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November 22, 2010
Deadly Spin
I spent this weekend reading Deadly Spin, former PR man Wendell Potter’s tale of his conversion from corporate “spin-meister” to health care reform advocate. Potter’s story moves along two tracks, a personal awakening to the evils of managed care interspersed with salvos against the PR business. I will concentrate on his critique of PR, leaving the health care issues to those more expert in the field.
Potter’s central thesis is that “Good PR is about control…PR people are good at manipulating the news media because they understand them…PR people cultivate reporters, ostensibly for friendship or mutual benefit, but more realistically for manipulation...With years of practice, I learned how to respond with a pithy remark if I wanted to be quoted and how to baffle them with bullshit if I didn’t...Be obscure clearly…I became a master at doing just that.”
Potter acknowledges that “PR has been used to good ends. Even the noblest of causes can benefit from the services of a communications expert to clarify facts….and there are plenty of ethical PR people out there to do this.” He quickly takes back even this modest acknowledgement with his other hand, “With PR so intricately woven into every major industry and today’s mass media reality, the stakes of spin have become incredibly high. And ethics do slip. PR often crosses the line into misleading, withholding or simply lying. And when it does, society suffers…”
Most outrageous is Potter’s conflation of propaganda and modern public relations. He goes back to one of the giants of the profession, Edward Bernays, whose book Propaganda, written in 1928, ostensibly wound up on the bookshelf of Third Reich minister Joseph Goebbels. Potter then goes on to suggest that Hitler’s Mein Kampf discusses manipulation of public opinion “in terms that could be used by one of today’s PR counselors.” He quotes the Fuhrer as saying, “All effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans.” He even quotes the Institute for Propaganda Analysis report from the late 30s uncovering effects of domestic manipulative practices of advertisers and businesses, using “propaganda/PR ploys” such as “Fear, Glittering Generalities, Testimonials, Name-Calling, Plain Folks, Euphemisms, Bandwagon and Transfer by Respected Individuals.”
He concludes his book with a bizarre “What If?” He suggests that “without basic knowledge of PR tactics and the ability to distinguish between fact and distortion, Americans---and that includes journalists—are at the mercy of spin doctors and PR practitioners whose loyalty to their clients outweighs the public’s right to the truth….We need the Woodward and Bernsteins of coming generations to ensure that Americans have access to truth and that a health balance between news and spin is in place. Otherwise our news will be coming, whether we know it or not, from companies with names like the Hawthorn Group, Edelman, Porter Novelli and APCO. If so, our way of life will truly be threatened.”
Ok, Mr. Potter, since you are calling out Edelman, let me agree with you on a few points. Front groups should not be used to cover up the true intent of a client. Biased research surveys should not purport to be factual representation of the views of the public. Communications campaigns where clients say one thing and mean another are duplicitous.
But here is where you and I part company. Inaccurate representations of the PR industry—such as yours— “not so much for public relations as for public deception”-- feed misconceptions of what we do. PR firms and their clients are dedicated to the long-term success of their business which is only achieved by honest and accurate communications, and that is the only approach tolerated at our firm.
It is incorrect to state that many of the bigger firms “pay little heed to ethical guidelines because they are happy to take your money and launder it.” Edelman, like many (if not most) PR firms, and our trade organizations, publish and adhere to a clear ethical code (For Edelman’s click here) based on core values of transparency, accountability and honesty.
At Edelman it is not the case that third party experts recruited to be credible spokespersons “won’t have a thing to do with op-eds except lend their names.”
You have done the public a great disservice in distorting the PR field. There will always be much to criticize in the world of PR, but you are wrong to call into question the motives of the vast majority of practitioners who provide the truth and inform stakeholders on relevant issues. The reality is that today, thanks to robust mainstream and social media, there is immediate damage extracted to the reputation and the license-to-operate of any company, brand or PR firm folly enough to distort the truth.
P.S. Mr. Potter published a retort to this post yesterday on Huffington Post, PR Watch.org and Center for Media and Democracy. In it, he asks, "Is Ethical PR an Oxymoron, Richard Edelman?" My answer is unequivocally, "No."
I won't presume to speak for the industry, but I will speak on behalf of our 3500 employees worldwide. The ethical standards to which we have always held ourselves accountable are no longer sufficiently well defined in our global, technology enabled world. That's why we hired Randy Corley as our Chief Compliance Officer several years ago, and made his first mandate to create a Code of Conduct for the firm. Everyone at Edelman, including me, has signed this document, and in doing so agrees to abide by and be held accountable by its contents.
In the spirit of full tansparency (one of its principles), here it is -- unvarnished and in full. My Executive Committee and I believe it to be comprehensive, but as always, would welcome your feedback on how to make it even better.
Please click here to read Edelman's Code of Ethics.
Posted by Edelman at November 22, 2010 3:37 PM |
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Comments
Respectfully, to be an advocate is to have bias. However many wheel barrels of money your clients pay you aside, however much you might actually believe your bias to be true, it's not. Objective "truth" is NOT the business of PR.
