The Ethical Optimist

It’s tough defending the public relations profession when folks like the team at Rolex issue ridiculous press releases that further position us as spin doctors.  While I’ve seen some truly tasteless releases, this one takes the cake:

Rolex Watches Help Owen Wilson Recover From Attempted Suicide

After Owen Wilson’s Suicide Attempt, Rolex Watches Play a Key Role in the Recovery of Owen Wilson, Reported by Melrose Jewelers, USA’s #1 Online Rolex Watch Retailer

The release was posted on MarketWire  (who also get a slap on the wrist for not counseling their client to cease and desist when they reviewed this release).

According to the release:

SEATTLE, WA – Rolex: Melrose Jewelers reports that, after a frightening suicide attempt in 2007, Rolex watches appeared to play an essential role in actor Owen Wilson’s recovery. On August 29, 2007, Time magazine reported: “speculation about his drug use, depression over his May break-up from Hudson and a recent fight with a friend have peppered the coverage of Wilson’s hospitalization.” A People magazine cover story out Friday quotes a friend as saying: “Owen was very despondent. He slit his wrists. He almost did not make it.” It was a dark period in Wilson life, and Rolex watches played a key role in helping Owen regain his bearings and his success.

Not only is the release in extremely poor taste, but it makes the public relations team at Rolex look absolutely ridiculous.  Unfortunately, it also hurts the rest of us due to guilt by association. 

The number of blog write ups slamming this release is truly spectacular.  Here’s one reason why…check out this hyped-up claim:

After returning home from the hospital, Owen was captured by a photographer walking on the beach, wearing his Rolex Submariner. Later, he was seen riding his mountain bike in Santa Monica with the Rolex Submariner on his wrist. Obviously, the quality of a Rolex watch helped Owen realize and appreciate the quality of his own life.

I was dumbfounded reading this release.  Earlier in my career I represented SMH Group and The Federation of the Swiss Watch Association and found most of the people I worked with to be extremely professional.  This is amateur hour to say the least. 

The next release they issue should be an apology to Mr. Wilson, the media and their fellow professionals.

I read an interesting article about an ethics course state workers will be taking in Illinois.

According to the article:

More than 200 state employees are expected to take part in the ethics seminar at University of Illinois-Chicago. Featured speakers include agency heads, as well as speakers from Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s own office.

What shocked me about the story, were the comments from readers who felt that the training was a waste of taxpayer money.  For example:

What a farce! I can imagine the travel and per diem costs plus the course costs…can our money be better spent?? What fools we are for keeping these leaders in office…believe we can do better with Joe Citizen running the government…it wouldn;t be without mistakes, but I don’t believe they would be calculated mistakes…

To consider ethics training in government or business a waste of money is absurd…if the training is structured correctly.  Very often, people who work in government, business, non-profit, or any organization for that matter, break the rules inadvertently.  They learn to do things “the way they’ve always been done” and never really question whether or not they are acting ethically or legally.

Others are just unsure of how to file a complaint or make ethical issues known to those who can do something about them in an anonymous matter.

Ethics training often sheds light on both issues.  It gives guidance on what the rules are, where to find them, and how to raise a red flag when there is doubt.  

I’d rather see governments spend money on ethics training and reporting mechanisms than on $10,000 hammers.

Funny thing that I was speaking earlier this week about the Emporer’s new clothes, especially in light of the Sarah Palin wardrobe debacle.

What got me going was an article titled, “Wardrobe Malfunction’ Issue Hits GOP — But Fashion Experts Say Palin’s Top-Dollar Duds Are ‘A Necessity”.

Sorry, but having been in this business for a long time, I have trouble taking the fashion press or fashion experts too seriously. After all, anyone who says $150,000 is a necessity for a candidate’s wardrobe during an economic crisis needs a reality check.

The expense “doesn’t seem frivolous to me,” says Simon Doonan, creative director at Barneys, a stop on Palin’s shopping trip.

Of course a guy selling clothes at 1,000 percent markup isn’t going to see it as frivolous. He’s in the business of ridiculous.

