PR301: Edwards and Ralston on Lhaws

• the sprout
• 14 years ago
• Categories: blogs, Politics, spin
• Tags: bill ralston, brian edwards, crisis management, Lhaws, michael laws, pr

Brian Edwards and Bill Ralston give contrasting accounts of Michael Laws’ PR handling of his latest relationship issues. Edwards thinks Laws dealt with it well (and reduced the ‘story’ to a molehill), Ralston thinks Laws cocked-up by preempting any other media coverage and giving more away than necessary.

On Ralston’s blog there’s a nicely caustic exchange with Edwards in the comments, arguing finer points of protecting clients during a PR crisis. There’s also an enlightening To Do List of tactics, and a refutation from Laws about a few of Ralston’s assumptions. Edwards’ blog has comments from Jackie, the woman involved, that address several factual inaccuracies and explain the experience from her point of view.

When you read them together the two pieces and their respective comments provide both an education on the PR of crisis management and a demonstration of how interactive blogs add a new layer to spin – topics far more interesting than the original ‘issue’ itself.