I got into a little tete-a-tete with prolific media theorist/journalism professor Jay Rosen this week about the responsibility of Edelman PR taking on News Corp. as a client following the phone hacking scandal and backlash.
You can read his whole exchange with other people here. The whole post is well worth the read for the debate about ethics and scope of services; however, I’ll repost my portion of the debate below.
Originally, I got involved in this when Jay posted on Twitter:
As usual, all the PR people who follow me have nothing to say re: our discussion today of @Edelman_Trust’s decision to work for News Corp.
I took a bit of offense to that tweet for a few reasons. First, it’s unfair to assume, as Jay does, that PR people must engage him whenever he takes about a PR company. That kind of thinking reeks of blatant self importance. We’ve got day jobs! We can’t necessarily respond to everything someone says. (For the record, I don’t know the demographics of Jay’s followers, so I can’t accurately say if PR responses were quieter than usual.)
Second, tweet assumes that PR people implicitly agree with Edelman taking on the News Corp. assignment by nature of our silence regarding Mr. Rosen’s tweets. We don’t speak as a unified bloc, nor should we. Just because Mr. Rosen may not have gotten the response he was hoping for from PR people, does not mean we approve of Edelman.
To his tweet, I at-replied:
@jayrosen_nyu Depends on what the scope of work is. PR doesn’t nec. mean “put shiny face on” means “manage reputation” however they see fit
Mr. Rosen then posted on his Storify page:
Good point! But other than Ann Marie, I hear nothing from the PR pros. Several hundred of them follow me on Twitter, but over the years I have noticed that while they preach the virtues of “engagement” most are reluctant to comment on any controversy that involves their profession.
But maybe if we shine a light on this fact we can draw them out a bit. Let’s give it a shot….
“As usual, all the PR people who follow me have nothing to say re: our discussion today of @Edelman_Trust’s decision to work for News Corp.”
We have a winner! Peter Axtman is a PR guy…
“@jayrosen_nyu Depends on what the scope of work is. PR doesn’t nec. mean “put shiny face on” means “manage reputation” however they see fit”
Yes, Peter. But I didn’t say anything about “put a shiny face on.”
I asked: how does Edelman decide that it’s worth the risk (to its own reputation) in working for News Corp. when the company has demonstrable difficulty in telling the truth about what it did to itself, let alone some paid advisor?
Feeling like Mr. Rosen took my words too literally and neglected the point I was trying to make, I responded in a medium that allowed for longer-form thoughts, the ol’ email.
Mr. Rosen then, with my permission, reposted my email in its entirety:
Meanwhile, I received a note from Peter Axtman, who wanted to expand on his comments above. Here it is, in full:
After reading your Storify recap of the Edelman PR/News Corp. debate, I wanted to respond in more than 140 characters.
You’re right in a way: if Edelman doesn’t know what is going on at News Corp or what the depths of their malfeasance, lying, bribery etc are, then they can’t – well, shouldn’t, they certainly can – take on the assignment of managing News Corp.’s reputation. PR doesn’t operate the way defense attorneys do. We don’t want to be willfully ignorant of whether our client “did it” so that we can defend them regardless.
Our job is to manage the reputation. To do that, we need to have a full understanding of what is going on with our client. If they’ve lied to the public, we can certainly take on the job but we need to know that so that our messaging can be something along the lines of “We’re sorry we lied. Here’s the extent of it and here’s what we’re doing to make sure it never happens again.” However, we can’t know the client has lied to the public and then say “Everything is fine here, more along.” I guess that’s the point I was trying to make.
If Edelman is being brought on to bring everything to light with the least possible damage to News Corp.’s reputation, then that’s one thing and that’s fine, as long as both parties realize that there will be reputational damage and have planned the scope of services as such. If Edelman is being brought on to make News Corp. look good without knowing the extent of the malfeasance, then that is unacceptable.
My (speculative, no-inside-information) guess is that considering the swiftness with which Edelman was hired, they can’t possibly know what the extent of News Corp.’s actions are. Again, this is pure conjecture, but if that’s the case, then you’re right, it will do damage to Edelman’s reputation because the truth will always come out eventually and the cover up is always worse than the crime (just ask the folks at Facebook and Burson-Marsteller). If that’s the case, then I suspect Edelman will be caught with their pants down. However, if my speculation is wrong, then I’m fine with Edelman taking on the case.
Thanks, Peter. That’s quite a ways from “everyone deserves to have their side of the story told.”
I stand by my email. There is little risk to Edelman’s reputation if they are fully aware of News Corp.’s actions and have developed a plan with that information. However, if they know the scope of the action in the company, then more power to them for taking on such a massive client.
Tags: Edelman, Media, News Corp., Public Relations
