DSK: what a spin doctor shouldn’t do!

Was Dominique Strauss Kahn, on his return to France to protest his innocence (right), but subtly and through his “people” (wrong). A spin doctor lesson… of what you shouldn’t do.

Telling It Like he Wants it Believed

Clearly imagining himself to be “The Great Communicator”(wrong), and bursting with the hubris particular to public figures who have committed a big “NO-NO,” DSK decided he alone would attempt damage control (wrong).

His televised mea culpa succeeded only in giving stand-up comedians more original material, and opposition politicians more ammunition (as if any more was needed).
Promoted as an “interview,” the great seducer’s humility rant was clearly a heavily scripted public relations spin. “Interrogated” with the ferocity of a purring cat by a pal of his wife’s — Claire Chazal, the major “News Blonde” on France’s TF1 channel — DSK continued to amaze and astound.

Just The Facts

One of his major points being that whatever his “moral error(s),” both in New York and France, there was “no violence” involved. He “unscored” this assertion by referring repeatedly (12 times) to the New York prosecutor’s report.

This would have a chance of being halfway believable, were it not for the physical evidence. Bruised shoulder, torn clothing, vaginal redness, etc.

OK — He did admit to being a bad boy. Which he did also at the IMF — for which they didn’t fire him… and from which he still gets a six-figure pension for life. However, when the great (imagined) communicator maintained that the sex was consensual, I was immediately reminded of the wise words of H.L Mencken , the late and respected editor of the Baltimore Sun newspaper: “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”

While there may be some French people among the 13 million DSK-SPIN viewers who have just fallen off the back of a turnip truck, the majority can smell squirrel dookie when it’s in their face. They can tie their own shoelaces. They can walk and chew gum at the same time.

So — when a wealthy man in his 60′s tells them that he had consensual sex at 11am in the morning, in his $3000 a night hotel suite, with a hotel maid in her 30′s… and that no money was exchanged… how many of those French people are thinking of the cartoon character whose nose kept getting bigger? (hint: first three letters are: “PIN”, ends with “O.”)

Don’t Walk This Way

Sadly for DSK, the political result of his “Kahnfomercial”, is increased distance. Especially from those in his own party. While not uttering a negative word, politicians of every stripe are taking their marching orders from the three wise monkeys : “See no evil.” “Hear no evil.” “Speak No evil.”

So who’s the monkey here?

A Russian billionaire starts a war at Kremlin’s top spin doctor

Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov on Thursday resigned from the post of leader of a pro-reform party and launched an unprecedented attack on Kremlin’s top spin doctor, accusing him of stifling debate.

Prokhorov, who was until now the leader of the small Pravoye Delo (Right Cause) party, pledged to establish his own movement, saying he was not afraid of repeating the fate of tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky who supporters say was arrested in 2003 for daring to challenge the Kremlin.

Prokhorov carefully avoided any criticism of President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, instead taking aim at their close associate.

“There is a puppeteer who has long ago privatized the political system, puts pressure on media and misinforms the country’s leadership,” the charismatic owner of the NBA’s New Jersey Nets basketball team told a party meeting.

“His name is Vladislav Yuryevich Surkov, first deputy chief of staff,” Prokhorov said to cries of “Bravo” from the audience.

“I will do everything I can to get him fired,” said the businessman, ranked Russia’s third richest man by Forbes magazine with a fortune of US$18 billion.

Surkov is considered one of the most influential Kremlin officials, who is credited with coining the term “sovereign democracy” to describe Russia’s political system.

He has worked with both Medvedev and his predecessor in the Kremlin Putin and is in charge of the ongoing political campaign for December parliamentary polls.

Such lacerating critique of the Kremlin was so startling in a country where top businesspeople and parties have for years toed the Kremlin line that some suggested the attack was stage-managed by the Kremlin to allow Prokhorov to win political points ahead of the polls.

Prokhorov said he would not take the party into the parliamentary elections because he was resigning.

“I am calling on those who are not indifferent about our country to join forces, not to quit politics, get Surkov fired, create a new political movement and win genuine elections,” he said.

“Welcome to real, honest politics.”

Observers said however that he would have to either quit politics for good or accept Kremlin rules of the game.

“If he starts genuine political fight against the regime then the threat of following Khodorkovsky’s footsteps will loom large,” former prime minister turned opposition politician Mikhail Kasyanov said on Echo of Moscow radio.

Several top culture figures including pop diva Alla Pugachyova and film director Pavel Lungin turned up at the meeting to support the businessman.

Prokhorov’s opponents organized an alternative party convention at a different location where they voted to dismiss Prokhorov from the top post.

Running heavily edited footage from both meetings, Russian state-controlled television portrayed Prokhorov’s resignation as an internal party squabble and excised all criticism concerning the Kremlin officials.

On Wednesday, Prokhorov hastily called a press conference during which he accused Surkov’s subordinate Radiy Khabirov of orchestrating a “hostile takeover” of Pravoye Delo on the first day of the party’s convention the same day.

