Author: Mark Borkowski

Alex Ferguson’s recent petulant outburst shows football clubs still have a lot to learn about media management.Football could fairly lay claim to being unique among multimillion-pound industries in its slapdash approach to media management.

Whilst Ulrika Jonsson’s playing the old PR game to perfection, she may have gone just one step too far by exploiting a situation in which the losers could be an entire nation. And what sporting hack will put up with that?

Gordon Brown and Count Dracula come in joint first for PR scoop of the week. Some would say it was two bloodsuckers who topped the bill in the stunt stakes this week. Ladies and gentleman, first I give you the amazing fiscal magician Gordon Brown…

As church, nobility and government gather to mark the Queen Mother’s passing, it’s worth pausing to consider where the real power lies. This is the stuff of which Historic Moments are made. Or rather manufactured. History is being written for us, by the mass of the media.

As Graham Norton would say, it’s all SOOOOOO exciting! Naomi Campbell has walked victorious from the court with enough damages to buy half a Prada handbag, the Mirror has landed itself with a £200,000 advertising (sorry, legal) bill and the successful prosecution counsel, Keith Schilling, has set himself up for a nice little number as celebrity lawyer number one.

The Tories are on the up, but surprisingly, Iain Duncan Smith is keeping his head down. As the wags have it “he knows what’s best for the party” (ha ha). As the news broke about the Conservatives’ improved rating in the polls, IDS conspicuously failed to whore around the airwaves or shove the story up the news agenda.

The Academy Awards ceremony – an emotionally fraught, “and the winner is …” edge-of-your-seats spectacular – was once a genuinely innocent, onion-juice in the eye-liner number. Superficially it still is. Performers wear unusual dresses, some reveal more breast than is considered decorous by the press and the press print close-up pictures over four pages to prove it, winners evince shock, delight and surprise, and the saintly, warm smiles of the losers fail to disguise the bitter rank jealousy that they feel inside – so no change there.

By hyping the horror of the photographs of dead heroin addict Rachel Whitear, the media has inadvertently diminished their impact. The story attached to it is cautionary and heart-breaking; the parents’ decision to publish is courageous, given that their pain becomes public property and their history becomes subject to unwelcome scrutiny.

The Stephen Byers affair is a classic example of the press wielding its power to remind the establishment who’s really pulling the strings. What the media least likes is the feeling that someone’s trying to get one over on them – as Sir Richard Mottram, Martin Sixsmith, Jo Moore and Stephen Byers now know to their cost.

What do you do as a PR when you need column inches to flag up a failing career? Put in a trunk call to Gerry Cottle and ask to borrow an elephant, of course.