Among everything we as a society are (hopefully) learning from last week’s confrontation among high school students, Native Americans and Black Hebrew Israelites, I hope one of them is this: Using a PR firm to communicate clearly with the media and the public at large is not, in itself, a bad thing.
The family of Nick Sandmann, the MAGA hat-wearing student in the initial video, hired a public relations firm to help him write a statement to share his version of what happened that day. This action ignited a tweet storm of criticism, equating PR with “spin, spin, spin.”
This reaction is nothing new. The public is most often aware of PR when a celebrity or organization is trying to sidestep responsibility for a mistake. Because the stereotypical PR pro is a bullshitter, the public blames them for the obfuscation.
Telling the truth as we know it
In reality, nearly all PR pros advocate for transparency and accountability, especially in a crisis. However, we’re not the client or CEO; we can only advise, then support whatever decision is ultimately made.
In the case of Sandmann, this is a high school student and his family – people like you, or your sister’s kid, or your next-door neighbor whose teenager is always doing dumb, teenager stuff. All of a sudden, this kid is bombarded with experienced reporters on deadline, each scrambling to get the story first.
Can you imagine what that’s like? And can you imagine any other situation in which we’d expect a high school student to represent himself in such a high-pressure situation without professional advice?
Now, I’m not naive. Maybe Sandmann is an absolute jerk, and his family sought help to mitigate his behavior. My point is that the fact of simply hiring a public relations firm does not necessarily mean we’re getting a story that’s inaccurate from their point of view.
Regardless of how you feel about the social issues at play in this situation – and believe me, I’m not defending anyone on those grounds – give the family a break on trying to communicate clearly and keep the situation from getting worse.