A Kremlin official dismissed Prokhorov’s Wednesday statements as “hysterics.”

In June, Prokhorov made a splash on Russia’s lethargic political scene by winning the party’s leadership at a congress.

The move marked the first foray into politics by a top businessman since the 2003 arrest of Khodorkovsky who had financed opposition parties prior to his imprisonment.

Analysts have said Prokhorov could not have assumed the party leadership without the tacit support of the Kremlin.

benefit from a semblance of political competition ahead of the parliamentary polls and a presidential vote three months later.

They said the Kremlin had expected Prokhorov to conform to existing rules of the game but might have underestimated his ambitions.

Brand new morality for British newspapers?

Drunk in the heady wine of success, blindfolded to absolute power corrupting absolutely, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is at last getting its comeuppance. Not that its methods passed off as white lilies in the past, but the present avalanche of revelations is sending shock waves down the media landscape.

All stick-bands around the self-inflicted wound are falling off exposing the deeper layers of a festering ethical crisis in the British media and politics, to begin with.

As the British media got obsessed with power and money and the editors revelled in the growing, somewhat, captive circulation figures and an increasing clout over politicians, it was halcyon days for both British media and politics.

Politicians, with skeletons in the closet — and there are many as the salary and perks scandals concerning British MPs had once underlined — felt beholden to the press. Murdoch and his CEOs and editors knew too much about the politicians to expect to be ruffled by the latter. The media simply cashed in on this fault-line, as it were. The government regulator and the self-regulation the media were left with could work no more. That is why, a review has been ordered into the ethical side of media including the relations among politicians, media and the police in addition to an inquest into the criminal offence.

Certain inside stories are revealing: Former British PM Gordon Brown saying that he had no knowledge of ‘criminal’ inclination in the News Corp has earned him some scathing epithets. The critics reminded him of the Sunday Times’ disclosing medical reports of Brown couple’s child, an invasion of privacy which sent Mrs Brown into tears and caused huge embarrassment to David himself. Even so, the then British Prime Minister would invite News Corp. CEO Rebekah Brooks to a sumptuous dinner party with uncorked champagne cascading as they treated their tormentor.

Tony Blair’s super spin doctor A. Campbell cozying up to the press to sell the unsaleable for all one knew.

In passing, admittedly though, the beauty of the British press is its absolute candour, even when operating in the reverse gear.

Personally, British Prime Minister Cameron’s embarrassment is huge. He had hired Andrew Coulson as his media consultant on his resignation as editor of the News of the World in 2007, perhaps with certain dark forebodings at the back of his mind. At any rate, when Cameron sensed that a spilling of the beans was imminent he eased off Andrew who resigned from government. Arrested, interrogated and set on bail, he remains on the radar.

Rupert Murdoch, his son James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks, the News Corp’s CEO, have been called to face questioning by a House of Commons committee. The first two have refused to respond to the summon while the CEO is going to appear before the Committee. Meanwhile, Murdoch has withdrawn his bid to take full control of satellite broadcaster BskyB. Again, it’s a sand pack against an engulfing storm.

In the process, however, what the British prime minister sees: ‘we are all in it — the media, police and politicians including me’ — may go down as a correct diagnosis of the ailment. But the other way of putting it would be that the media was indulged in undermining the moral power of truth and the ideal of public service by successive elected governments in varying degrees.

The media was obsessed with their methods and procedures of news gathering thinking perhaps that the readers have got used to a diet of sensational scoops and exclusives. Partly it may have been addictive on the part of readers but to a large part it was due to apathy.

In a democracy with affluence, people could care less; as long as it didn’t affect their lifestyle, it wouldn’t perhaps sink in their minds. One wonders, however, if the British economy were not in the doldrums such a hue and cry would have been raised.

But it is perhaps safe to infer that when British people thought that the victim could be anybody among them that they felt outraged and exploited.

The Western countries are used to criticising the weaknesses of Bangladesh’s democracy. Of course, we have many and we are aware and conscious of them. But the longstanding Western democracies have their own kind.

Without feigning any holier than thou image, can we draw parallels between Bangladesh media scene and the current phase of the British media. Not quite, yet like the British or any democratic media, the press in Bangladesh is politically divided. While British media and politics are well-coordinated, to put it politely, in our case, they are not so. In fact, there is a hiatus between the politicians and the media in Bangladesh.

There is, however, a common threat perception in democracies: Either democracy is being compromised by commercialisation of the media or by money and muscle power as in Bangladesh.

The question is whether the robust review of the media-politician role in Britain would prove to be curative, only time will tell.

Telephone hacking is a babe in front of the many-fangled technology shift the media world is going through. This in time has the potential to send tectonic shock waves to people who would like to keep faith with the media as their sacred trust.

With the financial, media and political domains taking on complex and sophisticated ramifications, there is little knowing how vulnerable the media might become to the wily side of power brokers given to abusive use of all tools of power.