I recently discovered the joy that is BBC's 'The Thick Of It'; fly on the wall style documentary that follows the 'fictional' Government department of social affairs and citizenship (SAC). Jumping from one crisis to another in each episode, the realism of the programme leaves you feeling like you are really seeing the inner workings of the various Governmental departments.

Malcolm Tucker, believed to be based upon spin king Alastair Campbell, is a pure legend. Harsh talking, toy throwing, fear inducing Director of Comms acting as the PM's enforcer and crisis manager who takes no prisoners. The way that he handles each new and even more fantastical PR problem that his ministers seem to wander into on an almost masochistic basis is something truly to behold. Bluffing on what facts he has and bending the truth at his whim, Malcolm manages to get the 'Government' out of sticky situations too often to count.

He may be a fictional character, but the acting is so superb and the scripting so believable, you feel that you are really seeing the inner workings of our minsters' offices.

Having been on a crisis management training session today, I was well and truly in the mood to watch more of this series as after all, it can't get any worse than what happens in the episodes... can it? Whereas 'The Thick Of It' seems to show the PR team just getting through by the skin of their teeth, in the real world, forward planning is crucial in trying to nip potential reputation disasters in the bud, before anything even happens.

Sure, it would be great if we could all look into a crystal ball and foresee every eventuality that our clients could encounter - be it the result of an irresponsible comment (see Gerald Ratner and Topman's David Shepherd - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/top-man-brand-director-says-his-suits-are-for-hooligans-678357.html) or a product fault, national disaster or other unfortunate eventuality.

Alas, such a useful instrument has not been invented so we are left with the need to imagine the worst case scenario and plan the steps needed to be taken should it ever become a reality.
This kind of 'expect the unexpected' ethos is central to today's society, where negative press often seems to be the only press and where companies can be held accountable for almost anything, regardless as to how tenuous the link may be. And as PR professionals, we are the ones with whom the buck often stops so they only way to ensure we aren't on the back foot before we begin is to scope out the potential pitfalls and, as ever, keep our fingers firmly on the pulse. After all, prevention is always better than cure.

O’Neill departure leaves Villa fans singing the blues!

As the dust settles on Martin O’Neill’s departure, the rumour mill is going into overdrive. Who will replace the fiery Irishman? What forced him to quit? Was he as popular as we thought?

Apparently according to the Daily Mirror, players toasted their gaffer’s resignation by texting each other pictures of champagne bottles – sparking debate about O’Neill’s relationship with his squad, something which has always been considered exemplary.

But whilst there may be some truth in the players falling out with him, most of the fans seem sorry to see him go. Pictures on Midlands Today last night showed how he was greeted by thousands of optimistic Villa fans when he was appointed 4 years ago, and it certainly takes a hell of a lot for Villa fans to be optimistic about something!

After a fairly successful reign which included regular 6^th place finishes, another season in Europe and Carling Cup final and FA Cup semi final appearances last term, most Villa fans were still very much in support of O’Neill. But the question remains, will they ever really know if he jumped before he was pushed, whether he had lost the dressing room, or if mild-mannered American owner Randy Lerner just didn’t have the transfer cash to keep him happy anymore.

The Birmingham Mail seems sure that Lerner’s failure to back O’Neill in the transfer market for the first summer in his four year tenure was the straw that broke the camal’s back. After all, he was given £40m last summer, and with just 3 weeks left until the transfer window slams shut Villa are yet to spend a penny, while prize asset James Milner is certain to leave for big spending Man City, and other first termers Emile Heskey, Ashley Young, John Carew and Luke Young have all be linked with moves away from Villa Park.

After steady improvement under O’Neill, you have to fear for the club a little, no manager with 4 days until the big Premier League kick off, no new players in while stars look set to leave, and the teams around Villa all looking to improve. I can only see Villa taking a few backwards steps now, unless Lerner makes a big statement of intent with a high profile managerial appointment – Van Basten or Hiddink, perhaps? I just don’t think Curbishley, Southgate or Zola would appease the oh so pessimistic Villa faithful.

