Malaysian Leaders fall for another PR consultant

Here we go again with Najib and his cohorts thinking that some spin doctor will provide them with the magic bullet that will boost their popularity, ensure that they will be continously  voted into office and live happily ever after.

The problem is that spin doesn’t work. Leaders and others who want to win the popularity sweepstakes must work hard to win that popularity. PR people can help you strategize, coach you, provide you with communications skills and even write up your soundbites for you, but at the end of the day it is authenticity that wins the day. No Pr person can provide you with that. Authenticity comes with character, integrity, a commitment to ideals and a strong belief in ideals.

In other words, Najib and Co needs to change their personalities instead of their PR people. Yesterday, the flavor of the month PR consultant was APCO. They did not good because they were trying to Pr the unPR-able, as Unspun had predicted. Now it is FBC. What next? And how much taxpayer’s money would have gone into the pockets of foreign spin doctors by then?

Malaysian Leaders ‘Paid UK Firm for PR’
Hazlin Hassan – Straits Times Indonesia | August 06, 2011

Kuala Lumpur. A British-based production company with ties to well-known global television networks has found itself in the spotlight following allegations that it was paid to produce programs to burnish the international image of Malaysian leaders.

Business network CNBC has already dropped its weekend show World Business since reports about FBC Media, which also does public relations, surfaced. The BBC said it was investigating the matter, while CNN denied airing such ‘paid-for’ shows.

‘In light of serious questions raised last week, CNBC immediately initiated an examination of FBC and its business practices and has withdrawn the programme World Business indefinitely,’  Charlotte Westgate, CNBC’s vice-president of marketing and communications, told The Straits Times. She did not elaborate.

The Straits Times’ requests for a comment from the Prime Minister’s Office were not answered as of yesterday.

The allegations first appeared on Sarawak Report, the website of Clare Rewcastle Brown, a Sarawak-born environmental journalist who lives in her home country, England.

‘Allowing slots to be purchased in this way, deceiving millions of viewers who thought they were watching impartial programming, is a serious breach of broadcasting laws,’ she wrote.

Brown, 51, who is the sister-in-law of former British premier Gordon Brown, is a fierce critic of Sarawak’s long-serving Chief Minister Taib Mahmud. Her website has reported extensively on allegations about his wealth and assets abroad, and made a strong impact in the recent Sarawak state election.

via Malaysian Leaders ‘Paid UK Firm for PR’ | The Jakarta Globe.