Storm clouds have been gathering over the UK public relations industry after a couple of its top agencies were caught editing Wikipedia pages on behalf of their clients. Last month Bell Pottinger was outted in a sting by The Independent and the Bureau for Investigative Journalism, whose journalists posed as businessmen from Uzbekistan. This month PR agency Portland Communications tried to edit out Stella Artois from the Wikipedia page for Wife-beater – the UK urban description of this beer brand.
The issue at hand was not that they tried to edit Wikipedia pages for clients, more that they failed to declare a conflict of interest in these edits.
Wikipedia, the free, collaborative and multilingual online encyclopaedia, is seen as a first port of call for accurate information and description because it is built on 3 key pillars – 1, contributors and editors must have a neutral point of view and no conflict of interest; 2, content must be verifiable; 3, articles must not contain new analysis or synthesis.
Let’s be honest, managing and editing reputations on Wikipedia is not an action confined to individuals working in the global public relations industry – the internet has connected millions of people around the world. Vandalism and trolling are a growing issue that has affected and will continue to affect this platform, though Wikipedia’s own systems, based on the power of the community, has thankfully enabled it to so far keep it in check.
The issue is about transparency, or lack of by certain communicators who fail to declare they are representing the individual or brand they are editing. This not just damages the reputation of the brand they are working for, but that of our own profession.
Everybody has the right to a voice and to a reputation. That reputation though is based on the actions of a client and not the image that a PR might subsequently provide. Social networking has educated the wider audience to believe what members of their trusted community say and while PRs continue to hide behind a cloak of secrecy this profession will find it harder in it’s primary mission, which is to ‘help establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between public, private and not-for-profit organisations and their various audiences.’ I ask this, knowing how connected the world is and how communities work, was it strategically wise to try to edit out Stella Artois from the page in question? Total control is no longer an option in today’s connected world.
The Chartered Institute for Public Relations (CIPR), the UK’s professional body for PR, issued a statement yesterday (6 January 2011) stating it’s commitment to put together clear guidance for the profession on using and editing Wikipedia by working with representatives of Wikimedia UK. The CIPR already has in place social media guidelines that were developed by the institute’s own social media advisory board, which I sit on. Before being adopted the guidelines were put out on a wiki for comment and debate to the UK PR community.
While here in the UK the CIPR has taken the first step in seeking and securing a partnership for the specific creation of dedicated guidelines for PRs we should remember that the issue, like our profession, is global. Public relations is a profession and industry in the rest of Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Wikipedia and it’s community should use this opportunity to work with PRs around the world so that these guidelines can be adopted globally. Groups are already coming together to encourage a dialogue and understanding of what PRs do. I personally do not expect everybody to be won over. In fact I wouldn’t want this. Debate is healthy and fuels change. But I do hope that we can demystify what PRs around the world do and and contribute.
After all, we live in a globally connected world filled with different cultures and jurisdictions that is unifying and shaping us and our opinions. Our views are shaped by those we know and trust within our networks. It is time that public relations professionals improved the PR for themselves.
News International journalists have allegedly gained access to details of former-Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s bank account, legal documents and even his son’s medical records by masquerading as either the former Prime Minister himself or one of his representatives.
It is alleged that News International titles have used blagging to secure personal information that was then run as headlines in select titles.
Blagging is to ‘knowingly or recklessly obtaining or disclosing personal data or information without the consent of the data controller.’ In plain English that means to deceive somebody to get personal information that can then be used in the press.
Because blagging is to deceive somebody to gain information the practice pulls into the story organisations that hold personal information – telephone companies, banks, building societies, utility companies, anybody. This therefore can create a firestorm for the reputations of organisations that have been targeted by blaggers, which raises the question, are PRs ready for the questions that will be asked about data protection and privacy?
While blagging is an offence under Section 55 of the Data Protection Act it has yet to be tested in the courts. That though is an issue for those caught of blagging.
UK national tabloid The News Of The World (#NOTW) is caught in the eye of a very public storm as revelations allege their involvement in the phone hacking of not just the murdered Milly Dowler, but the parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman and victims of the July 7th London bombing.
