Tyrants, Terrorists and the PR Firms Who Love Them

What do Adolf Hitler, Bashar al-Assad, Teodoro Obiang, Saddam Hussein, Mobutu Sese Seko and Hizbullah have in common? Apart of course from their murderous rap sheets, they all at one point or another have enlisted the services of public relations firms based in western countries.

In previous posts, I've alluded to the PR profession's very own PR problem. Public relations professionals are more often than not portrayed in films and on TV as gleefully amoral reprobates along the lines of Nick Naylor in the 2005 black comedy Thank You For Smoking and Washington 'spin doctor' Stanley Motss, played so memorably by Robert De Niro in the 1997 film Wag The Dog. Either that or they're portrayed as self-centred opportunists like Eli Gold in The Good Wife or Samantha Jones in Sex and the City or as tortured would-be altruists like fictional White House Communications Director Tony Ziegler in The West Wing.

Why the bad reputation? As with most bad reputations, it's a relatively small group of individuals who end up painting their entire community in a negative light. In the case of public relations, there indeed are practitioners who advocate on behalf of less-than-salubrious causes. And in the most extreme cases, there are indeed well-heeled PR firms in the UK, the US and elsewhere whose client lists have included the world's most appalling human rights abusers.

The dream PR client?

The role of western PR firms in propping up murderous regimes was recently highlighted in the aftermath of the suppressed anti-government revolt in the Kingdom of Bahrain, the wealthy but deeply repressive island nation in the Persian Gulf. Not long after protests broke out in the capital of Manama, it was revealed that the Bahraini government had enlisted the services of reputation management experts from Washington, DC PR firms Qorvis Communications and the Potomac Square Group, as well as the London-based Pelham Bell Pottinger.

While Bahraini forces were imprisoning and torturing protestors, these firms helped the regime denounce its most prominent critics as extremists and fifth-columnists for the Iranian regime through ominously titled divisions like Qorvis' Geo-Political Solutions branch. This campaign included fake tweeting, fake blogging (known as 'flogging') and other forms of online manipulation aimed squarely at activists like Maryam al-Khawaja, the current acting head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights who continues to receive death threats while her father remains in captivity following the revolt.

Regrettably, the Bahrain case is far from unusual. The Monitor Group, a British PR firm with 29 worldwide offices, ran a PR campaign on behalf of the Qaddafi regime in Libya between 2006 and 2008 to the tune of about $3 million. In addition to helping prop up the Bahraini dictatorship, Qorvis was also for a time being paid some $60,000 a month by the repressive and obscenely corrupt regime of Teodoro Obiang in Equatorial Guinea, while its colleagues at the Washington Group were in the pay of now deposed Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Of course, the relationship between PR firms and despotic regimes is nothing new. American PR pioneer Ivy Ledbetter Lee, considered by many as the father of modern public relations, is today largely remembered for his relations with the Nazi regime through the controversial German chemical industry conglomerate IG Farben. Meanwhile, his one-time rival Edward Bernays - also considered by many as the 'father of PR' - helped engineer the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954 on behalf of his blue-chip client United Fruit.

All this begs the question: are there any cases in which taking on a dictatorial regime as a PR client is morally fathomable? David Wynne Morgan, the chairman and CEO of Pelham Bell Pottinger (one of the firms linked to the Bahraini regime), argues that there are good reasons to take such clients on. In an RT interview, Morgan alleges that "A country frequently will modify its actions and its policies in order to achieve perhaps what is the greater ambition of having better relations with the people they're seeking to influence, so it's a balance." All fine and good in theory, David, but I have yet to see any compelling evidence of this, least of all in Manama.

It goes without saying, of course, that the vast majority of people in the PR profession will never have anything directly to do with propping up dictatorships, terrorist organizations or other clients with prodigious body counts. But even the best-intentioned communications professionals can find themselves in thorny ethical territory. In my previous capacity as a copy editor and translator for a Tokyo translation company, I was on more than once obliged to do work for Japan's largest cigarette manufacturer, Japan Tobacco. Should I have refused to do it? Perhaps I should have, but at the time I feared it would have jeopardized my job if I did, so I did what I was asked to do.

I like to think of myself as a morally and ethically principled human being. And as a public relations practitioner, I like to think I know where my line is as regards ethically indefensible work. As much as I enjoyed Thank You For Smoking, I would never, for example, knowingly and willingly go to work for the tobacco industry. Nor would I do the same for any other industries I personally find objectionable, such as firearms, genetically modified foods or the diet industry. I have mixed feelings about oil and gas (and not just because I live in Alberta). It's a problematic industry but a necessary one, and certain companies are far more laudable in their practices than others.

While I indeed find it horrifying that there are PR professionals like me out there working to burnish the reputations of the world's most vicious and corrupt regimes, I stop short of condemning individuals within said firms. I have yet to meet anybody in the profession who is motivated solely by money and a desire of edgy and exciting clients along the lines of Muammar Qaddafi, but it's easy to see how a person in the field could end up in a situation with a firm where it would be very difficult to extricate themselves from such a situation. Establishing a firm ethical stance early, finding employers whose values align with your own and remaining alert to ethically compromising situations is probably the only answer.

Meanwhile, I will continue to savour in the guilty pleasure of movies and TV shows about nefarious, morally pliant PR people. Because they're fun.

Should you do freelance work that's related to your day job?

Don't rock the industry boat unless you're self-employed.

I just completed an assignment for Alberta Venture on competitiveness issues in the construction industry in Alberta, with a particular focus on labour productivity and cost control strategies. This article, which will be appearing in the January 2012 issue of Venture, marked my first ever freelance assignment related to the construction industry – and industry in which I have been working as a communications specialist for about two and a half months.

