Soph and I like to think we give PR a decent (LOL) name. We don’t lie to journalists; we don’t bully them; and, if they’ve stacked up a story early, we confirm it (off the record, of course).
And we definitely wouldn’t go down the cynical, charity-washing PR route, favoured by Amazon. Two days before the tech giant announced a load of job cuts, its founder offered up a smoke screen where he promised to give away the vast majority of his $124bn fortune during his lifetime.
That is probably why we are struggling to eke out a living. One of our clients, who is trying to offload the last shopping centre in his portfolio for £10m – he paid £40m – wanted us to keep the story out of the press. Unfortunately, a bright young hack picked up the story and asked us for a comment. The client told us to say nothing. I went back to the journalist, confirmed the story and told the client I had said we could not comment but the journalist was going to write the story regardless. Arse covered.
Other than that, our world is limping along. Very little activity, clients hiding, fees under pressure. And, when the TV screens are dominated by the World Cup and I’m a Celebrity, thank goodness Soph and I can binge on The English, the glorious revisionist western where the women rock.
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