Once a new boss is selected, one question will remain, who is the real Villain of the piece? O’Neill for leaving a club he calls ‘magnificent’ in the lurch a few days before they face West Ham, Lerner for pulling the plug on the transfer pot, James Milner for leaving? One thing is for sure, the potential for staunch rivals Birmingham City to overtake Villa as the Midlands’ highest place team since the Premier League began is now higher than ever, and that will leave a far more bitter taste in the mouth than O’Neill’s surprise departure.

Just How Public Would You Go?

The BBC has written to me at home. It was a hand written envelope with a personal note inside from a BBC researcher inviting me to take part in a documentary on people’s attitudes to money and how they spend it.

She assured me that the BBC has “ an impressive track record for producing high standard documentaries.”

My first thought was that I might be an ideal participant …professional executive with penny pinching ways that hark back to my student days when “ The Pauper’s Cookbook “ was my bible. Eyebrows might rise at my efforts to grow my own, recycle and my personal clothes allowance is so small most women would gasp in amazement.

Certainly not what you would expect from a PR exec!

But why put myself through this? Do I really want people sitting at home knowing what my money habits are?

Celebrity trivia is so at the forefront of media content today - who would have thought 5 years ago The Sun would have put as the main front page story, as it did last week, that Lily Allen is “preggers”?

We are being lured into a culture of exposing every aspect of our lives ….be it on twitter, facebook or national TV.

From my experience broadcast programmes have largely written the plot before filming starts and the “guinea pig” simply has to fit into the strands of the story.

So while I may make fascinating TV fodder, I’ll give this one a wide berth.

The Media That Pays For Itself

This week a number of influential bloggers (including Wadds, Gedd Carroll and Stuart Bruce) all took to their screens to fly the flag for the media they pay for. Keen to still be able to read a Sunday morning paper in a few years I thought I too would like throw in my 10 cents for the media that is easily worth the cost.

The Guardian iPhone App £2.39

For a fraction of what they could charge, this app allows all users the access to daily news as acknowledged by the newspaper. Its user friendly capabilities have landed it a firm place on the app ‘must-have’ list and the Guardian revealed back in January they have already enjoyed over 70k downloads – a total which may have doubled since then.

Many have questioned how the app will pay its way in the future and a lot of the app users have been quick to defend the longevity of the app stating that they would happily pay an annual subscription fee to enjoy the facilities it offers.

Anyone with an iPhone looking for a news app that loads quicker than any other and boasts features that will keep you coming back to check every hour simply must invest.

PRWeek (via CIPR membership)

As all PRs would tell you, it is important to keep abreast of industry news – not only so that you have enough material to keep the conversation going at a networking event where you’ve enjoyed one too many Cabernet Sauvignons but because you never know what you may stumble upon.

New business can come from the oddest of places and PRWeek ensures all subscribers know the ins and outs of the latest brand ventures and recruitments. It’s also a must read for all looking to see who has made the highly coveted top 150 and always nice to know what those within the industry have been up to.

Sunday Times £2

When the Sunday Times became a £2 paper four years ago, big doubts were cast as to whether any paper could live up to such a strong price point. However, four years on and the paper is going strong with a circulation of well over 1 million. There’s something quite satisfying about heading to the corner shop for a paper and returning home with what feels like a brick of knowledge in your arms.

I truly feel the Sunday Times offers something for everyone be it the ingear section for car enthusiasts, the culture supplement or the Style magazine – it’s one of those papers where no pages go left unread.

Wired Magazine £24 per annum

Ever been to one of those dinner parties where it’s your job to bring a fact that no-one has heard before? If you’re out of ideas I urge you to turn to this zany fact-filled magazine.

With a brilliant website and twitterfeed to match (and help me get my daily fix) if any high end quality magazine can survive the current struggling media landscape I believe Wired can. Learn about ideas, technology and business or why orangutans are energy efficient.

With a true stand out factor and a readership of almost 50,000 the quality journalism you get back from this mag is more than worth the reading fee – give it a go today.

Birmingham Post

Anyone located within the Midlands will tell you all about the necessary changes to this regional paper, which saw the print schedule turn weekly and the editorial team heavily cut down as Alun Thorne was called upon to lead what was to be branded a very different ship.

The paper still boasts a very good read with all you need to know about business, property and regional news packed into one bumper 7-day edition. With a good website to match and option of daily subscriber email updates it feels like the Birmingham Post has always been delivered the way it is now – a system that works.