“When you think about costumes for literally every day of the week, for a couple-month period, it’s not outrageous,” says Susan Scafidi, who teaches fashion law at Fordham Law School.

What is shocking, Scafidi says, is the context. “When you see that number in the middle of a credit crunch” and consider the irony of “spending enormous amounts to reach ordinary people” for whom $150,000 is probably more than a year’s salary, the spree is “a political disaster,” she told USAT writer Olivia Barker.

Look, there are millions of high-ranking working women who’ve figured out how to look great on a budget. Several fashion pundits said she looked like a train wreck before she got her $150K makeover, but frankly, I can’t tell the difference. I would imagine that the average voter couldn’t tell either.

What the average voter can tell, however, is when a party or candidate is speaking out of both sides of their mouth. To say you identify with Joe Six Pack and you understand the struggles of putting your kids though college etc, and then have a headline blaring you spent $150,000 on your clothes, is credibility suicide.

The saddest part of this story, and one that is downplayed, is the fact that her wardrobe is a central issue in the first place. I don’t see too many folks talking about what the guys are wearing.

That said, this is a lesson for all in our profession. Actions have to back up messaging. When decisions are made, at every level, you have to ask yourself…if this came out, what would my mother say? How would the headline read? If you’re looking to connect with average Americans, you have to think like them.

A smart stylist would have made her look like a million bucks for considerably less and then touted the accomplishment. It would have played much better to the public.

There was quite a dust storm brewing today on the Counselor’s Academy list serve regarding the “F” word…yup, FLACK. (By the way, the correct spelling is actually flak…who knew.)

According to my esteemed colleague Dick Pirozollo:

There is no “C” in Flak — it comes from a five-pound German word that describes the puffy clouds we see the bombers fly thru in WWII movies. The clouds are filled with shards of metal (shrapnel a French word) and we protect ourselves from this weapon by wearing a “Flak Jacket.” Those of the Woodstock generation told our parents: “Don’t gimme no flak” until we got drafted and the Army gave us a “Flak Jacket”. Hack, by the way, comes from the word for a breed of horse used to pull Hackney Carriages, often going clip clop on the paving stones in New York City. Being a hack writer, does not mean you write with an axe, it is a reflection of The clip clop beat of writing news stories using no sentence longer than five words.

Thanks to Dick for the clarification and the impromptu history lesson.

Back to the dust storm. It surfaced with an initial question that stated:

PRSA just blast e-mailed a social media seminar application which will be conducted by a person who has a blog called “The Flack.” I personally hate that title and as a former journalist conjure up only negative images of “Flacks.” I don’t think PRSA should have anything to do with someone perpetuating that derogatory name, let alone put him up as an educator or sanctioned expert associated with PRSA.

FYI, the blog in question is written by a PR pro by the name of Peter Himler.  (There is another blog using the same name on my blog roll written by Howard Wolfson that is great reading.)

The majority of respondents agreed that the word flack is negative, and hurts our profession overall:

“The term “flack” is a pejorative in public relations circles, yet this is often how journalists describe PR professionals. Personally I am not a big fan of this tag, but it is what it is. By sharing best practices and exposing ethical lapses, it is my hope that “the flack” will follow “the hack” into semantic oblivion.”

Frankly, outside the love/hate relationship of journalists and PR people, flack isn’t really that well known. We are more likely to be called spin doctors (perhaps the blog in question should be renamed The Spinmeister…). If I referred to myself as a flack in front of my folks, they’d just give me a blank stare. Hmmm…similar to the blank look I get from relatives when I tell them I’m in PR (that’s sorta like advertising, right?).

As to the “F” word, I’ve seen quite a few bloggers use it. One respondent noted that PR Newswire once used the word in an article they issued. Good lord, our own vendors are referring to us as flacks?

So, here is my big question. Do we need to take a page from the NAACP and call for a ban on the “F” word altogether? Or, is it okay for those within the confines of the profession to use it, but beware to those outsiders who dare speak it?

I, too, hope that flack falls into semantic oblivion. Then again, I hope Spin Doctor follows close behind it. The more we work as a profession to explain to the world who we are and what we do, the better our chances of that happenng.