Threatening the media

In the long history of public relations blunders, perhaps the strangest is the saga of the disintegrating Heartland Institute.

Most recently, its choice to link a terrorist with “belief” in climate change has eviscerated the Chicago based advocacy group.  But even before the May debacle, the signs of dangerous incompetence on the part of public relations practitioners were all there.

For example, this threat,  noted several months ago, in response to leaked memos:

“We respectfully ask all activists, bloggers, and other journalists to immediately remove all of these documents and any quotations taken from them, especially the fake “climate strategy” memo …  We believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages, including damages to our reputation. We ask them in particular to immediately remove these documents …  and to publish retractions. ” —  Jim Lakely, Heartland Institute, Feb. 16, 2012.  

Criminal offenses?   And in a separate post, they said:  “We intend to find this person and see him or her put in prison for these crimes.”

Crimes?  Come now.  Laws against criminal libel have more or less been phased out across the US, making it unlikely that this threat would ever be achieved.

But  there’s a larger problem here. Experience has shown that the public relations benefit of a threat against the press is rather like mistakenly using gasoline at the scene of a brush fire:  it lights up the debate in all kinds of unexpected ways.

For example, journalists across the country who did NOT get a threatening email from the Heartland Institute yesterday now say they are feeling  left out.  It’s almost like the early 70s, when getting on  President Nixon’s Enemies List was a badge of distinction in journalism.  ( Hey Mr. Lakely !  Over here! )

As always, the media history professor will tell you it’s nothing new.

One of the most memorable attacks on the press was  by then-president Spiro Agnew in 1969.  He called journalists “pusillanimous pussyfooters”, and “nattering nabobs of negativism,” and “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.” Of course nobody quite knew what he was talking about, but it got a rise out of the Republican media-haters.

Much more serious things were in store, such as the 2006 calls to send New York Times editor Bill Keller to the gas chamber.  That had to do with leaks about the Iraq war.

Perhaps the most bald-faced,  ham-fisted attempt at press intimidation in history was when Standard Oil Co. asked New York journalists not to publish any information about leaded gasoline victims in 1924.  There were at least 17 deaths and 50 permanent injuries from the sudden onset of violent insanity due to lead poisoning from working in the leaded gasoline process.

Standard usually took the Ivy Lee approach to the media, at least providing facts if not a unique spin.  But this was a little too close to home, a little too dark and embarrassing.   “Nothing ought to be said about this matter in the public interest,” insisted W. Gilman  Thompson of Standard on Oct. 27, 1924. It’s on the front page of the New York Times (near the other Standard gem of the day: “These men probably died because they worked too hard.”)

Naturally, the exact opposite of the intended effect took place. Reporters camped out at Standard Oil headquarters, 26 Broadway,  and the introduction of leaded gasoline went down as the “Three Mile Island” of the 1920s.  Had it been stopped at that time, which almost happened,   the world would have been spared many deaths, illnesses and heartaches.

The problem with these attacks on the press is basically that they reflect an ignorance about the vital American and world traditions of free speech and free press.  There’s no way Standard could have stopped the discussion. There’s no way you can try the editor of the New York Times for treason for leaking embarrassing documents. And there’s no way that the threat of criminal libel is going to hold back the rising tide of investigations that are sweeping over the embattled Heartland Institute.

And Jim Lakely,  the communications genius who apparently had the idea of threatening the press with criminal libel,   is (or at least ought to be) destined to be remembered among the failed public relations flacks of history — W. Gilman Thompson, poison Ivy Lee, and the White House speechwriters who helped Agnew attack the press.

UPDATE:  In March, 2012, it turned out that Heartland had been using the same tactics for years.  See the DeSmogBlog article of March 14. “A Heartland Institute front man phoned a Greenpeace activist and lied about his identity in an effort to get her to turn over UN climate conference documents… ”   

2nd UPDATE:  By May, 2012, Heartland’s erratic public relations  strategies were proving to be self-destructive.