Clarity Blog

In China, the Yangtze river is flooding … a lot.  It does that pretty regularly, but this is the first time serious flooding has hit the river since the completion of the massive Three Gorges Dam.  According to the Los Angeles Times, some nervous eyes are now checking out the dam, which so far is functioning as it should and providing new levels of flood control.

Why does this merit the attention of Clarity Blog?  Well, let’s take a look at the last paragraph of the LA Times story:

The Three Gorges Dam, which spans the Yangtze, is holding back some of the flood waters. When the dam was built,  officials called the giant reservoir so impenetrable it would withstand the kind of flood that comes once in 10,000 years.

Over the course of rainy seasons after the dam was completed, officials started scaling back their claims and attempting to lower expectations, using qualifiers such as “one in a thousand” and “one in a hundred” to describe the  scale of floods the dam could resist.

No, we’re not criticizing the LA Times for its use of the word “impenetrable,” although it certainly was misused, as floods over-top dams, they don’t penetrate them.  Rather, it’s over-speak that’s on our mind; specifically, the Chinese officials’ efforts to stuff already-said hyperbole back into their collective mouths.  Can’t be done.  They’ve done a lousy job of messaging, but they’ve done a great job of introducing a little acronym we use around here:  SCUD.  Here’s what we mean:

Public Affairs “SCUD Words”

The language of public affairs is subtle.  Words that seem innocuous can be loaded with meaning, and can cause problems for our clients.  As sophisticated public affairs practitioners, we must provide our clients with messages that are tested by sensitively weighing each word.   Because misuse of these categories of words can cause our communications to bomb out, remember the acronym SCUD!

1. Superlatives
   As PR people, we gravitate towards words like “biggest” and “most.”  That’s great for consumer PR; but a potential problem for Public Affairs.  We said an endowment would “ensure maintenance of open space forever.”  Uh-uh; it just assures that if managed correctly, sufficient funds should be available.  Do mitigation measures fully mitigate all impacts?  Probably not.  Does the EIR find the mitigation is sufficient, or did it suggest it?
2. Credit Grabs
   Many of the benefits our clients’ projects offer are structured complexly.  Often multiple developers share costs or public funds are included.  A new fire station could include land from one developer, construction funds from two others, and partial state funding.  So don’t say our developer is contributing a fire station.  Donating land for a park may be done in lieu of paying park fees; it’s subtle, but opponents will point this out, so you should point it out first.

3. Ungiven Presents
   Beware of words like “dedicated” and “give.”  Clients will often use these words themselves because they expect that when the deal is finally done, that park site or school site may be a give-away.  However, they may want to sell it, or create the sense that it must be bought in order to drive a harder bargain.  In your information gathering, ask specific questions and use the specific words gained from the answer.
4. Done Deals
   Until the final electeds/regulators approve a plan, it’s a proposed plan.  The parks in it are proposed, the unit count is proposed, the amenities are proposed; the numbers are not yet final!  Another way to say it is, “As planned, the project would….”  Nothing angers elected and regulatory officials more than a developer implying that they will certainly approve a project … and you don’t want to anger someone with approval (and rejection!) authority over your client’s project!

Take out your key messages and read through them with the SCUD acronym in mind.  If you’re confronted with superlatives, credit grabs, ungiven presents and done deals, you need to whip out your anti-SCUD defense system, redraft your messages, and thereby protect yourself from possible  future attacks.

As PR pros, of course we’ve been thinking a lot about the demise of the Deepwater Horizon and the ensuing performances by BP, the administration and everyone else who’s trying to make a point out of the mess.

We like the fact that BP is letting us watch the crude gush out 24/7 (today we’re watching the Remotely Operated Vehicle) and we think its dedicated website is an example of state-of-the-art transparency, but we certainly don’t think much of a CEO who says he wants to “get his life back” after an environmental disaster of this magnitude.  His subsequent apology, like all apologies following gaffes of this magnitude, was inadequate.

We think the president should have visited the Gulf Coast over the Memorial Day weekend, so he could have spent a lot of time talking to people who are trying to stop the gush, and the people whose livelihoods are threatened by it.