I initially balked at the assignment when I was first offered it, thinking that it might be problematic vis-à-vis my day job. However, to my surprise, my employers actively encouraged me to take it on, thinking it would be good for both the company and for my own professional development. In terms of the latter, it definitely was educational for me, imparting me with a deeper understanding of the issues facing the industry than I previously had. As for the former, it remains to be seen if the article will result in any positive PR for my employers, but my boss was certainly happy with what I wrote.

Over the course of my seven years as a freelance writer, I have frequently been asked to write about topics closely related to my day-job activities. During my two and a half years at Native Counselling Services of Alberta, I produced a steady stream of articles on Aboriginal topics, most recently for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Japan’s quarterly magazine. (See my November 1 entry.) During my years working for a Tokyo translation company there was considerable overlap between my freelance and salaried work life, although my day job at the time covered so many different domains, ranging from finance to industry to tourism, that enforcing a strict separation between nine-to-five and freelance topics would probably have meant giving up freelance writing altogether.

Nevertheless, any experienced freelancer knows full well that taking on freelance work that’s closely related to the work you do for a company or organization as a salaried employee is a delicate affair. At the best of times, taking on extracurricular work in your nine-to-five bailiwick can improve your stock significantly. However, as an employee there are invariably issues facing your company or organization that you don’t know about, and a well-meaning but uninformed treatise with your name on it can backfire disastrously. And in today’s wired world, you can be pretty much certain that whatever you write will get back to your employers.

Should you do freelance work that’s closely related to your day job? It really depends on the situation. Sometimes it’s not only fine but in fact beneficial to your employers, and they may well actively encourage it. However, it may well be that the political and business sensitivities of particular issues are such that the messaging needs to be tightly controlled – and as an employee you have no business writing about it outside your role as employee. At the very least, a policy of transparency with your employers is always the best solution. If you’re considering writing about your day-job subject matter, make sure you clear it with your employers beforehand – and be prepared for the fact that they may say no. A $500 writing gig is not worth a world of hurt at the office for months afterward.

As a freelancer, I have always made a point of being open with my employers about my extracurricular writing activities so as to avoid any unwelcome surprises on the part of the people I work for. In the era of Facebook and Twitter, everything gets around, and so will your writings. Even if what you’re writing about has nothing to do with what you do from nine to five, it can still ruffle feathers at work if you’re not careful.

Beyond this, here are my top five advantages and disadvantages of doing freelance work that’s related to your regular gig.

Advantages

1. It’s easier.

You typically know more about the subject to begin with and contacts for interviews and so on are rarely hard to track down.

2. It’s faster.

Ready access to research materials and relevant contacts make it easier for you to complete assignments that require fast turnaround.

3. Clients are more likely to accept your pitches.

Writing about a topic which you also deal with in a professional capacity, with an official organizational or corporate job title to advance, is a definite selling point when pitching stories to magazines, newspapers and copywriting clients, increasing your likelihood of getting the work you’re looking for.

4. It can make you better at your job.

Especially if you’re a relative newcomer to a field (like myself in the construction industry), taking on relevant writing work is a great opportunity to get yourself educated and broaden your knowledge of a field with which you’re still becoming acquainted. And even if you’ve been working in a field for years, freelance work is a way of branching out of your regular focal points in the same way that a sabbatical allows an academic researcher to change gears in their research.

5. It can boost your professional reputation – and that of your employers.

A well-written article in a magazine or newspaper that’s consistent with your employers’ objectives but not so close as to be construed as a PR piece can do wonders for your personal relationships with your stakeholders and your overall esteem within the profession.

Disadvantages

1. It can get boring.

If you’re singularly passionate about your field and want to do nothing but write about that specific topic, this point doesn’t apply. However, if you’re like me, you like some variety in your freelance life and being stuck writing about the same things that you write about 40 hours a week can get frustrating.

2. You run the risk of being seen as a one-trick pony.

Again, some writers market themselves as specialists in a specific field. However, if you’re marketing yourself as a diverse operator and want to be open to all manner of assignments, getting too embedded in a single field, especially if it’s also your day job, can be detrimental.

3. You may have a slanted viewpoint.

There are certain advantages that come with taking on a totally fresh topic, or at the very least something relatively new. Among other things, your viewpoint on it is likely to be relatively unbiased. Conversely, if you’ve been writing on a topic for years, it can be hard to divorce yourself from the filter through which you’ve come to see it. And even if you can see past said filter, you may not be in a position to do so for the reasons outlined in #5.

4. There is little – if any – margin for error.

While any writer worth their salt endeavours to be as informed and accurate as possible, we’re all human beings and we all make occasional mistakes. If you make a mistake in an article about a subject matter that you don’t have to deal with outside of that particular context, said mistake probably won’t follow you around like a bad cold. If it’s a topic wherein you’re expected to be an expert by virtue of your position with an organization or company, it’s a different story completely.

5. The reverse of Advantage #5 is equally true.

For all the reasons outlined in the introduction, you have to be very careful when writing about your day-job subject matter, at least when you’re writing something that will have your name on  it or will otherwise be traceable back to you. Fortunately I’ve never had to deal with a situation like this, as I’ve always been careful, but an imprudent article will at the very least cause bad blood at work – if it doesn’t actually get you fired.

Moreover, even if your employers are amenable to such extracurricular work, you may find that the sensitivities with which you are forced to contend place so many limitations on your work that you’re better off passing on it and doing something completely different. Again, it totally depends on the situation.

None of this, of course, applies if you have a bone to pick with your employers and are actively trying to undermine or sabotage them. But it goes without saying in this case that you’ll be using an assumed name and an IP address that’s not traceable to you. You may even consider a 90's-style zine that you photocopy and distribute by hand on a streetcorner. Just don't let your boss see you doing it.