Let’s just go ahead and rip off the ol’ Band-Aid.
If you use anything but the truth in your attempt to “control the narrative,” you are lying.
How about skillfully shading or bending the truth? You’re still lying. Maybe that could qualify as misleading. But it’s still lying.
Explaining extenuating circumstances. That’s legitimately trying to control the narrative.
Correcting misunderstandings or misperceptions. That’s trying to control the narrative.
Rebutting uninformed opinions. That’s controlling the narrative.
Not attempting to ram your bullsh*t talking points down a reporter’s throat.
When your talking points contradict observable reality, your attempts to control the narrative stops being about framing and turn into gaslighting.
It’s a failure to respect the audience’s lived experience, what they’ve seen captured on video, or what has actually been said on the record.
It’s asking people to reject what they can see with their own eyes in exchange for an official explanation.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears,” wrote George Orwell in 1984. “It was their final, most essential command.”
Good public relations, the kind that preserves credibility, begins with the opposite posture. It doesn’t start by asserting a preferred interpretation. It starts by acknowledging what is visually undeniable and widely shared.
Your job should never be to feed a false narrative about something people have already seen.
Reporters (and their readers) can tell when your official statement smells funny.
If you’re not basing your messaging on reality, but trying to alter it, just face the fact that you’re no longer a PR person. You’re a propagandist.
Do you have questions about PR or communications that you’d like me to address in On Background? Please feel free to email me at paul@paulgriffo.com.
This article was originally published in my On Background column.