For those following American politics, the past month has been a gold mine of examples of PR playing out in the real world.
Newt Gingrich rose to the top of the GOP pack only to fall back to third or fourth place (and from what we can tell, he is still falling). Newt's fall was in part due to his assorted involvement with Fannie and Freddie and his past flip flops. Turns out that voters were impressed with his debate performances, but upon closer look didn't like what they saw.
Romney continues to march along as first or second in the polls, but has failed to grow his base beyond what it was at the beginning of the race.
The dark horse in all this, and the most interesting PR story, is that Ron Paul has surged to the front of the pack in Iowa, where the first votes will be cast for the GOP nominee in a couple of weeks.
An interesting thing happened when Paul reached the front of the pack, something very few people thought would happen. The media started digging for any buried skeletons. They apparently found a few in the form of newsletters that were put out under Paul's name in the 80s/90s which contained some racist material (we'll get to this more in a little bit).
So Ron Paul did a number of interviews with CNN regarding his campaign and the issue of the newsletters. On the issue of the newsletters he states that he did not write the comments in question, did not approve them for publishing and disavows the comments.
In a third interview he did with CNN he answered policy questions and then at the end was hit yet again with the question regarding the newsletters. A little frustrated with the question being asked over and over, he walked out of the interview and left... or did he?
Here's what's interesting. Footage of the actual interview, raw and uncensored, shows a different interview than the one CNN put on air. CNN's version is edited to make it look like Paul, in disgust over the newsletter questions, pulled off his mic and walked away. Here is the video that ran on CNN:
Now, since that interview, which was a couple of days ago, footage of the entire interview, uncut, has hit the Internet. Not sure how Paul's campaign got the footage, obviously from CNN themselves which I find a tad surprising that they would release it, but the footage tells a bit of a different story.
It shows him answering a variety of questions and giving CNN ample time for the interview (which was about 10 minutes, which is a long time for an impromptu interview in the midst of a campaign). At the end, having answered all the questions, he does walk away and when pushed by the reporter as to whether he understands her job is to ask the question, he replies "I understand how the system works".
That little snippet at the end CNN cut out, because it's an inference by Paul that he feels the media are out to take him down and so will harp on the newsletter issue until his name becomes associated with the word 'racist'.
It also shows that Paul is not mad at the reporter, but rather frustrated by 'the system'. That little snippet is everything, because it's safe to assume audiences would react differently to the two videos. In the first many would take him cutting the interview short as evidence of some form of guilt. In the second, they would see his behaviour not as guilt, but rather simply walking away from 'gotcha' politics (and the media are not held in high regard right now in the US).
It's not hard to figure out why CNN didn't show the full video because some viewers would see them in a negative light.
So from a PR perspective, what is the take away from all this.
First, this is a unique situation. Paul is a anti-establishment candidate, so he hasn't been getting any attention from the media. Many of his followers believe it's because the media, the gov, the military industrial complex, the bankers, etc... all have a vested interest in the system staying the way it is and if Paul were to win, radical changes would likely unfold.
So they've ignored Paul for a long time and now are willing to give him air time (because he's leading in the polls). Paul needs that air time to reach more voters. Yet at the same time, he knows that ultimately CNN will pick the parts of the interview they want to air. If CNN were really out to take Paul down, you can see the pickle he would find himself in.
Do you do the interview knowing it might be edited to make you look back or do you decline?
Here's where PR comes in.
You always have to clearly identify the discussion points of the interview. You need to ask the reporter what subjects they want to cover in the interview. If they tell you: Iran, healthcare and the deficit, and then when you do the interview they hit you with other topics, then you can take issue with the interview. You can then respond to at least your core stakeholders and articulate that this was another case of 'gotcha journalism', where the media says they want to talk about one thing but then grill you on something entirely different once they've got you in front of the cameras.
Did that happen here? It's hard to say. Based on Paul's response, I suspect it probably did. If I had to bet, I'd wager that CNN said they wanted to do another interview to discuss a variety of topics and Paul's camp simply said 'OK' without setting the ground rules (which are nothing more than the topics to be discussed).
I would say shame on CNN for playing gotcha journalism, but shame on Paul's camp also if (and the if is important because I don't know the full story) they didn't clearly prep him with knowledge of the questions to be asked. If he essentially consented to further questioning regarding the newsletters and knew he was going to be asked about them, then his frustration is a bit uncalled for. If however he thought the issue was put to bed and CNN tricked him in front of the cameras under false pretence, then his response makes a lot of sense.
