Harper’s Magazine’s Ken Silverstein sparked a wild fire in the lobbying, public relations and media communities. Ethics have been questioned. Insults have been hurled. And pundits have turned ugly on each other.
Silverstein spent years watching Washington, DC-based lobbying firms represent dictatorial foreign governments on Capitol Hill. What promises do these firms make in pitching their services? What scrutiny do they use to evaluate potential clients? How much of their PR work is visible to Congress and the public?
To answer these questions, Silverstein went undercover as “Kenneth Case,” a consultant for a fictitious London-based firm called “The Maldon Group” that had a financial stake in improving the public image of Turkmenistan. He threw up a rudimentary Web site, printed some business cards and then proceeded to contact several of the top lobby/PR shops in DC.
The resulting article titled “Their Men in Washington: Undercover with DC’s Lobbyists for Hire” is a fascinating read about the strategies and tactics lobbyists employ to enhance the reputation of a foreign entity with questionable beliefs and practices.
Equally intriguing has been the reaction from media pundits who, rather than directing their ire at the lobbying shops in the article, raised concerns about Silverstein’s ethics and credibility.
Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz wrote “no matter how good the story, lying to get it raises as many questions about journalists as their subjects”. In an op-ed for CBS News Matthew Felling referred to Silverstein’s reporting as “gotcha journalism" .
Harper’s Magazine’s Silverstein was forced to defend his journalistic practices (and the importance of undercover reporting) in a Los Angeles Times op-ed titled “Undercover, Under Fire."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-silverstein30jun30,0,19
39913.story?coll=la-opinion-center
While I have no standing to participate in that debate, I do believe Silverstein’s article should serve as a call to PR practitioners – both corporate communications professionals and their agency counterparts – to elevate their due diligence. At Strategic Communications Group (Strategic), we do our best to practice honesty and full disclosure in external communications, while always representing the best interests of our clients.
We’re fortunate to work for a group of companies that I believe offer valuable products and services, and are led by ethical management. Can we do more at Strategic to ensure this is always the case? Absolutely…and that’s something I plan to discuss with the team.
While wild fires are destructive and dangerous they have benefits. In time they produce areas of new growth that help wildlife and plant diversity. Let’s hope Silverstein’s article does the same in the PR and lobbying industries.
