Trawling through the archives of Stephen Davies’ excellent blog, I stumbled accross an article on crisis management. It was good and informative, focusing on preparation and basic crisis handling advice. In fact the article reminded me of a conversation I’d had with a guy, for whom I was doing some voluntary free lance work.
He was a head teacher of a school that had just been slammed by OFSTED and had a rough time of it in the local press. He was worried about the damage to the school brand and asked me how he could stop the story.
“You can’t,” I answered. “You have to move it.”
I’d first experienced this kind of media relations practice watching a Channel 4 interview with Max Clifford talking about Mark Oaten’s inauspicious frolickings. When asked what he would have done, Clifford replyed that he would have found a good looking girl, included her in “the orgy” and provided pictures. This, he said, would have moved the story on and the pictures would have given editors something to print.
I remember thinking at the time that this was both the best and the worst of PR simultaneously. It would have been a cynical lie but it demonstrated such a profound understanding of the redtops that I couldn’t help but stand back and admire the evil genius of the plan.
Moving the story is an essential part of crisis management and falls squarely within the remit of the PR pro. A candidate for a “moving” story must fulfill two criteria, it must: do less damage that the current one, and, sell more papers than the current one.
As far as I can see this is primarily a political tactic (our current PM being a past master at it) but the applications in PR are obvious. If anyone has got any examples of stories where this has happened, please leave comments below as I’m still groping my way through this.
Definitely a topic worth discussion though.
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August 1, 2006 at 8:01 pm
Owen Lystrup
Very good discussion.
I’ve never heard it put that way: “moving the story,” but I gather it’s the same as the shifting spotlight.
I believe it’s true that that is the first response from PR teams, to do research and figure out how to move the spotlight.
However, I also think you were right in saying it was the worst of PR. I would propose that if a company or agency needed to move the spotlight, it replace the crisis with the company’s current efforts in apologizing or making amends.
That’s just me. I’m not a pro, but it seems like the right thing to do, which–in a crisis–matters a great deal.
August 3, 2006 at 8:13 am
Linda
Hang on. If the school has been slammed by Ofsted, surely the best case scenario is to persuade the head to set out how he responds to the criticism and what he is doing to improve things, or to put his head above the parapet and if he says he disagrees with the findings, then to explain why. Why ‘move the spotlight’? Just be honest and open, leaving the spotlight where it is, surely? We used to work for a local college and dealt with exactly this story – yes it was difficult when the criticism came but honesty is always the best policy – it’s best to take it on the chin and let people know what you are doing about it. Then when things improve you can lap up the deserved positive coverage.
August 3, 2006 at 8:30 am
Sam Oakley
Linda, I think that you can do both. If you make the remedies more news worthy than the negative story then you can bring the spotlight with you, whilst at the same time being honest and open.
Sam
August 3, 2006 at 10:11 am
Linda
I think my problem is I’m not sure that I understand what you mean by ‘moving’ a story of this type.
August 4, 2006 at 4:05 am
Owen Lystrup
Originally I thought what Sam meant by moving the story was covering it up with something more dramatic.
An example is the Mel Gibson story. Mel gets arrested and says something very stupid and offensive. How can we make this go away or lessen the blow? Blame the cops for doing their job incorrectly.
Which is what they tried to do. It of course did not work and almost made things worse. But that’s what I thought Sam meant.
However, I think Sam was more in line with my first comment. Be honest and open, and do what’s really the right thing, not what will somewhat take care of the problem whilst saving money.
August 4, 2006 at 7:39 am
Linda
Hmmn. Still not sure about this ’shifting the spotlight’ business. I’d keep the spotlight firmly on the school.
August 4, 2006 at 8:13 am
Sam Oakley
I think the confusion here is because of the term “shifting the spotlight,” it leads you to think that you’re trying to detract attention from the problem. That’s not what moving the story is about. It’s about trying to find a different story to tell about the same problem.
I’ve thought of an example,
Remember when there was the big fuss over the foriegn prisoners who should have been considered for deportation?
The Government went very quiet, no resignations, nothing to fan the flames, they released the same material over and over again unitl people got bored of hearing it and then they waited, knowing that the tories would take the bait.
Needles to say, they did and tore into the government. This very act relegated the story from a dramatic failure of Government to a story about two political parties beating each other up. People care about criminals on their doorstep, they don’t care about political squabbles.
This isn’t shifting the spotlight, it’s using the fact that you understand the media to change the angle of the story. Whether or not it’s good practice is up for debate…
November 2, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Hayley
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