The second facet to this is the answers Paul gives, they aren't sufficient. This issue was brought up in 2008 on CNN as well (you can begin to see why Paul gets frustrated, he keeps getting asked the same question over and over - I'm sure he wants to say "If you've got PROOF I'm a racist beyond stuff I didn't write, then let's have it. Otherwise, enough is enough.")
From a PR perspective, Paul has had at least four years to dig in to this issue and find out the facts so that when he has interviews on the subject he can say more than simply "I didn't write it, I didn't read those issues, and I disavow the comments." I mean, OK, that makes sense the first time you get asked. But you have to know this is what the media is going to harp on. You'd think you'd go find out more facts about how a couple of racist comments in a couple of newsletters made it to print.
Now, given the type of guy Paul seems to be, he may simply have discarded the issue as ludicrous (the notion that he was a racist that is) and simply moved on with his political career after 2008. But that was a bad PR move that is now coming back to haunt him.
The irony in all this is that his defence is so poorly structured that his denials are most likely true (there are better defences he could have conjured up other than what he has). The notion that he's a racist is hard to imagine if the only evidence is a couple of sentences in newsletters 20 years ago that he didn't even write. I mean, someone who is a racist generally has a pattern of behaviour that supports the claim.
I mean, if he were out to espouse racist propaganda back in the 90s, there would be a lot more than a couple of sentences. You'd expect to find entire articles or hundreds of sentences espousing racist views.
You can't say on the one hand he was a racist who wrote racist materials and then on the other hand say he was a racist who tried to hide his racist views by not writing about them and that the occasional time where he did was a 'slip up' in his overall life-long effort to hide being a racist. It just doesn't make sense, if he was trying to hide being a racist, then he would not have allowed said comments to appear in his newsletters. If he was not trying to hide he was a racist, then you'd expect a lot more racial comments throughout the newsletters.
So the probability that ghost writers and editors at the newsletter let some inappropriate racial comments get by without Paul being aware of them is likely pretty good. Whether he was a racist or not, in both scenarios he was a poor publisher, because he either failed to hide the fact that he was a racist or if he was not a racist then he let comments slip by that cast suspicion that maybe he was.
So when the media says they find it hard to believe that he was as poor a publisher as he says, I'd argue that it's not hard to believe at all, because in both potential scenarios, where he is a racist and where he is not a racist, his publishing 'strategy' was harmful to him in both cases - pretty logical proof that as a publisher he wasn't very good.
Yet, like I say, that doesn't mean Paul shouldn't have gone back and dug up whatever info he could to clarify the situation further. In fact, if you believe that the mainstream media is out to slander you all the more reason to get as many facts together as you can to battle against the slander. You can always find a way to get the truth out through other media channels if the CNN's of the world don't give you a fair shake.
Personally I find it hard to believe that Ron Paul is a racist and I don't think the evidence supports that in any substantial way, at best it infers the possibility that was sympathetic to racist views. I do think he's handled this newsletter issue poorly and because of that some people are going to think that he is a racist as they simply won't buy his basic explanation of the issue - I didn't write them, I didn't read them, I disavow them. They will instead simply digest what they saw on CNN and assume he wouldn't have walked off if he had nothing to hide.
For PR folks, this is another thing you need to be aware of, the state of mind of the spokesperson you are representing. You should never avoid the media, but if your spokesperson is not in the mood to deal with some annoying questions, put the interview off if you can. Better to take a pass than to have a situation where your spokesperson comes off badly.
In all my years of dealing with the the media I've only been in a bad situation once where the media source literally misrepresented my client and stated something that was completely the opposite of what the spokesperson had told them. To this day I'm not sure why they did it, but as a result I'm uber cautious when dealing with that outlet now (and will avoid it when possible).
I believe that the reason I never (or almost never) have an issue with the media is because I always have my ducks lined up in a row.
Perhaps most surprisingly (or perhaps not, depending on how you look at the situation) black Americans have been posting videos supporting Paul (warning - some profanity).
(By the way, just as an aside, Canadian journalists are easier to deal with than American journalists. I've had dealings with Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, New York Times, you name it, and the difference with American journalists is that if you get asked a hard question and you don't have your facts and supporting documentation ready, they won't give you a day to get your act together and they will write negatively about you because of it. Canadian journalists tend to be a bit more forgiving and are more flexible on the 'Can I get back to you on that?' response. That's a generalization, but it's been my experience.)
Anyway, is Ron Paul racist? Who knows. I suspect he's not, but I couldn't tell you for certain that he's not (but then again, I couldn't tell you who is or isn't a racist unless they exhibited racist behaviour).
