Dick Martin Blogs

Oppo research

Writing a book on PR ethics means I've been posting far less regularly and spending lots more time reading the trade press in search of illustrations of ethical dilemmas in the practice of public relations.

Today, I ran across two, which prompts this posting.  

Edelman is accused of using opposition research in promoting the interests of its TransCanada client, the company behind the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

It seems TransCanada not only faces opposition from American environmentalists who don't want the pipeline going south from Alberta through the U.S. to refineries in Louisiana, but also from Canadians who don't want the pipeline heading east to refineries in Eastern Canada.

Based on documents released by Greenpeace, Edelman proposed to conduct "detailed background research on key opposition groups," a step the New York Times characterized as part of an effort "to spread any unflattering findings about the opposition."  The plan documents also propose enlisting third party allies to "put pressure" on the pipeline's opponents "when TransCanada can't." 

On the other hand, one of the Edelman documents suggested, “To make an informed decision on this project, Canadians need to have a true picture of the motivations not only of the project proponents, but of its opponents as well.”  

Meanwhile, BuzzFeed reported that an Uber executive suggested digging up dirt on journalists, "specifically to spread details of the personal life of a female journalist" who had recently accused the company of “sexism and misogyny.” The executive who made the suggesttion later explained he thought he was speaking "off the record" at an industry dinner. He said he "regretted [the remarks] and that they didn’t reflect his or the company’s views."

In my three decade career, I can only remember one time when a senior executive asked me to gather information we could use to discredit a reporter who has become a thorn in our side.  I told him it was a stupid idea and that was it. I should have also told him it was unethical.

Some background research on journalists is perfectly ethical. There's nothing wrong with collecting and analyzing what reporters have previously written to better understand their point of view of your company and the industry. At minimum, that could enable you to anticipate their interests and questions.

There's also nothing wrong with tracking public details about a reporter's private life or information he or she is willing to share, such as a spouse's name, children, alma mater,  hobbies, etc. Such information can help build a stronger personal relationship with the reporter. But digging for embarrassing or unseemly information is clearly unethical on just about any ground I can think of.

It's a violation of the reporter's privacy. It's clearly dishonest. Why else would the Uber executive blow off an objection on the grounds that “Nobody would know it was us”? But perhaps most importantly, it muddies the waters of public discussion and deprives people of information about the company by casting irrelevant aspersions on the reporter whose bringing it to them. It's not responsible advocacy by any measure.

The key word here is "irrelevant" and that could be the safe harbor for Edelman. If its background research is intended to reveal relevant information about the pipeline's opponents, such as conflicts of interest or extreme positions they have taken in the past on similar projects, it could be ethical.

But if the agency's oppo research team is seeking irrelevant information it can spread around to -- as one document says, “Add layers of difficulty for our opponents, distracting them from their mission and causing them to redirect their resources,” they should join the Uber executive mentioned above in the ethical penalty box.

 

 

New rules of persuasion

More than a new majority in Congress emerged from the recent election. Some new rules of persuasion were revealed as well.

Elections have long been fertile ground for scholars trying to figure out the shape of public opinion and the forces that change it.  

The presidential campaign of 1960, for example, gave us the concept of  pseudo-events like debates and photo ops,  which inevitably led to the development of pseudo-qualifications on which dozens of candidates have run ever since (and on which several have actually won). 

Indeed, the practice of public relations has arguably lifted more lessons from politics than the other way around. Sometimes the wrong lessons (the use of war rooms and truth squads, negative campaigning, etc.). But also useful lessons (micro-targetting, staying on message, etc.).

Ever since Obama's 2008 campaign, social media has been the dominant platform of campaigning, just as television had been since the 1960s. It was not only the key to the Obama campaign's fund-raising, it also proved to be critical in his ground game of turning out the vote, giving communities of common interest targeted information, and engaging people who had previously expressed little interest in politics. 

Social media had been around long before Obama's campaign, of course. But his team was the first to realize social media are not new screens, ripe for advertising messages, so much as on-going conversations with their own rules of engagement.

So it will be interesting to see how long its takes for PR practitioners to internalize the insights emerging from the latest bi-annual exercise in electioneering.

Ben Smith's latest BuzzFeed column hits on a particularly intriguing insight:

"Persuasion works differently when it relies on sharing. ... And the social conversation favors things that generations of politicians have been trained to avoid: spontaneity, surprise, authenticity, humor, raw edge, the occasional human stumble. (Joe Biden!)... 

"A few modern politicians appear to have a real feel for the raw emotion and, sometimes, (apparent) spontaneity that people will want to share. Elizabeth Warren's blunt and casual economic 2011 tirade and Ted Cruz's theatrical confrontations (and even his own low-production-value cell phone videos) are the beginnings of that viral populism for which the social web has opened a real space."

How long will it take for major brands to figure out what this means for them?