Catholic Church in Global Crisis

The global child abuse allegations surrounding Catholic Church priests literally landed at Pope Benedict’s front door yesterday.

A group of victims appeared on Italian television to claim that two dozen priests had abused children at a school for the deaf for decades. Former pupils at the school spoke on a live broadcast on RAI, an Italian state television channel.

The Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP) had appealed to Benedict to take action while in his previous role as Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is the office charged with disciplining clergy.

It seems that the lid is about to blow on global child abuse claims in the Catholic Church, as new allegations are propelled into the media spotlight on a daily basis. This is highlighted by the fact that 5 of last week’s most read timesonline.co.uk articles were concerned with the Church’s child abuse allegations.

The Catholic Church’s response to this crisis has been terrible to say the least. There has been a distinct lack of response from official spokespeople which has allowed the media frenzy to escalate out of control. It has emerged that in the past the Catholic Church has tried to keep claims of child abuse ‘hush hush’ by paying off victims large sums of money. One such example was seen recently in Ireland where one woman was paid £45,000 only on condition that she never reveals details of her allegations. Furthermore, to date only a small proportion of the priests to be accused of abuse have faced legal proceedings as Benedict and his predecessor John Paul II have continually ordered those in question to a life of ‘prayer and penitence’.

The actions of the Italian victims seems to have provided the drastic wake up call the Catholic Church needed to address their problems as it was announced a global inquiry over the cover-up of child sex abuse scandals in the Church will be carried out. The sheer scale of the job at hand was reflected in the news that the inquiry is estimated to cost more than £40 million and five years to complete.

The Catholic Church and the brand it represents have been rocked to the core by the recent wave of sex abuse claims. From a PR perspective, the church’s passive strategy has left a lot to be desired. It has taken immense pressure from the public and the media for this inquiry to be announced, but how relevant will the investigation be? My worry is that the church will merely scratch at the surface of this problem and fail to go into any great detail as to provide answers.

The inquiry is expected to cost around £40 million, but is a figure nearer £100 or £200 million what’s needed to fully investigate the sex abuse claims that have manifested in the Catholic Church?

Digital Government

Yesterday Gordon Brown announced plans to provide super-fast broadband for every home by 2020. The Prime Minister says this move will dramatically cut public spending and create around 250,000 jobs.

The proposal coincided with the launch of the "MyGov’ initiative that aims to give everyone in the U.K a personalised online dashboard. This will allow members of the public to access all public services in one place- from paying council tax to making a doctor’s appointment.

In today’s class we discussed how organisations are using digital media into campaign plans. Surely the government will have on hell of a job trying to convince people of the need for a ‘paperless society’, especially as only one third of the country’s population currently has broadband connection.

Despite Labour promising that the plans will create new jobs, critics (mainly the Conservatives) have already warned the digitalization of the public sector could also cause the closure of job centres and other physical offices that deal with tax, passports and housing benefits.

I think it’s a lovely idea that everyone could log on to their ‘Govbook’ page and do everything from the comfort of their own home. What’s not so lovely are the rumours that Labour are planning to impose a broadband council tax to help pay for the scheme-we’ve not got it ,yet already Alasdair Darling is dreaming up ways of making the public pay!

What other whoppers will be unveiled in tomorrow’s budget?

Nestle: A social media crisis?

This week Nestle, one of the U.K’s leading confectionary manufacturers has come under intense criticism from hot-tempered tweeters and furious Facebookers.

Environmental protection activists Greenpeace alleged that Nestle purchased palm oil from Sinar Mas, an Indonesian company accused of illegal deforestation of rainforests. Greenpeace have posted a video titled ‘Give the Orang-Utan a Break’on their homepage.

The rumours outraged members of the public, who have responded by posting critical comments on Nestles Twitter and official Facebook site. On Thursday of last week, Nestle was on of the top ten tweeted about topics, with thousands of people statuses containing a link to the Greenpeace video and the message ‘Stop Nestle buying palm oil from companies that destroy the rainforests.’ On Friday and article in prweek.com commented that the situation was quickly becoming a ‘major social media fail’. Nestle's Facebook page has been bombarded with comments that describe their ethics as 'disgraceful' while others call for mass boycotts of Nestle products.

This latest viral campaign has had an adverse effect on Nestles share prices which dropped over the weekend. What can Nestle do to fight back and regain confidence in the market? Digital media experts suggest they should address the key issues of this criticism and post a video on YouTube in response to the Greenpeace video.

It will be very interesting to see if this negative publicity damages Nestles Easter egg sales in the run-up to what is arguably, the confectionary industry’s most profitable season...

Making a PR Drama out of a crisis

Steven Purcell, the former Glasgow City Council leader resigned last week amid rumours of alcohol and drug abuse, could have possibly returned to politics in the future, had his departure not been handled badly by so called ‘PR gurus’.

Purcell, who was once touted as a future First Minister candidate ignored the advice from fellow councillors to come clean (excuse the pun) about his vices and thus not closing the door on a political comeback sometime in the future. Instead the 37 year-old enlisted the help of Glasgow-based PR firm Media House to handle the situation.

It was his decision to hire one of the major players in Scotland’s media scene that inevitably alerted the press to the fact that there was more to the story that met the eye. It was widely reported throughout the week that Jack Irvine, executive chief of Media House refused a number of draft resignation proposals from Glasgow City Council that referred to Purcell’s ‘chemical dependency’ and recommended stating a ‘leave of absence on medical advice’.

Irvine’s attempt to hoax the media into believing Purcell’s problems were limited to stress and exhaustion was foolish and failed to take into consideration the rumours that were already circulation on the internet. Political blogger Guido Fawkes’ order-order website was rife with conspiracies surrounding Purcell’s departure and it seemed that for every rumour Jack Irvine and co. tried to mask another five were leaked to the press or released online. The most severe example of these being that Purcell apparently tried to commit suicide while in a rehab clinic. This crisis highlights the fact that PR firms can do their utmost to limit traditional media speculation but the same cannot be applied to the internet.

In my opinion the public deserved to know the details surrounding Purcell’s resignation. At the end of the day, this guy earned £60,000 a year, was in charge of 30,000 staff and a budget of £2 billion. Surely the Glasgow tax payers have a right to know he also had a class A drug habit?

It seems to be the end of the line for Purcell...

David Meerman Scott-rewriting the PR rulebook

David Meerman Scott is an author, blogger, strategist and keynote conference speaker. I first came across his name whilst doing my dissertation literature review and googled him to see what popped up. Curiosity led me to his Twitter page and it was there I came across this interesting video interview in which he talks about the role of social media in PR. The interview relates to Scott's book The New Rules of Marketing and PR. Albeit his views focus on American perspectives, nonetheless Scott makes some interesting points about how practitioners can use social media as an effective PR tool. Scott also talks about the role of press releases and common mistakes PR organizations often make when using social media.

At some points it’s hard to take the interviewer’s cheesy style seriously due to his excessive brown nosing. The video is still definitely worth a look however I would recommend sacking it off at the 18 minute mark because Scott starts talking about Return on Investments and other marketing- related topics.

On a lighter note Scott reminisces about when he first started blogging and how he went from his mother being his only follower to now having over 37,000 subscribers! Although no one in PREP67 is likely to gain that much interest a certain female class member is gathering quite a large number of fans on http://www.hottweeters.com/...

Better late than never!

Sorry it took me ages to get this blog up and running! Watch this space for exciting news about digital media and PR...