Can this reputation be saved?

The Bush Administration

When Armstrong "I-am-not-a journalist; I-am-a-pundit" Williams got busted for taking money from the Bush Administration to promote the No Child Left Behind Act, you'd have thought that no self-respecting PR person had ever hired an "expert" to speak on its behalf. We here at The Measurement Standard actually found all the tut-tuts and self-aggrandizing outrage a bit much.

In reality, tech companies for years have known that if you want to get an industry analyst to say something nice about you, you better at least be a subscriber to his or her report, if not a major client. Health care organizations for years have paid doctors to do research and say nice things about them in print. It's really not much different than Nike hiring a superstar athlete to be a corporate spokesperson. What is different about the latest kerfuffle is that Williams was paid with our tax dollars to promote a particular government agenda and to skew press coverage of that issue to the Administration's side.

But critics are missing the point. This isn't the first nor will it be the last time that the Bush administration uses basic PR tactics to get its messages across. (In fact, this week's Time reports that the Bush Administration spent $250 million on pr contracts during its first term, and the Clinton Administration spent $128 million during the previous four years.) But as each episode comes to light, the administration loses a little more credibility and it will a long four years if every time a pundit or journalist voices an opinion, the rest of the media launches an investigation into whether it was "Real" or "Paid."

What really bothers us about this whole episode is the damage it does to the reputations of our industry. As part of this controversy, it has come to light that the the Bush administration has also paid for rankings of newspaper coverage of the No Child Left Behind law, with points awarded for stories that say Bush and the Republican Party are strong on education.

Now, first of all, that's illegal. Since Watergate, the law states that a government entity is not allowed to maintain a regular record of any individual's exercise of his or her first amendment rights, and writing about a particular subject is certainly a first amendment right. Which means no "enemies lists" and, conversely you aren't supposed to keep "friendlies" lists either.

What's worse is that it reduces PR research to some sort of Machiavellian practice used to subvert press freedom. PR research and evaluation is a valuable strategic tool that can and should be used to make better business decisions. It is never a better decision to try to subvert first amendment rights.

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