Richard, rather than denying that PR is essentially a form of lying, you/we would be better served by just admitting it is. Instead of spending the time spinning an accusation of spin, let's work to bolster the system that tames the lie and renders it ethical. Not only does social media not do that; it sets the lie free unchecked to be carried by the hoard of manipulated "relationships."
Of course, as you stroll to the bank later today, you'll find reason to disregard the writing on the wall. Who wouldn't? That's too bad.
Kind regards,
Brian Connolly
bconnolly@furthermore.com
Posted by: Brian Connolly at November 23, 2010 12:44 PM
Stephen M. R. Covey’s The Speed of Trust: dedicates a chapter to each of his 13 Behaviors of High Trust Leaders. For each of the Institute for Propaganda’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective Propagandists I have listed an antidote from among “Covey’s High Trust Behaviors”:
Fear - “Clarify Expectations”, Glittering Generalities - “Confront Reality”, Testimonials - “Deliver Results”, Name-Calling – “Practice Accountability”, Plain Folks –”Listen First”, Euphemisms – “Talk Straight”, Bandwagon and Transfer by Respected Individuals - “Create Transparency”.
Posted by: Hugh Campbell at November 23, 2010 10:40 PM
Brian, I admire you for the patience with which you have finished reading such a book. Unfortunately, it is only one in a stream of thought which "distorts the PR field." And worse, there has been academic research, such as by Juergen Habermas, which explores this distorted vein. In general, the likes of Wendell Potter mix corruption with public relations, but then they might do the same in all fields. Is a corrupt lawyer practising law? Is a corrupt medical doctor practising medicine? Or is a corrupt politician practising politics? Such historicist accounts (to use a term by Karl Popper) are biased and construct their theory based on "inevitable" and "obvious" observations. Pity.
Posted by: Jiri Sebek at November 24, 2010 5:56 AM
Who's actually the spinmeister here? I believe Mr. Potter is spinning fear into his yarn about PR being dangerous, and for his own gain - to sell books. From conversations in the schoolyard growing up to intense analyses of professional ethics, we all have opinions and we defend them. Educated people get to decide who's shooting straight and who's lost their credibility. I'd say this author is out of ammo.
Posted by: Graham Painter at November 24, 2010 12:18 PM
I have just finished reading Mr Potter's book and I believe you're being a little bit too sensitive here. Mr Potter at several points throughout the book does say that there are a lot of hard working good people working in PR but he also recounts the story of how his job was to "spin" information often adding to confusion and the truth of information. True he did mention Edelman's PR charade with Wal*Mart but he also mentions others who have twisted PR so that it drives investor value rather than the truth.
Today perception is reality and the perceptions by most consumers is that big business cannot be trusted. We have high unemployment due to the lingering effects of the recession yet the very people who created this recession are now making millions of dollars again while Main Street suffers.
For me this book is about trust. Do American consumers, or in this case customers of insurers, trust insurers to do what is best for customers or for investors and Wall Street ? That is a question each one of us is going to have to answer.
Posted by: Richard Meyer at November 26, 2010 5:49 PM
Richard, I, too, took issue with "Deadly Spin." (more here http://bit.ly/dPEAF6) But, your response strikes me as quixotic at best. Public relations has a "PR problem" for good reason. Congratulations to you and your team if you have succeeded in rooting out questionable practices at your firm. I'm sure you've learned from the mistakes of the past. But, to pretend that transparency is the standard in PR-land, and to expect that mainstream press that few would call "robust," coupled with social media, will help keep our industry honest, is facile, if not wishful, thinking.
Posted by: Dorothy Crenshaw at November 30, 2010 12:07 AM
[Cross-posted on O'Dwyer's site.]
"Distorts" the PR field? I disagree.
It *exposes* the PR field, or at least the dark side of it — some of which Edelman has practiced in the past. As Richard Edelman notes in the update, Wendell has responded in a blog post cross-posted on Huffington Post, Center for Media and Democracy and his own site. In it, he issues a challenge to Richard and other leaders in the field.
As Wendell says, "The reason I wrote my new book, Deadly Spin, was to explain not only how the insurance industry used the dark arts of PR to shape health care reform legislation, but also how many other special interests use them to influence how we think and act every day."
[Disclosure: I am proud to be a friend and colleague of Wendell's, and we're exploring ways that we together can use PR to the "good ends" that he notes in the book — one of which is spread the messages in Deadly Spin.)
Posted by: Scott Tillitt at November 30, 2010 10:28 AM
Let's be clear about the role of PR: it is to present the client in the best possible light. The less ethical among its practitioners will resort to lying and half-truths. Those who take the long view will stick to honesty, but not necessarily full disclosure (unless omissions are material and constitute a lie). As for the negative image of PR, it "goes with the territory." It is far easier for people to claim, "they made me do it," instead of admitting that they are too lazy to analyze communications skeptically and intelligently.
Posted by: Mark Hornung at December 1, 2010 7:58 PM
Potter is still shilling for the health insurance industry. He hasn't "blown the whistle" on anything. As a matter of fact, all he has done is state the obvious and apparently the public is eating it up.
Potter's charade will fail soon enough. And with it, the complicity of companies such as Edelman.
Posted by: John at December 19, 2010 6:28 PM