A whimper, a confidentiality agreement and a bank transfer — that seems the likely end to the Ports of Auckland’s dirty tricks PR campaign against its unionised workers [details here: Of bloggers, dogs and fleas. The Ports of Auckland’s ‘ethical and legal breaches’].
click to read at NBR
I almost (almost) feel sorry for companies who are ‘sold’ on the supposed power of ‘influencers’ like attack-blogger Cameron Slater by their PR flacks. It must sound so appealing. (Well, until you’re caught out and the NZ Herald calls your dubious actions ‘lamentable‘.)
Someone within the company had decided to hit back at unionist critics by way of the personnel filing cabinet. Someone on the industrial, human resources or public relations strategy teams, no doubt. Someone sufficiently senior to risk ethical and legal breaches to send a message to the union that fire would be met with fire.
Here’s the test: If readers don’t know the ‘influence’ is being paid for … it’s dodgy.
And on that topic, undeclared payments, I don’t believe the weasel words expressed in this inane ‘explanation’ from a year ago:
Cameron Slater interviewed by Russell Brown on Media3 Nov 2012 (MP3 file here)
(see details here: ‘As playful as he is psychotic’).
Some discussion in comments here.
– P
and yet the juggernaut rolls on
NBR’s David Williams claims the NBR “traversed the background” of the MUNZ bargaining team. Really? because ‘traversed’ implies a thorough investigation, but from reading the POA PR drivel that is poorly disguised as a ‘story’ that Williams has linked to, it looks like all that happened was the NBR published allegations directly from the POAs ‘organisational strategist’ without bothering to investigate whether they were factually correct and without concern for privacy laws. Seems very petty of the NBR to include a link to privacy breaches in an story about resolution of privacy breaches.
I totally agree. The way the story was reported indicated the NBR’s slant, it seemed to me.
But I’ve been accused of similar things … 😉
– P