Is Political PR and Corporate PR so different that a practitioner that deals with one is not qualified to deal with the other? Is PR about spin doctoring?
Unspun addresses some of these questioned raised by a Malaysian corporate consultant and independent political analyst in a post at the Maverick corporate blog. Here’s an excerpt:
A corporate consultant’s spin on PR
Jul 29, 2009 – This post is filed under PR & Communications
This is an interesting, but misguided, view of PR and politics by Malaysian Khoo Kay Peng, who describes himself as “a corporate consultant and an independent political analyst,” in his blog Straight Talk.
BN Spending Big Bucks on PR Consultants? This Advice is Free.
It was reported that the government is spending big bucks to get positive publicity for the administration overseas. A number of companies, including renowned international public affairs and media relations company Apco Worldwide, are pitching for a new round of government-related work believed to be worth some RM20 million. The report predicts that Apco will likely be awarded the contract.
Only days ago I told a senior BN politician that using spin doctors and PR specialists serving mainly corporations is one of the main faults often committed by politicians. Political PR and corporate PR are not apple to apple.
In the case of BN, the coalition needs to practice common sense politics based on the principles of fairness, justice, rule of law and good governance to reverse the slide of their political fortune.
Click here for the rest of Kay Peng’s article
Kay Peng’s take is that since PR practitioners, whom he equates to spin doctors, mainly serve corporations, they are unqualified to help politicians brush up their image since “political PR and corporate PR” are very different practices. He then goes on to define his view of political PR, which seems to be to give power back to the people, listen to them, help them and be good guys.
In doing so, Kay Peng betrays a lack of understanding of what public relations is all about, but before we explain what PR is, it is helpful to explain to Kay Peng what PR is not. PR is certainly not about spin doctoring, which is the shallow man’s understanding of PR. In this understanding, all PR people do is to give whatever issues that need to be addressed a spin and viola! the public is entranced, they lose their power to reason andaccept what has been spun to them. This view is insulting not only to Pr practitioners but to the public – people really aren’t that stupid.
Fore rest of story click here.
Unspun 
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