaper coverage of the public relations industry. PR, oddly enough, doesn’t have great PR. People tend to think that PR involves being manipulative and saying whatever is in the employer’s best interests.

Gee. Allow me to keep reading.

(The authors) call PR an amoral industry, a tool for good or evil purposes. There was, alas, Hitler, Goebbels, and the Nazi propaganda machine.

More? Why make my face more red that it is right now? Stop reading!  I can’t…it’s like a traffic accident. Must…keep…reading.

I’ve not read this book, but the reviewer goes on to say that in the book the authors debate whether or not it is the role of a PR professional to tell the truth.

I am here to tell you that every journalist (both traditional and new) I’ve ever worked with would tell me where to stick it if I ever lied to them.  If a client asked us to lie (and it has happened), we immediately resign the business.

I’m also here to tell you that PR professionals live by a Code of Ethics and I’ve seen people kicked out of industry organizations for displaying anything but professionalism. So there are good and bad in every profession. Until you walk a day (or five) in our shoes, let’s leave the negativeness and bashing alone.

It makes me sad that Chicago has lost a few great boutique PR firms in the past 12 months.  But it’s hard to sympathize when there is spin surrounding the closing of a shop.

On Sept. 11, 2008, Crain’s Chicago Business reported that Lannon Communications was “closing its office and laying off staff while it restructures from the economy’s thumping of the retail industry.”  This made me very sad…and a little nervous when I read it last fall.

Yesterday the Chicago Sun-Times reported Lannon “shuttered her firm to become vice president of strategic partnerships for Merchandise Mart Properties.”

Let’s say she did have the job in the works with Merchandise Mart (who was a Lannon client) and that yesterday’s news is true.  That makes the news in September from Crain’s seem like someone, somewhere, wasn’t being very strategic in releasing that information.  But perception is reality and this is perceived by me as spin.

What do you think?

My friend Eric Seidel is a professional media trainer who has worked both on the media side and the client side.  He has Fortune 100 experience and works with top executives.

He recently wrote a blog post called, “Get ‘spin’ out of your lexicon.” He goes on to say it’s bad for your business health because “reporters know when you’re spinning and they use it as motivation to really dig in their heels and come after you.”  Check out the post – it has a great case study via video about Jet Blue.

But this isn’t just for clients.  Yes, it’s our job to teach our clients how to work with the media, but it is not our job to teach them how to spin, lie, or evade the media.  Our job is not to spin.  Our job is to help our clients communicate with their customers via the media by being honest, open, and transparent.

Let’s do our jobs.

We all know the significance of the recent presidential elect, or do we? I couldn’t believe when I came across this blog post on Gawker.com, it took a couple of minutes for my mouth to close.

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News organizations often prepare stories in anticipation of something occurring so they can be the first to leak breaking news. Well, the Los Angeles Times made a premature mistake by going live and announcing that Barack Obama actually chose Hillary Clinton to be his vice presidential candidate along with Bill Richardson, Kathleen Sebelius, and four other Democrats. While you cannot blame the Los Angeles Times for their preparations, this is not the only time Obama was misperceived through the media. John McCain tried a couple different stunts that backfired on him when he related Obama to Paris Hilton — who would have thought?

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Well, Paris Hilton took part in another video, but this time her video is rated “E” for educational. Hilton’s video on superstar comedian, Will Farrell’s Funny or Die Web site was a response to one of John McCain’s negative public relations stunts of comparing his rival, Barack Obama, to celebrities Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. McCain is taking the approach of bringing out the negativity in his counterpart, rather than focusing on the important facts; war, oil, economy, or the over so popular term “change.” McCain is reaching an all time low, spinning Obama’s image and comparing him to the queen of party girls. McCain are you getting a little worried?

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Have you seen the New York Times article about using “striking words” in your news releases to gain the attention of reporters, especially on slow news days? Oh yes! It’s true. The article, titled “Need Press? Repeat: ‘Green,’ ‘Sex,’ ‘Cancer,’ ‘Secret,’ ‘Fat’” ran last week and quotes, GASP!, PR people who support the notion that if you sensationalize a headline, the story will run in most major publications. Continue Reading »

Will Smith’s new movie, Hancock, was a box office hit this past Fourth of July weekend. As a badass superhero with an even bad-er attitude, Hancock works with a public relations practitioner, played by Jason Bateman, to help with an image-makeover.

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