That's the problem with calling someone a racist, how do you prove you aren't? In this case, Paul says he didn't write the comments, and if that's true, then what other proof is there that he's a racist?
I suspect that's also behind Paul's inadequate response to this situation, how do you prove you aren't racist beyond saying that you aren't?
Yet, Paul should have still seen this coming from a PR perspective and had a much better strategy than simply denying that he holds racist views of any kind.
Perhaps the biggest irony in all this and evidence of how poor Paul's PR response has been, is that his Director of Communications / Press Secretary, Gary Howard, is black! I mean, if that doesn't take the cake and make you bust out laughing, nothing will.
So the "racist" politician hires a black person to run his communications and then the one area where they are reacting poorly on the PR front, is on the charge of racism (when the very fact that the DoC is black clearly suggests that Paul is not racist).
Oh the insanity of running for office.
Newt Gingrich rose to the top of the GOP pack only to fall back to third or fourth place (and from what we can tell, he is still falling). Newt's fall was in part due to his assorted involvement with Fannie and Freddie and his past flip flops. Turns out that voters were impressed with his debate performances, but upon closer look didn't like what they saw.
Romney continues to march along as first or second in the polls, but has failed to grow his base beyond what it was at the beginning of the race.
The dark horse in all this, and the most interesting PR story, is that Ron Paul has surged to the front of the pack in Iowa, where the first votes will be cast for the GOP nominee in a couple of weeks.
An interesting thing happened when Paul reached the front of the pack, something very few people thought would happen. The media started digging for any buried skeletons. They apparently found a few in the form of newsletters that were put out under Paul's name in the 80s/90s which contained some racist material (we'll get to this more in a little bit).
So Ron Paul did a number of interviews with CNN regarding his campaign and the issue of the newsletters. On the issue of the newsletters he states that he did not write the comments in question, did not approve them for publishing and disavows the comments.
In a third interview he did with CNN he answered policy questions and then at the end was hit yet again with the question regarding the newsletters. A little frustrated with the question being asked over and over, he walked out of the interview and left... or did he?
Here's what's interesting. Footage of the actual interview, raw and uncensored, shows a different interview than the one CNN put on air. CNN's version is edited to make it look like Paul, in disgust over the newsletter questions, pulled off his mic and walked away. Here is the video that ran on CNN:
Now, since that interview, which was a couple of days ago, footage of the entire interview, uncut, has hit the Internet. Not sure how Paul's campaign got the footage, obviously from CNN themselves which I find a tad surprising that they would release it, but the footage tells a bit of a different story.
It shows him answering a variety of questions and giving CNN ample time for the interview (which was about 10 minutes, which is a long time for an impromptu interview in the midst of a campaign). At the end, having answered all the questions, he does walk away and when pushed by the reporter as to whether he understands her job is to ask the question, he replies "I understand how the system works".
That little snippet at the end CNN cut out, because it's an inference by Paul that he feels the media are out to take him down and so will harp on the newsletter issue until his name becomes associated with the word 'racist'.
It also shows that Paul is not mad at the reporter, but rather frustrated by 'the system'. That little snippet is everything, because it's safe to assume audiences would react differently to the two videos. In the first many would take him cutting the interview short as evidence of some form of guilt. In the second, they would see his behaviour not as guilt, but rather simply walking away from 'gotcha' politics (and the media are not held in high regard right now in the US).
It's not hard to figure out why CNN didn't show the full video because some viewers would see them in a negative light.
So from a PR perspective, what is the take away from all this.
First, this is a unique situation. Paul is a anti-establishment candidate, so he hasn't been getting any attention from the media. Many of his followers believe it's because the media, the gov, the military industrial complex, the bankers, etc... all have a vested interest in the system staying the way it is and if Paul were to win, radical changes would likely unfold.
So they've ignored Paul for a long time and now are willing to give him air time (because he's leading in the polls). Paul needs that air time to reach more voters. Yet at the same time, he knows that ultimately CNN will pick the parts of the interview they want to air. If CNN were really out to take Paul down, you can see the pickle he would find himself in.
Do you do the interview knowing it might be edited to make you look back or do you decline?
Here's where PR comes in.
You always have to clearly identify the discussion points of the interview. You need to ask the reporter what subjects they want to cover in the interview. If they tell you: Iran, healthcare and the deficit, and then when you do the interview they hit you with other topics, then you can take issue with the interview. You can then respond to at least your core stakeholders and articulate that this was another case of 'gotcha journalism', where the media says they want to talk about one thing but then grill you on something entirely different once they've got you in front of the cameras.
