Publicly both Gordon Brown and David Cameron have been slated in the media for using PR tricks to try and score public favour. Although I agree that both parties in this recent story have been advised wrongly, I also expect that if either Party Leader hadn't been involved in a photo-shoot he would have been ripped to shreads. They are damned if they do, and damned if they don't.Both MPs were forced to apologise over these particular PR 'stunts' although this article does suggest that this incident 'highlights the way that the desperate battle for popularity between Mr brown and Mr Cameron in the run-up to the next election can backfire.'
Political 'spin' gives PR practitioners a bad name, always scoring more media coverage when PR activities go wrong rather than when things run smoothly. Can we really ever expect the PR profession's own reputation to improve when political spin doctors seem to hit the headlines almost as often as the Party they work for?
The phrase 'all publicity, is good publicity' has become a line that gets banded around frequently, especially when a PR opportunity has turned sour, when there are no positives to be found or when 'straws, clutching, at' ring true.
Both leaders, in my opinion, never want to lose face and by the media catching out Brown and Cameron 'at it' shows they are waiting to pounce on any potential scandal to fill space and sell papers. But really, is there a scandal here? An admin error yes, a misjudgement maybe but a deal-breaker... I don't think so.
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ReplyDeleteIt was interesting to see how the photograph story was more of an issue in the morning and less of one in the evening. Whilst this perhaps represents the news cycle it also shows some deft media handling by the political parties. The story about the Conservative’s ‘emergency budget’ was a bigger story by the end of the day.
ReplyDeleteI think that the media would have liked to have made a bigger story about it but perhaps it is difficult when two parties are in the wrong and the Lib Dems aren’t on the attack. However, as we have seen the expenses scandal is an exception to this theory.