PR meltdown

Revealed: The British Government’s Plan To Downplay Fukushima
Within two days of meltdown in Fukushima, the British government organized a coordinated PR response to protect the nuclear power industry. Emails obtained by the Guardian warn of potential backlash against nuclear, especially if people start comparing Fukushima to to Chernobyl. “This has the potential to set the nuclear industry back globally,” wrote one official at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. “We need to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on this. We need to occupy the territory and hold it. We really need to show the safety of nuclear.”
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Time to tap into the crisis management line

Phone-Hacking Scandal is Biggest PR Disaster of Murdoch’s Career
Media baron Rupert Murdoch shuttered one of his signature British newspapers Thursday amid a spreading phone-hacking scandal that has damaged his reputation and threatened the globe-spanning conglomerate he has assembled over nearly six decades. Murdoch’s News Corp. took the extraordinary step of announcing the closure of the News of the World, the company’s racy Sunday tabloid, in an attempt to stem the fallout from the newspaper’s prying into the voice-mail and cellphone accounts of hundreds of British citizens.
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A round of applause of PR

Times curbs Pogue’s PR Appearances
Journalists are accustomed to seeing public relations pitches in their inbox. I was surprised, though, when I recently got one on June 8 touting tech columnist David Pogue’s speech to PR professionals in which he credits PR with providing most of his ideas.
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DSK case is quite the 'he says, she says'

French See Case Against Strauss-Kahn as American Folly
The stunning reversals in the criminal case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a putative French presidential candidate, have reawakened a dormant anti-Americanism here, fueled by a sense that the raw, media-driven culture of the United States has undermined justice and fair play. There was shock in France after the arrest of Mr. Strauss-Kahn in May and intense critisism of the manner in which he was displayed in handcuffs, pulled unshaven into a televised court session and stuffed into a Rikers Island cell under suicide watch. There was confusion and critisism over the glee with which the New York tabloids in particular highlighted every humiliation and turned to clichés about the French — “Chez Perv” and “Frog Legs It” — in the coverage. And there was a sense that it was not just Mr. Strauss-Kahn who was being so jauntily humiliated, but France itself.
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Smart Quote

"Everything you say or do is public relations."

-- unknown