Did that happen here? It's hard to say. Based on Paul's response, I suspect it probably did. If I had to bet, I'd wager that CNN said they wanted to do another interview to discuss a variety of topics and Paul's camp simply said 'OK' without setting the ground rules (which are nothing more than the topics to be discussed).
I would say shame on CNN for playing gotcha journalism, but shame on Paul's camp also if (and the if is important because I don't know the full story) they didn't clearly prep him with knowledge of the questions to be asked. If he essentially consented to further questioning regarding the newsletters and knew he was going to be asked about them, then his frustration is a bit uncalled for. If however he thought the issue was put to bed and CNN tricked him in front of the cameras under false pretence, then his response makes a lot of sense.
The second facet to this is the answers Paul gives, they aren't sufficient. This issue was brought up in 2008 on CNN as well (you can begin to see why Paul gets frustrated, he keeps getting asked the same question over and over - I'm sure he wants to say "If you've got PROOF I'm a racist beyond stuff I didn't write, then let's have it. Otherwise, enough is enough.")
From a PR perspective, Paul has had at least four years to dig in to this issue and find out the facts so that when he has interviews on the subject he can say more than simply "I didn't write it, I didn't read those issues, and I disavow the comments." I mean, OK, that makes sense the first time you get asked. But you have to know this is what the media is going to harp on. You'd think you'd go find out more facts about how a couple of racist comments in a couple of newsletters made it to print.
Now, given the type of guy Paul seems to be, he may simply have discarded the issue as ludicrous (the notion that he was a racist that is) and simply moved on with his political career after 2008. But that was a bad PR move that is now coming back to haunt him.
The irony in all this is that his defence is so poorly structured that his denials are most likely true (there are better defences he could have conjured up other than what he has). The notion that he's a racist is hard to imagine if the only evidence is a couple of sentences in newsletters 20 years ago that he didn't even write. I mean, someone who is a racist generally has a pattern of behaviour that supports the claim.
I mean, if he were out to espouse racist propaganda back in the 90s, there would be a lot more than a couple of sentences. You'd expect to find entire articles or hundreds of sentences espousing racist views.
You can't say on the one hand he was a racist who wrote racist materials and then on the other hand say he was a racist who tried to hide his racist views by not writing about them and that the occasional time where he did was a 'slip up' in his overall life-long effort to hide being a racist. It just doesn't make sense, if he was trying to hide being a racist, then he would not have allowed said comments to appear in his newsletters. If he was not trying to hide he was a racist, then you'd expect a lot more racial comments throughout the newsletters.
So the probability that ghost writers and editors at the newsletter let some inappropriate racial comments get by without Paul being aware of them is likely pretty good. Whether he was a racist or not, in both scenarios he was a poor publisher, because he either failed to hide the fact that he was a racist or if he was not a racist then he let comments slip by that cast suspicion that maybe he was.
So when the media says they find it hard to believe that he was as poor a publisher as he says, I'd argue that it's not hard to believe at all, because in both potential scenarios, where he is a racist and where he is not a racist, his publishing 'strategy' was harmful to him in both cases - pretty logical proof that as a publisher he wasn't very good.
Yet, like I say, that doesn't mean Paul shouldn't have gone back and dug up whatever info he could to clarify the situation further. In fact, if you believe that the mainstream media is out to slander you all the more reason to get as many facts together as you can to battle against the slander. You can always find a way to get the truth out through other media channels if the CNN's of the world don't give you a fair shake.
Personally I find it hard to believe that Ron Paul is a racist and I don't think the evidence supports that in any substantial way, at best it infers the possibility that was sympathetic to racist views. I do think he's handled this newsletter issue poorly and because of that some people are going to think that he is a racist as they simply won't buy his basic explanation of the issue - I didn't write them, I didn't read them, I disavow them. They will instead simply digest what they saw on CNN and assume he wouldn't have walked off if he had nothing to hide.
For PR folks, this is another thing you need to be aware of, the state of mind of the spokesperson you are representing. You should never avoid the media, but if your spokesperson is not in the mood to deal with some annoying questions, put the interview off if you can. Better to take a pass than to have a situation where your spokesperson comes off badly.
In all my years of dealing with the the media I've only been in a bad situation once where the media source literally misrepresented my client and stated something that was completely the opposite of what the spokesperson had told them. To this day I'm not sure why they did it, but as a result I'm uber cautious when dealing with that outlet now (and will avoid it when possible).