The esteemed Nicholas Tomalin, said that ‘the only qualities needed for real success in Journalism are ratlike cunning, a plausible manner and a little literary ability.‘ He was not wrong.
It is this cunning that’s got The Guardian’sNick Davies the story, as it’s served up insight into the activities that were allegedly common place at the News Of The World. But let’s not single them out exclusively. News outlets are in competition with one another and it would be odd to think that they were the only ones guilty. In fact, In the 2006 ‘What Price Privacy Now?’ report (below) the Information Commission highlighted that 305 journalists had been identified during Operation Motorman as customers driving the illegal trade in confidential personal information. Have a look at the list and you’ll be surprised by some of the titles that were named and shamed. The various reports confirm two methods that journalists and private investigators use to get information, including, ‘through corruption, or more usually by some form of deception, generally known as ‘blagging’. Blaggers pretend to be someone they are not in order to wheedle out the information they are seeking.’
Phone-hacking is really just the tip of the iceberg. Given that most people do not change the default password on their phone it is pretty easy to intercept voice messages. But, getting information on addresses, car registration requires deception and/or as the law describes, corruption.
The above report highlights the case of how in November 2006 Stephen and Sharon Anderson of St Ives in Cambridgeshire pleaded guilty to obtaining and selling information unlawfully whilst operating as private investigators. They used ‘blagging’ techniques to obtain and attempt to obtain personal information about individuals from a number of organisations including Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, British Telecommunications plc and various banks.
So, while our eyes are currently on The News Of The World, the real question is, what about organisations that private investigators get their data from? How safe is your data – your bank details, phone numbers, your bills and tax information? And how ready are these businesses for the questions that must be asked? If you work PR in-house or agency-side are you ready for the reputation of your client or employer being questioned? And questions about how safe customers data is? And today, when we work online, how safe our our emails and our personal profiles?
News Of The World’s official line that it was all down to a ‘rogue reporter’ just did not wash from a public relations perspective. While it might have held back the criticism, it was like putting a finger in the dam.
Some newsrooms are aggressive places with boiler-room like cultures. You have to get the story. You don’t ask questions about the how, you just need to make sure that all the pieces fit together and that your legal team sign it off. All of course with the safety net of ‘Public Interest.’ But what is the definition of public interest? And why is the very quiet Press Complaint Commission so neutral? The PCC’s statement was just pointless.
Carter-Ruck Partner Magnus Boyd says, “public interest is always the justification used for such intrusion. It appears the lack of an adequate definition of public interest has allowed many spurious claims to the public interest.“ He says, “At the moment only Ofcom and the PCC offer working definitions of what is in the public interest and both are deliberately vaugue so as to retain sufficient flexibility and applicability.”
“Conversely, however, the lack of precision in the definition of ‘public interest’ allows the concept to be cited on ‘a rather tired and formulaic basis’ in many cases as Mr Justice Eady noted. What is interesting to the public may not neceassarily be in the public interest but we can no longer afford to seek to define it by ommission or by the adage, ‘you’ll know it when you see it’.” We need to define what the public interest is in a way that the general public can understand and relate to and which will have sufficient flexibilty to adapt to changing circumstances without being all things to all men”
Talking about celebrity reporting Boyd goes on to explain, “Ironically, celebrity reporting usually requires the least invasive investigation techniques – there are usually people ready to talk off the record and perpetuate the gossip. What may well emerge from recent events is that hacking and blagging were used far more in the investigation of financial and corporate stories than readers may have realised as well as more general news items.”
Up an until The Guardian revealed that the phone of Milly Dowler had been hacked the story seemed distant from the public. It was an issue that just affected celebrities, people, as some might claim, that courted the media. But knowing to what lengths certain media outlets would go to has turned the tide.
A social media campaign by the public has been targeting not just readers of the paper but companies that advertise in the News of the World. Public revulsion is pushing this gossip paper into a tight corner. Companies like Ford, Mitsubishi, NPower, Virgin Holidays have cut their advertising from the title.
The Daily Telegraph’s Harry Wallop commented on Twitter, ‘NotW makes c£35m from ads + c£135m from sales. Few weeks of dropped ads won’t hit paper hard. Reader loyalty is what matters.’
