Say you’re one of the least popular governors in the country. Say the local papers have run several unflattering reports about conflicts of interest among your staffers. Say someone at a publicity event gives you an open-ended question while you’re sitting in a fighter jet simulator. What would you say?

Here’s a hint: do NOT say that you’d like to “blow up” the Portland Press Herald’s offices.

Maine Governor Paul LePage is a proudly outspoken political figure taken to insulting his opponents with crude sexual comments and telling students that newspapers are his “biggest fear”; political advisors call that “red meat for the base,” but we wonder about the wisdom of his media relations strategy.

@PressHerald Threatened? It was a joke, folks!

— Paul R. LePage (@Governor_LePage) August 9, 2013

Well, duh. But it won’t win you any of the new fans you need for re-election.

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“You keep it boring, String. You keep it dead f*cking boring.” – Joseph “Prop Joe” Stewart

Gangster’s motto or PR strategy? It’s both: the quote succinctly explains how drug kingpin Stringer Bell avoids attracting too much attention from the cops and how Bill Belichick, coach of football’s incredibly successful New England Patriots, manages to keep his team in the media’s good graces despite several recent run-ins with the Bad News Bears.

In an article titled “Nobody outworks Belichick in the game of media control,” former Patriot and current Sporting News analyst Ross Tucker explains the man’s secret: keep things nice and dull.

Sounds too simple, doesn’t it? For most pigskin squads, news of a top receiver’s indictment for murder and the arrival of Tim “Jesus Is My Homeboy” Tebow would attract more bad press than a Kardashian wedding. Yet the Patriots have so far managed to avoid the fallout from the Aaron Hernandez and Tebow sideshows. According to Tucker, it’s because the team is “uniquely suited to handle the media scrutiny,” and it all comes back to the man in charge and his diligent approach to PR.

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Just a few short weeks ago, we were counting down the minutes until the Twinkie made its big return to store shelves. Well it happened today… or rather it happened on Today. Al Roker and Twinkie the Kid escorted a Twinkie truck (strangely, with a big cupcake on the side of it) into Rockefeller Center at which point Al dragged a tub of Twinkies over to Savannah Guthrie, Tamron Hall, and Willie Geist and they hurled cakes at the crowd. Welcome back Twinkie…

A Today show segment is a big get, but the whole thing was a little low on enthusiasm if you ask us. But really, the big test is with the customers.
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The entire country watched in horror this month as Paula Deen’s deep-fried, butter-soaked career came crashing down in a mess of outrageous statements and one of the most painful non-apologies we’ve ever had the misfortune to witness.

Mrs. Deen’s fall was so epic, in fact, that it distracted us from another perfectly served case study in poor media relations. This one came courtesy of clay court champ Serena Williams, who ruined what should have been a complimentary Rolling Stone profile with a few ill-advised comments and a passive-aggressive “apology.”

While visiting a nail salon with reporter Stephen Rodrick, Williams saw a news report about the Steubenville, Ohio rape case that sent two high school football stars to jail and led to a PR fail for CNN when anchors Poppy Harlow and Candy Crowley appeared to express more sympathy for the rapists than their victim.

Serena said of the perpetrators: “Do you think it was fair, what they got? They did something stupid, but I don’t know.” Beyond classifying the rape of a 16-year-old girl as “something stupid” and wondering whether the offenders were punished too harshly, Williams also had some less-than-flattering words for the victim:

“I’m not blaming the girl, but…why was she that drunk where she doesn’t remember? She’s lucky… she shouldn’t have put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, then that’s different.”

Did she really need to throw a “but” in there?

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The partnership between PitchEngine and Cision, which began in 2011, has ended, with PitchEngine announcing plans for what CEO Jason Kintzler says is “a new kind of content distribution and deployment.”

Cision customers no longer have access to PitchEngine’s social media publishing services. However, in the press statement, Kintzler says, “Cision was notified of this change back in December, so there shouldn’t be any surprises”). Instead,Cision made an announcement of its own about changes in its service offerings. Read more

The rendering by Diller Scofidio & Renfro via The New York Times

The Municipal Art Society (MAS) invited the press to an event Wednesday morning in which they would be able to take a look at four renderings of the new Madison Square Garden. They’re just ideas at the moment since the actual building of the facility is more than 15 years away, but still. If you’re into this, like the architecture and design press who were invited to the event would be, this is pretty exciting stuff.