I believe that the reason I never (or almost never) have an issue with the media is because I always have my ducks lined up in a row.
- If there's an issue my client can't speak to the media on, I let the media know that and ask if they still want to do an interview on the other topics. I also provide an explanation as to why we aren't addressing a certain topic at this time.
- Even having said that, I still prep my client in case they get blind-sided
- If a reporter asks my client said question, I step in and interrupt the interview (the only exception would be in the case of a live television or radio interview). I explain to the reporter that we couldn't speak to that topic as agreed on and take the heat for not allowing my client to answer (your client should not be the one saying no, you should step in at that point). Despite their bad rep at times, reporters almost always stand by their word if they have given it (however, too few PR folks define the ground rules at the start, so if the reporter hasn't told you what to expect, then they consider nothing to be off limits, they aren't breaking any 'word' because they didn't give you one).
- I research past articles by the reporter prior to the interview to get a good feel for the types of articles they produce. If I see they've played 'gotcha' journalism in the past, I warn my client of the potential risks. I've actually cancelled an interview after having researched a reporter and finding that they were prone to sensationalism or misquoting a subject. (By the way, in this rare instance, you don't have to officially tell the reporter to take a hike, you simply say your client got called away on business and could we reschedule for next week, to which a reporter will generally decline such a delay).
- And lastly, I make sure my client understands that they have to have a GOOD reason for not answering a question or explaining themselves with satisfactory depth. If my client wants me to simply 'spin' the media out of interest in the subject or if the client wants to try and get away with a quick one-liner answer, I then strongly suggest they simply pass on the interview (unless of course you're in a crisis situation, then you have to get your client to understand the damage associated with not responding).
So the situation with Paul I think simply comes down to poor PR in this one example (I think in general Paul handles himself fairly well with the media all things considered).
So what should Paul do now?
I think he needs to do what he should have done four years ago. At least make some calls and try to figure out where the racist comments came from.
Despite Paul's rabid base of believers (and I'll admit, he's my favourite politician), and despite having fans outside of the US (Paul is big in Canada and Australia and even Germany), he has to realize that those who are just being exposed to him aren't going to be swayed by his simple denial that he's a racist. While those that have been exposed to Paul's personality and views can't imagine he could be racist, those just learning about Paul will view the situation very differently.
Will this cost him the gains he's made so far? Probably not. I suspect they will slow those gains down and perhaps even reverse them a bit, but ultimately I think he does get through this and remains intact.
Yet that's no reason not to do the right thing (from a PR perspective). Shooting down these racist claims in a more definitive and fact-based manner would only help his momentum rocket upwards.
Yet that's no reason not to do the right thing (from a PR perspective). Shooting down these racist claims in a more definitive and fact-based manner would only help his momentum rocket upwards.
So we'll see in a couple of weeks whether these claims of racism stick. Paul fans are already posting videos attempting to off-set such claims.
Perhaps most surprisingly (or perhaps not, depending on how you look at the situation) black Americans have been posting videos supporting Paul (warning - some profanity).
(By the way, just as an aside, Canadian journalists are easier to deal with than American journalists. I've had dealings with Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, New York Times, you name it, and the difference with American journalists is that if you get asked a hard question and you don't have your facts and supporting documentation ready, they won't give you a day to get your act together and they will write negatively about you because of it. Canadian journalists tend to be a bit more forgiving and are more flexible on the 'Can I get back to you on that?' response. That's a generalization, but it's been my experience.)
Anyway, is Ron Paul racist? Who knows. I suspect he's not, but I couldn't tell you for certain that he's not (but then again, I couldn't tell you who is or isn't a racist unless they exhibited racist behaviour).
That's the problem with calling someone a racist, how do you prove you aren't? In this case, Paul says he didn't write the comments, and if that's true, then what other proof is there that he's a racist?
I suspect that's also behind Paul's inadequate response to this situation, how do you prove you aren't racist beyond saying that you aren't?
Yet, Paul should have still seen this coming from a PR perspective and had a much better strategy than simply denying that he holds racist views of any kind.
Perhaps the biggest irony in all this and evidence of how poor Paul's PR response has been, is that his Director of Communications / Press Secretary, Gary Howard, is black! I mean, if that doesn't take the cake and make you bust out laughing, nothing will.
So the "racist" politician hires a black person to run his communications and then the one area where they are reacting poorly on the PR front, is on the charge of racism (when the very fact that the DoC is black clearly suggests that Paul is not racist).
Oh the insanity of running for office.
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