The community is using Twitter and Facebook to spread their disgust and it’s having an impact, with subscribers to The Sun and other News International cancelling their subscriptions.
Social media can whip-up a storm and highlight public sentiment in real-time. Give the community and argument and it will express it’s view. But let’s remember, they are not the only guilty party and PR’s need to be ready for the questions about data, information and privacy that now need to be asked.
****UPDATE***
The Press Complain’s Commission yesterday released a statement that, well, didn’t say much apart from it being unhappy with the conduct of one of it’s members.
Labour MP Alun Michael, himself a former journalist, speaking in an emergency debate about phone-hacking in the Commons yesterday, said: “The PCC is well meaning, but frankly it’s a joke, the public deserve better and the journalists deserve better. The PCC clearly has neither the will nor the ability to change things. What we need is an independent body, that is robust, effective, and has the powers to investigate and enforce. That would be a major step forward.
The four-page document is the IOC’s attempt to recapture the ground it never had when Twitter became the must-have channel for those competing at the winter Vancouver 2010 games.
In the guidelines the IOC ‘actively encourages and supports athletes and other accredited persons at the Olympic Games to … post, blog and tweet their experiences.’ it directs those competing to avoid using social networking sites ‘for commercial and/or advertising purposes.’ If athletes and other accredited persons do break these guidelines then they risk accreditation being withdrawn. More worrying for athletes is the threat of possible expulsion from the games.
So how will these guidelines affect the work of public relations agencies working with athletes and their sponsors? Will non-accredited sponsors see these guidelines as a red rag to a bull? How strong will ambush marketing play during the 2012 Olympics? Remember how Dutch beer company Bavaria got, as The Daily Telegraph describes, ‘36 women wearing skimpy orange dresses attend the Holland versus Denmark game‘ to promote Dutch Bavaria beer in breach of Fifa guidelines. Organisers of the stunt were then arrested.
What are your thoughts? How important will social networking play for brands that are sitting outside the tent and that will never be able to be a participant in the Olympic experience?
England’s Football Association gave us a lesson this week on how not to secure change within FIFA to rid it of the ‘alleged’ <cough!> corruption.
For too long FIFA has been a self-serving and inefficient organisation. Like many international governing bodies it’s executive committee has become distant from the supporters who actually and in this case own the game. For FIFA football is all about the business – getting and securing the best sponsorship and trickling these deals down into local associations, many of which are run on a shoestring. That said and as has been reported those who sit on the top table of this once venerable organisation have become unconnected with the people who play this sport.
The politics of sport is ugly and ruthless. But let’s be objective, FIFA has 208 national member associations – more than any other international governing body. The UN itself has 192 states as members. These national member associations represent the world and it’s various and diverse cultures. What is acceptable in some of these countries would be deemed unacceptable in western democracies. But equally, some of the West’s own behaviours would be deemed wrong in many of the states that are represented within the FIFA family. That still is no excuse for much of the activity that has become endemic within this broken organisation.
All this doesn’t excuse the moralising of the UK press towards how FIFA operate. If you read the media from around the world you would be forgiven for thinking that it is all above board. In fact, read Spain’s sports daily Marca or As or any other title from South America or Africa and the only quotes about the alleged corruption come from local titles that quote the stings made by The Times and Sunday Times. Moralising in my opinion doesn’t help with change.
To coincide the publishing of stories about corruption to days before the voting for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup was short-sighted by UK newsdesks. Yet ask UK journalists and you’ll get an answer about public interest. Really? Is it better to run a story before the voting or possibly just after? Would news outlets have got better stories in the lead-up to an English World Cup? All very odd. I’ve had conversations with a few journalists who’s view is that they should be independent and I agree. But the question from a public relations perspective is how you secure change? Are some outlets chasing numbers rather than using their skills to enable better transparency?
Public relations can be a force for good. Sure, many people see this profession as one that focuses on spin and misinformation. But, in countries such as the UK, with a good relationship with media outlets PR could work in harmony to achieve the change that is required within FIFA.