So, whilst I am quick to often talk about the shift of the media landscape and how the modern times demands more from a newspaper brand than ever before (I know I live to see a nice website and twitterfeed as a minimum) I will still happily put my hand in my pocket for the media – as long as it continues to pay for itself.

A picture worth more than a thousand words

I had the first inkling that Time Magazine would suffer a backlash over its cover this week which can be viewed HERE, when I came downstairs Saturday morning and was told to take my hard copy of the magazine upstairs out of sight of the children.

The photo, of an Afghan woman disfigured by the Taliban, cuts right to the heart of the ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ dilemma that Obama, Cameron and others are wrestling with as we try to find a way out of the quagmire.

Even the most heartless advocate of immediate withdrawal could not help but momentarily consider the implications for Afghan women if the Taliban are allowed to take back control, which was exactly what Time intended when they put the photo on the cover.

However, on the other side of the coin lies our own history in Afghanistan encompassing three previous engagements, namely the First Afghan War (1839-42), the Second Afghan War(1878-80) and the Third Afghan War (1919) which at best resulted in a partial victory for the British and at worst resulted in total catastrophe. It must also be remembered that the former Soviet Union had three times as many troops in Afghanistan in the early ‘80s as the war coalition has now and look what happened to them.

There can be no doubt that the photo is provocative and many do not like to be confronted with our dire choices in so stark a manner. This was a brave editorial decision by Time but the right one.

Brooke gets to the heart of the paywall question

I deliberately haven’t commented on the Times’ paywall numbers (readership down 90 per cent) which were issued earlier this week as I think it is important that this experiment is given a fair shout without too much sniping from the sidelines, especially from a PR man!

However, I can’t help but comment on an interesting little aside from journalist Heather Brooke on her website in which she defends her decision to go and work for the Times behind their paywall. She had this to say on her blog: “I actually believe journalism must improve if the Times is asking people to pay for it, as readers are not going to pay for inaccurate rumour or propaganda. They can get that anywhere – for free.”

If what Brookes is saying is that paywalls will mean an end to ‘churnalism’ (the running of news stories cribbed from other sources without any fact checking or further information being provided), more original content, more investigative reporting, better and more incisive comment, then she could be onto something.

Of course, the issue is that all of the above has a cost attributed, mainly in the form of actually having more journalists, which destroys margins. After a decade of ever-shrinking editorial departments this would be a considerable volte face for the industry and most importantly its proprietors.

Are some things just ‘unspinnable’?

The resignation, or removal, of Tony Hayward from the top job at BP prompts me to ask the question, are some things just unspinnable?

This is a difficult one for a PR man to answer. Those of us in PR tend to think that communication is the answer to everything, just as lawyers think that the legal system provides all the answers and accountants think that close perusal of the balance sheet, P&L and cash statement will tell you all you need to know.

In Hayward’s case there were PR gaffes which undoubtedly made the situation worse. Sailing in the Isle of Wight Round Island Race during the early days of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster and declaring that “I want my life back” were pretty crass things to do and say.

However, if you look at the circumstances that he was being forced to communicate in, I am not sure that anybody, regardless of nationality, demeanor or ability to deliver a sound-bite could have dealt with the media crisis that engulfed him.

Hayward was faced with an almost perfect storm. On top of an appalling environmental disaster, he was faced with communicating the facts of BP’s shocking safety record (if anyone deserves opprobrium heaped upon him it is Hayward’s predecessor Lord Browne, King of Cost Cutting to deliver shareholder value); a US President desperate to avoid comparisons with the Bush Administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina; mid-term elections due in November which offered Senate investigating committees the opportunity to grandstand in front of the cameras, whilst all the time real-time TV footage showed oil spewing out of the well at an alarming rate.

Are any of us in PR saying we could have done any more than apply a slightly more effective sticking plaster to this gaping wound?

PS: One other point. I’m struggling to agree with those who are criticising BP for not “getting out in front of the story” when it came to announcing Hayward's departure. Rules is rules. Publicly quoted companies cannot just bring forward ‘announcements’ that Chief Executives are leaving because the media has got a sniff of something. The very earliest this announcement could have been made was 0700 Monday morning. Leaving it for another 24 hours might look a bit lackadaisical but let’s face it, as corporate reputation goes, there is not much further down to go for BP.