Jim Abernathy Gives China a Big Sloppy Kiss, Gives PR a BIG BLACK EYE (05/19/2008)

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Just when you thought the PR profession could get no more immoral, unscrupulous, or just plain asinine, along comes Jim Abernathy to take us down to a whole new low.

O’Dwyer’s re-ran quotes of Abernathy’s interview with Business Week about how to deal with China’s PR woes surrounding Tibet, and its overshadowing of the Olympics.

Ever the statesman, Abernathy said he’d “find attractive, English-speaking Chinese women and a ‘couple of sweet little 19-year-old gymnasts’” and put them on the talk-show circuit. Direct from Business Week:

“We’ll have the Chinese version of gymnast Mary Lou Retton do flips on camera but provide only noncommittal answers about the conflict. We’re here to talk about little Mary Lou’s flips, not geopolitics.” The idea, of course, is to change the subject. “You want to make people like the Olympics because it’s sweet little girls and athletes doing what athletes do best,” Abernathy says. “That way it becomes a personal thing and less of a geopolitical issue.”

Ok Jim… and while you’re at it, why not go ahead and pinch the stewardess’s ass when she goes by with the drinks cart.

Sailing Without a Moral Compass

If Abernathy had been skippering the Ark, our freezers would no doubt still be stocked with frozen giraffe steaks to this day. (Though the Serengeti might look a bit barren without our long-necked friends.)

Is there no depth to which the vaunted leaders of our profession will not sink? They’d probably sign on to market my grandmother’s ashes for fertilizer if they thought the campaign would get them a Silver Anvil.

The history of Tibet under China is one of horror… Labor camps for political prisoners. Public execution of dissidents. Thousands of monastaries destroyed. Millions dead and displaced. Natural resources plundered and the environment decimated. There is a mass of information available on the annexation of Tibet and the impact of Chinese rule (Just a taste here, here, and here).

And the picture isn’t pretty, despite apologists’ claims that the advent of indoor pluming and quickie-marts makes it all OK.

Not Relegated to Steerage

Abernathy’s comments recall an explosive expose of the white-shoe, giraffe-steak-eating lobbying business by Harper’s columnist Ken Silverstein in the July 2007 issue of that magazine, in which he writes:

How is it that regimes widely acknowledged to be the world’s most oppressive nevertheless continually win favors in Washington? In part, it is because they often have something highly desired by the United States that can be leveraged to their advantage, be it natural resources, vast markets for trade and investment, or general geostrategic importance. But even the best-endowed regimes need help navigating the shoals of Washington, and it is their great fortune that, for the right price, countless lobbyists are willing to steer even the foulest of ships.

In this gold-plated world of influence and money, all you have to do is roll up your retainer check and shove it up some sycophant’s butt, and then watch him waddle around spouting your message points until the money runs out.

Disclosure: I Put Tibet on the Map

A few years back I had a passionate email exchange with the publisher of map company whose politically correct maps were designed to give all peoples of the world their due representation — and for the most part the maps are ingenious and revolutionary.

But there was one problem. While one of his world maps showed disputed borders (e.g., Kashmir) as dotted lines, there was no border (dashed or otherwise) for Tibet. I argued and argued and finally he relented and put it in.

And now the map shows Tibet, in all its dotted-line glory.

What World Are They Living In?

So what freaking world are these PR hoo-has living in? Rather than using their super-powers for good, for truth, they are using them for obfuscation, cover-up of criminal behavior, and personal monetary indulgence.

This is why our profession is in the state that it’s in. No moral compass. No scruples. Craven mercenaries with pom-poms shaking their big jigglies at the media to distract them and change the subject from what is really going on out there in the wider world.

And make no mistake, there is a wider world. And there’s lots of stuff going on there.

The Critical Context

Michael Kempner (of MWW), to his credit, was the only sane one of the three PR people interviewed. He would push China toward open discussion of the issues. Perhaps to engage an international panel. In short, he recommended engagement rather than hokey, slight-of-hand-distractions.

But Abernathy and Mike Sitrick — like so many PR “leaders” — just proved once again how morally bankrupt this business has become. There is the money, and then there is the mission, and little other context enters the discussion.

They allow no legitimacy to the real-world context in which such a PR campaign might take place. In fact, they would actively work to de-legitimize the real-life context, not to mention the victims of violence and repression. Their suffering and death — of potentially millions of people — is written off in one-line message points.

It’s as unreal as it is inhuman. Monstrous really.

Thanks guys. That’s just the kind of publicity our profession really needed.