So as we approached this week’s FIFA’s 61st Congress we noted the media and the English FA once again making a stand for what they thought was right. It was a question in my opinion of preaching and not teaching. What they did was get it very wrong, to the extent that their behaviour possibly helped Blatter secure a fourth term in office.
The public relations campaign activity by The FA leaves a lot to be desired. Fit for purpose? I leave you readers to decide.
There used to be days when Britain was good at understanding the world, at doing deals and assisting and promoting best practice. FIFA needs to change, but so does The FA, who is in grave danger of becoming irrelevant to the football family.
Hello. I'm Julio Romo. I'm a London-based independent PR, communications consultant and digital strategist. I am also a freelance journalist and trainer, providing insight and consultancy on how to secure better engagement through the changing media and digital landscape.
England’s Football Association gave us a lesson this week on how not to secure change within FIFA to rid it of the ‘alleged’ <cough!> corruption.
PR and Wikipedia: Working Towards a Transparent Relationship
Saturday, January 7th, 2012The issue at hand was not that they tried to edit Wikipedia pages for clients, more that they failed to declare a conflict of interest in these edits.
Wikipedia, the free, collaborative and multilingual online encyclopaedia, is seen as a first port of call for accurate information and description because it is built on 3 key pillars – 1, contributors and editors must have a neutral point of view and no conflict of interest; 2, content must be verifiable; 3, articles must not contain new analysis or synthesis.
Today, Wikipedia has over 20 million articles – over 3.8 million in English, is available in over 280 languages and is edited and monitored by over 10,000 active editors around the world. The fact is that anybody anywhere can access and edit nearly any Wikipedia page – some are controversially protected and can only be edited by Wikipedia’s own system administrators, is one of it’s key strengths.
Let’s be honest, managing and editing reputations on Wikipedia is not an action confined to individuals working in the global public relations industry – the internet has connected millions of people around the world. Vandalism and trolling are a growing issue that has affected and will continue to affect this platform, though Wikipedia’s own systems, based on the power of the community, has thankfully enabled it to so far keep it in check.
The issue is about transparency, or lack of by certain communicators who fail to declare they are representing the individual or brand they are editing. This not just damages the reputation of the brand they are working for, but that of our own profession.
Everybody has the right to a voice and to a reputation. That reputation though is based on the actions of a client and not the image that a PR might subsequently provide. Social networking has educated the wider audience to believe what members of their trusted community say and while PRs continue to hide behind a cloak of secrecy this profession will find it harder in it’s primary mission, which is to ‘help establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between public, private and not-for-profit organisations and their various audiences.’ I ask this, knowing how connected the world is and how communities work, was it strategically wise to try to edit out Stella Artois from the page in question? Total control is no longer an option in today’s connected world.
The Chartered Institute for Public Relations (CIPR), the UK’s professional body for PR, issued a statement yesterday (6 January 2011) stating it’s commitment to put together clear guidance for the profession on using and editing Wikipedia by working with representatives of Wikimedia UK. The CIPR already has in place social media guidelines that were developed by the institute’s own social media advisory board, which I sit on. Before being adopted the guidelines were put out on a wiki for comment and debate to the UK PR community.
While here in the UK the CIPR has taken the first step in seeking and securing a partnership for the specific creation of dedicated guidelines for PRs we should remember that the issue, like our profession, is global. Public relations is a profession and industry in the rest of Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Wikipedia and it’s community should use this opportunity to work with PRs around the world so that these guidelines can be adopted globally. Groups are already coming together to encourage a dialogue and understanding of what PRs do. I personally do not expect everybody to be won over. In fact I wouldn’t want this. Debate is healthy and fuels change. But I do hope that we can demystify what PRs around the world do and and contribute.
After all, we live in a globally connected world filled with different cultures and jurisdictions that is unifying and shaping us and our opinions. Our views are shaped by those we know and trust within our networks. It is time that public relations professionals improved the PR for themselves.
Tags: bell pottinger, bureau for investigative journalism, chartered institute of public relations, cipr, communications, community, inBev, portland communications, pr, public relations, stella artois, uk, vandalism, wikipedia
Posted in comment, news, pr, reputation, social media | 5 Comments »