Except the MAS had already given the story and the images to The New York Times the night before.

Journalists working for smaller outlets are used to playing second fiddle to top-tier outlets. But really, don’t rub salt in the wound by pulling this kind of stunt. Especially when those other journalists can wound you and do a little salt rubbing in return.

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Public relations is a tricky industry because perception evolves. Whenever a celebrity is caught with cocaine and a prostitute or a brand is accused of using exploited labor to manufacture products, the public has a tendency to become lost in the emotion of the moment. We are outraged or sad or elated or euphoric, and then days pass and reality sets in, and the long-haul truth of life begins to settle in. We gain perspective.

Much of public relations is about establishing a narrative that tempers the ephemeral fluctuations of emotions and hastens the call to reasonable, informed and sober thinking. That is exactly what Pulbix Super Markets, where the winning $590.5 million Powerball lottery ticket was recently purchased in Florida, is doing. And good for them. The brand did not exploit the exciting moment by going public with a statement such as, “Publix is very honored that one our valued and thrift-conscious customers has been so lucky as to purchase the winning lottery ticket at one of our many modern stores that offer the lowest prices.”

Instead, here is what Maria Brous, Publix spokeswoman, had to say. “We’re excited for the winner or winners. We don’t promote or endorse the lottery, we offer it as a convenience.”

That’s it. That’s all. No opportunism or salesmanship there, just an acknowledgement of the facts. Well played, Publix. This is a mature and savvy public relations response. Publix knows that the lottery is a political hot potato for many communities, and that the winners of otherworldly sums of money often lead miserable and painful lives. Read more

Well here’s a highly fraught debate: to what degree should PR pros manage the message in content created by the journalists they pitch? When does “making helpful suggestions” turn into “telling journalists how to do their jobs?”

This week journalist Jim Romenesko (who everyone in media should follow on Twitter and Facebook) brings us a couple of cases in which he and some of his colleagues believe that PR pros went too far.

In the first instance, a reader who is also a newspaper editor received an unusually bold pitch from a man who claims to transcend the traditional role of the flack:

“I would like to propose engaging in a relationship where once in a while I supply you with fully developed stories (completed articles) that you can publish under your byline, with or without editing, at no fee.”

That’s right, this guy will write full articles (for a real physical paper, no less) and the writer will get credit for them. No real work necessary. Oh, and also:

“I placed a few expert quotes by some of my clients into the piece, so I am not looking for compensation or acknowledgement.”

Ah yes — there we go.

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We all know how important copy editing and fact-checking can be to PR departments; last week we ran a story about a single error that cost New York City’s MTA a quarter of a million dollars.

But sometimes little mistakes can turn into PR wins. Case in point: When Village Voice columnist and theater expert Michael Musto attended the play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, he noticed that the playbill incorrectly credited lead actress Sigourney Weaver with an Oscar for her role in the sci-fi classic Aliens.

After Musto posted the mistake on his Daily Musto blog, he received a perfectly phrased email apology from the show’s publicist Rick Miramontez, who works for top Broadway firm O&M Co. In explaining his error, Miramontez wrote:

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A quick lesson in media relations from the office of Vice President Joe Biden: try to be nice to reporters whenever possible–and if you do decide to be difficult, make sure you’re justified or you might embarrass yourself.

Today the VP’s office issued an official apology for “bullying” (not our word of choice) a student reporter at a press event. In summary: Biden, attorney general Eric Holder and Maryland Senator Ben Cardin called a press conference to announce a new domestic violence prevention initiative. A reporter for Capital Press, who also happens to be a student at the University of Maryland, accidentally sat in a section of the room that was not reserved for media and took photos of Biden as he spoke.

After the event, a member of Biden’s press staff spoke to the reporter and demanded to watch as he deleted the (supposedly) forbidden photos. Scandal!

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