Article,
The Steep Price of China Public Relations
China Law Blog, (January 28, 2007 at 08:40 PM 2007-01-28)
Abstract
My father in law managed a small town newspaper all of his working
life. He loves to tell how when his son in law got picked up for
some sort of small offense (I am not trying to save anyone here,
but it was so inconsequential I truly do not remember what it was)
the newspaper ran the story and my father in law made absolutely
no effort to intervene. His own son in law's arrest always allowed
him to tell everyone who would call him to beg for keeping unflattering
news out of the paper that he had not even blocked bad news on his
own.
Many years ago, I was working on a big case in the United States for
a thriving U.S. based company owned by Russians. Our lawsuit was
against a Russian company. Early in the case, my client came to me
with a newspaper article from a fairly reputable Russian (as in Russia)
newspaper. The article was on the company we were suing and it contained
pretty much all of the facts we would need to prove our case in the
United States.
I suggested to my client we immediately contact the reporter to speak
with him about where he had gotten the information for his story
so we could do likewise. My client coolly replied no call would be
necessary because he already knew. Smart client, I thought.
Naive me.
My client already knew where the reporter had obtained the information
because my client had fed all of this information, along with $500,
to the reporter and the reporter had printed it. My client had done
this in the mistaken belief we would be able to use the article as
evidence in our case. Bad case strategy, but good public relations.
Much has been written of late how reporters in China go both ways
with payments. They not only take money for favorable press coverage,
they seek money from people with the threat that if they do not pay,
true (or untrue) bad press will follow. The Washington Post did an
excellent article on this the other day, entitled, "Blackmailing
By Journalists In China Seen As 'Frequent'," and it got me to wondering
what foreign companies should do when the media in China knocks on
the door.
But before I finished, I got my answer from a post on the Silicon
Hutong and the answer is don't:
There's only one way to avoid this:
Repeat after me:
"No matter what my PR people, my PR agency, or anyone else tells me,
OUR COMPANY WILL NEVER PAY FOR COVERAGE, either directly or indirectly."
Say it.
Live it.
Stick to it.
Or be prepared to spend ever-increasing sums of money buying off the
jackals.
I am not a media guy, but this advice is so similar to what I am always
saying about paying bribes (and media payouts are essentially bribes)
that I just have to agree. And if you are going to disagree, please
at least read the entire post over at Silicon Hutong first.
Update: China PR guru, Will Moss, over at ImageThief, calls Silicon
Hutong's advice on this "very sound."
