Was UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s latest erring (mis-spelling of UK soldier's name killed in Afghanistan) a Public Relations disaster for the Labour Party or a PR success in disguise?
What many thought would be a terrible backlash from the public and the media seemed to have turned out to be an empathatic PR win for the party, with some members of the public proclaiming to now vote for the Labour party come elections time.
It seems as if The Sun newspaper is now suffering bad PR from its own ploy to squash the Labour Party’s hopes of winning the upcoming national elections. Even though it is common practice in the western world for media houses to support political parties, with The Sun having proclaimed its support to the Conservative Party, the newspaper would now have to do damage control to win back the support of the public and more importantly its readers and to prove that it practices fair and non-partisan journalism.
In a recent poll by The Guardian newspaper, 90% of those who took part in the poll believed that The Sun was unbiased.
I am not sure who came out better - Gordon Brown or The Sun. But what is clear is that other quarters of the public relations industry have also been asking the same question as you.
ReplyDeleteThe day after your blog posting my copy of PRWeek came through the post. On page three they cover the story from a PR perspective but the main emphasis is on the spat between The Sun and The Independent.
The Sun has also not helped itself by making the same mistake as Gordon Brown - misspelling the name Janes on its website.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/13/sun-apologises-misspelling-soldier