Most Media PR Firms today do a good job at managing the media. People like Max Clifford are well known for getting people out of all sorts of holes.It's pretty amazing when you flick through his site and see who he has associated with over the years. He even has a photo of OJ Simpson on his site.
Of course , who they are shouldn't really matter should it? We all know what a bastard the media can be. Once it gets its claws into a person then, if the content is juicy enough and a bigger story doesn't come along, then they'll just churn things out for as long as they can bringing up account after innuendo after slur, in ensuring that, in the eyes of their readers at least, the person at the sharp end is seen to be as evil or as sleazy, or as heinous as they can possibly paint them to be.
It's no surprise though. People want to read this stuff after all. People want scandal and intrigue and outrage. They want to read about alleged nazi dress orgies , and if the person at the centre is respected or well known then even better still. If the appetite for it exists then who can blame the media for feeding it? It's a 'free' society after all, right? Yet free for who? Free for us to read what we want? Free for us to go about our business free of any fear of harrassment by some organisation larger than us. Free for any organisation to report on an issue that it feels to be of public interest?
The list could go on, one mans freedom is another mans chains it seems. What is right and proper to me, may not be neccessarily so for someone else and that person will proclaim very loudly that they should be free to attack or condemn something that they feel is wrong or injust or bad in general. We are left to entrust such outcomes to our courts. The law of libel being one such mechanism for redress, provided you can afford it of course.
It's clear from that statement that I'm not too far away from a view that would suggest that the existing system isn't very fair at all. How can it be right that money, or access to, should be the determinant to getting an open hearing or justice at some perceived wrong? Isn't it time that we had privacy laws that protect us from this, or are you happy with how it all works? Should it be open season to say what you like when you like and how you like?
In an age of digital communications whereby anonmyous bloggers can * start stories and paint them as true even when they have no basis in fact it's not such a huge leap to imagine how such things could be bent and twisted to suit all manner of aims and objectives.How long before you'll need the services of a PR Company?
*The story referenced managed to find its way into a radio4 broadcast a national televison broadcast and numerous big circulation newspapers