And, of course, we’re appalled that knee-jerk environmentalist nay-saying is holding up needed efforts to protect the environment, like Gov. Bobby Jindall’s proposal to build off-shore berms.  Cynics among us might even think for a moment that they’re trying to make the disaster get worse so they can use it to leverage future regulatory campaigns.  But of course, that’s just from the cynics among us …

What we find most interesting is the media’s failure to put the disaster – bad as it is – in perspective.  Our friends at Briscoe Ivester & Bazel recently did just that:

The blowout at Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico has now surpassed, in volume of oil spilled into the marine environment, the grounding and rupturing 21 years ago of the Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound, Alaska. So reported the Wall Street Journal and other news services May 28. The nation’s press has run to its morgues to exhume accounts of the Valdez grounding and spill. Forgotten, though, is a much larger spill … Mexico’s Ixtoc I. Ixtoc I was, like Deepwater Horizon, a drilling rig moored in the Gulf of Mexico, in that case about 600 miles south of the Texas coastline. It exploded June 3, 1979 for reasons similar to the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Ixtoc spilled 10 to 30 thousand barrels of oil a day into the Gulf until relief wells permitted the capping of the broken well almost 10 months later. More than five million barrels of oil spewed from the Ixtoc’s broken wellhead into the Gulf during those months. That amount was 20 times the oil spilled in the Valdez incident.

We hope Deepwater Horizon is capped long before it reaches anything even close to the magnitude of the Ixtoc I spill.  That said, when was the last time you read something about the lasting environmental impacts of Ixtoc I?  Have you ever read anything on the subject?  Well, we have. Here’s the final report prepared by the Feds after thoroughly studying the impact of the 11,000 metric tons of Ixtoc I (and Burmah Agate, another spill) oil that hit the Texas coast. The conclusion:

Petroleum residues attributable to the IXTOC and BURMAH AGATE spills were not identified in the surficial sediments of the study area. Analyses of several water column samples did indicate the presence of IXTOC oil in suspended sedimentary material. Shrimp tissue analysis results identified the presence of petroleum in chronic low levels, but only one sample was linked to IXTOC residues.

No direct links, based on fluctuations in benthic community parameters (abundance and diversity) identified in a comparison of 1976-1977 data with 1980 (post-spill) data, could be made with the IXTOC and/or BURMAH AGATE, spills.

In other words, despite all the hue and cry, all the hand-wringing, and all the condemnation of fossil fuel dependency, the long-term effects of a spill 20 times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill led to nothing more than life as usual with marine creatures and those of us who like to eat them from time to time.  (It took us about 23 seconds to find the federal study, by the way.)

Facts do have a funny way of overpowering perceptions, don’t they?  Unfortunately, facts can get as lost as a clump of crude in a sea of emotions.

Panel poses with Laer's (center) scientific model to project the future of the industry... a smiley face

Today we take a break from the goings on with issues that matter to you – water, over-regulation, land use policy – and address the state of our industry, public relations.

A study was recently conducted by the Orange County chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (with a helping hand from Laer Pearce & Associates) that looked at the state of the PR industry in Orange County. Like all industries, PR has been hit by The Great Recession, and the survey’s findings confirmed it:

• Decision-makers are relying more heavily on PR, which often happens during downturns as more expensive communications tools like advertising get cut
• Still, budgets and staff for PR are being cut
• Hiring is still a concern. Most are not planning on hiring new staff
• Social media has had the highest increase in use, followed by Web site and email communications
• Community relations and direct engagement is also on the rise
• Advertising and printed collateral saw the greatest decline in use
• PR Professionals are cautiously optimistic, with at least half forecasting moderate growth in 2010.

Laer is recognized as a thought-leader in the local PR community, so he was invited to speak on a panel to discuss these results and the future of PR. A few of his key points were:

“Don’t try to make the case that PR is necessary. That’s a losing proposition.  Instead, create a scope that fits the client’s specific needs and make a case for why it meets the client’s strategic objectives at a price that brings value.”

“Everything is getting faster and more complicated, so there will always be a need for good public relations professionals who can help sort through the clutter and help your message be heard and understood.”

The conclusion of the study and panel discussion was clear: PR pros need to do more with less. We actually find this very comforting, because that’s the way we’ve always done it. We pride ourselves on being good stewards of our clients’ resources, adding value through our knowledge of the industries we serve, our relationships within these sectors, and a history of completing campaigns on time and under budget. Recession or not, it’s been our model for nearly 28 years and we have no plans on changing!