I’d never heard of Peter Serafinowicz but there is a good PR case study about him in Saturday’s Daily Mail: The BBC’s hottest new comedy star Peter Serafinowicz yesterday abandoned an attempt to use the Human Rights Act to stop newspapers revealing his grandfather was the first man in Britain to face a trial for Nazi war crimes.
I have no access to the full facts but I wonder if Peter Serafinowicz feels that trying to gag the Mail, using the privacy provisions of the Human Rights Act, was probably a mistake. It certainly highlights the differences between a legal route and PR, when dealing with negative publicity.
Had he sought my advice, I’d have told him that nobody can be censured for the sins of a dead grandfather, let alone not wanting to talk about it. This is 99.9% born out by the reader’s comments which accompany the online story.
A short statement to the Daily Mail registering dismay, which I believe he feels, would probably have dealt with it. Instead his lawyers failed to silence the Mail, providing all the justification needed for a smug twist to a hideous allegation and possibly a fat bill too.
Click to Comment // Posted on Tuesday 23 October 2007 // General
Dear Diary, Nearly fell off bike at 5.12pm yesterday. Was riding home, half on the pavement as usual, opp Green Park listening to the PM prog and enjoying Eddie Mair’s utterly butterly style, when in walked BBC COO Caroline Thomson. La Topspin had presumably been sent to studio S1 to ‘draw a line under the Fincham resignation’. i.e. Get in and get it over with as quickly as possible, and don’t worry, Eddie isn’t John.
She was doing well in an icy way when EM slipped her a classic Mair Omega 3 capsule question along the lines of:
“would it be a good idea if all broadcasters had to agree to a code of practice on editorial standards?”
Caroline seemed stunned. What follows is slightly abridged or had a Wafflectomy as its known.
“(pause) Um, I think that might be an interesting idea, we do have a sort of code of practice in Ofcom …in that Ofcom would be the appropriate body - Ofcom do have a code of practice that they hold us to … so in a sense it exists already .. but it’s an interesting issue we should look at.”
A word in your shell-like Dear, but the BBC already have 226 pages of advice and mandatory instructions to all BBC staff and contractors, stuffed with things about values, accuracy and lots more besides. Its called the BBC Editorial Guidelines. There is even a link to it on this page.
If you would like to hear the int in full then go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/noscript.shtml?/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/pm, its about 10 mins in. But take care if you are riding a bike.
Click to Comment // Posted on Saturday 6 October 2007 // General
My thanks to Mrs DF of Wimborne, Dorset for pointing out that my Air Supremacy website needs updating. Actually, its crashed and is in the garage so to speak. Should be back on the information highway shortly.
Click to Comment // Posted on Thursday 4 October 2007 // General