PR and political campaigns - "Yes we can (?)"

"In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? "

                                                   Barack Obama

 

I once read that if you want to be a president or a prime minister you need 10% talent and 90% good PR. After this rather controversial comment I started thinking about all these politicians that managed to win difficult political battles and to emerge in the top political level of their countries, but at the end it was proved that they had absolutely 0% talent. That equals 100% good Public Relations? The power that the industry has is not exactly fresh news, especially for us. Some may call it manipulation of the masses. I’ll just say it is the power of communication. Let’s take the case of Barack Obama. He was considered the hope of America, the “light of the future” (god I’d make an excellent journalist), or even the new Martin Luther King. All these before he was elected. At the moment, he is the president of the USA. So what? 

A definition of Public Relations (among others) is the building of relationships with audiences and usually the words “persuade” and “manipulate” are in the same sentence. Let’s take a look on what Obama’s PR team did that made him tha most talked about person in the planet back in 2008. First of all,  Barack Obama had one of the largest PR campaigns ever made and he achieved some great things. Like the fact that he attracted the most young voters in the history of the USA. How that happened? Social media. Does this ring a bell? Of course it does. The PR team knew the importance of approaching the right audience with the right tools. He created a webiste that had a link to his blog and he took full advantage of Facebook, Twitter Youtube and even Myspace. I am sure that if you followed him at that time in any of that social netwrking sites you'd have been impressed by his activity and his inspirational content. The guy knew what he was doing. And that takes us to the highlight of the campaign. The Americans had just exited a very difficult period of their history and Obama played the role of the savior. So he needed to be presented as one. And then is when he invented the phrases that accompanied his posters: "hope", "change" and "yes we can". But, could he? It doesn't even matter. 

The point of all these was to manipulate (I know you probably don't like this word but in this case, I dare you to find a better one..) the crowd that wanted to believe in better days, And he made it. He was elected the president of the USA but unfortunately nothing changed. Some even say that it's even worse than before. In my previous post I wrote about whether PR has undermined the trust in Politics and my opinion was no. Because no matter how good your PR team is, if you can't support the image that has been created for you, then nothing can't.

P.S. : Barack I might be a little bit harsh on you but if this helps: Yes, I believed you too at that time!

"Spin"- Lack of trust in politics and the role of the PR industry

                        "I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live"
                                                                                       Socrates

I recently attended a rather interesting debate hosted by the University of Westminster, concerning PR and spin and if they have undermined trust in politics. This was the motion and everybody in the audience had to vote for or against.  Many things have been said throughout the years about spin and the manipulative techniques that politicians and their PR team use in order to persuade the public.  Somebody will say: Isn’t this what PR is all about?  Well, I’m not quite sure. It is hard for me to believe that politicians were the innocent human beings that seek the good of their people and one day PR people approached them, and told them: “Now we are going to make people not to trust you”.

During the debate, very interesting points were made by the speakers, Kevin Maguire, associate editor at the Daily mirror, and Shelia Gunn, former political journalist that was also John Major’s spokesperson, that were arguing for the motion and Lance Price, former deputy communications director in Downing Street, and Francis Ingham, chief executive of the PRCA that were on the opposing side. Do you want  to know who “won”? Of course the majority voted against the motion. The crowd was mostly consisted of PR professionals or students so the outcome was foreseen. I read a comment in PR WEEK's coverage of the debate : “Turkeys voting for Christmas or what?!” That made me laugh because that was exactly what it happened. So we know what the industry thinks about spin, but what do people out there think about PR in politics? Was it PR that made politics shameful? Let’s take a look.

I bet that if you ask anyone in Britain about spin ,  the first thing that will come on the mind will be one name: Alastair Campbell. Campbell,  was the director of Communications and Strategy for Prime Minister Tony Blair between 1997 and 2003 and one of the most famous spin doctors in the history. What made him so special? According to people from the PR industry, he is the one to blame for the loss of trust towards politicians as he was involved in the famous story of distortion of "The September Dossier"  and  played huge role in the Iraq war. If someone’s wants to be the devil’s advocate we could say that he was just doing what he was hired to do. But what implications such acts have in the PR industry? Does such people make the rest of the professionals  look like a bunch of unethical and immoral creatures? And since we live in the era of the total depreciation of politics  are the PR professionals, like Alistair Campbell the ones to blame?

I will borrow a quote from Kevin Maguire : “The spin doctors are taking over. We don’t have a prime minister. We have a prime spinner”.  I have to admit that the comment is quite accurate but should we be so dogmatic? I personally come from a country (Greece) that political scandals are an everyday reality, we hear about politicians embezzling huge amounts of public money , scandals are coming to light daily. I don’t think that these politicians need help to blot their images. Lack of trust in politics hasn’t come up from the persuasive tactics of the PR professionals, it has come in the picture because of the undignified and bumptious behavior  of the politicians that fail to be a good account to themselves.  What do you think?

                       Here is an interesting video I found about political spin! Take a look!

When PR goes τo war , the truth usually leaves

In war, truth is the first casualty.  Aeschylus

I recently came up with the story of Private Lynch. A  19- year -old  wounded girl that was rescued by  the US soldiers in the Iraq war when she was at the hospital and a “prisoner” . She  became a symbol of triumph and an icon of  the war as her story was all over the media. As I was watching the BBC  documentary  "War spin" that showed  the footage from her rescue that the soldiers had taken I was fascinated by the whole atmosphere of the video. I felt like I was watching a Hollywood action movie. In the next few minutes I realized that I was. 

The fact is that the video was intended to raise the moral of the public in the USA and it was also perfectly directed to do so. The US army communications team wanted this video to be in the media to make everyone a witness of what is “really” going on in Iraq. You still can’t find anything’s wrong in this story? Well it all proved to be untrue. Private Lynch was perfectly healthy and not wounded, she was held under very good circumstances and everybody was treating her really well. So what did she have to be rescued from? And this is the point where PR comes.

The Private Lynch case is only one from the tactics that the US army communications team followed in order to transfer the atmosphere of the war back home. So at this point I couldn’t help but wondering. Does the truth belong in war communications? Probably not I would say. And since no one likes the word lie, a better one is “spin”. So if you are interested on learning all the tactics that the US army PR team followed keep reading. You might learn a lot.

First of all the big idea of the team was to embed six hundreds journalists with the military. You might think that this is something that can help them to correspond more accurately but it is not only that. The strategy was to shape the public’s opinion. How? By controlling the pictures that were transmitted, the words, and as they thought the victory would come really soon. But can this be totally objective? Of course not. The point was to control the message, not to bear the truth.

Have you ever watched a war movie? Like the “Black Hawk down”? Well this was another strategy of the US PR team. The Pentagon worked really close with the Hollywood producers.  They wanted the movies to depict the facts not probably as they were in reality, but definitely in an ideal way. What also got my attention is the “Profiles from the Frontline” a reality TV show following US forces in Afghanistan, human stories told through the eyes

of the soldiers,  supported  by Donald Rumsfeld. The Pentagon approved. Surprised yet?

By watching the documentary you will see that the US army communications team had thought  thoroughly the strategy that was needed in order to shape people’s opinion and to get the message of the patriotic, heroic atmosphere, across. Was it successful?  Don’t be hurry and say No. In Public Relations is sometimes hard to tell right from wrong.  There are many things that we should take into consideration. And I have to say that as a citizen those tactics appalled me.  But as a PR professional, I have to admit. I am intrigued. What about you?