June 2006

EXPECT STRONG LANGUAGE FROM THE START

Expect strong language from the start

from the Daily Telegraph. 27th June 2006
... Mark Borkowksi, a public relations expert, says that politicians who sit down to ... as risky as being grilled by John Humphrys or Jeremy Paxman, Borkowski believes ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/06/27/bvpolit27.xml&sSheet=/arts/2006/06/27/ixartright.html

David Cameron is the latest politician to venture into the realm of TV light entertainment and end up horribly embarrassed, says Tom Leonard 2
Never work with children and animals. Logic might dictate that politicians add entertainers to the list, even if history suggests they never will.
The sight of Neil Kinnock sitting in a greasy spoon cafe in the background of Tracey Ullman's debut pop video reportedly made Tony Blair swear he'd never take part in such stunts. He appeared in The Simpsons instead.
Twenty years after Margaret Thatcher went on the BBC children's show Saturday Superstore, she is remembered not for gamely agreeing to sit on the pop panel but for the child who asked about her "bomb shelter" and for Keith Chegwin telling viewers that the Prime Minister had "hairy legs".
Sometimes they even get into the presenter's chair - a forgetful Harold Wilson's short-lived BBC2 chat show in 1979 was famous for him drying up completely in front of the camera and, on being told after rehearsals that they were on at seven o'clock, replying; "Haven't we just done it?". And then, finally, George Galloway trumped them all in the self-inflicted televised humiliation stakes, going into the Celebrity Big Brother house, failing to get a word in edgeways about politics and ending up rubbing his head against Rula Lenska while pretending to be a cat.
Television archives are full of upsetting footage of politicians trying to touch down chummily on to entertainment shows only to crash-land in flames. And now the rumpus after Jonathan Ross asking David Cameron on BBC1 the other night if, as a teenager, he ever fantasised over Margaret Thatcher has reopened the debate over how far it is advisable for politicians to go in the pursuit of the politically unengaged. Has the master of the cosy publicity opportunity finally put a foot wrong?
Despite howls of outrage in some quarters of the media at the level of debate on last week's encounter on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, Mr Cameron's advisers said yesterday that they regarded it as a success, even if there was some surprise that the offending item wasn't edited out before transmission. Guests on the show, including Mr Cameron, are warned that "Wossie" often goes over the top but it will be cut out of the eventual programme. In the event, it wasn't.
The presenter, who recently signed an £18 million three-year deal with the corporation, asked Mr Cameron to whom he had turned for advice. Ross mentioned Lady Thatcher and when Cameron calculated he would have been 12 or 13 years old when she was first elected prime minister, Ross observed that it was "a time in a boy's life when you look around for women who are attractive".
Mr Cameron laughed. "This is when I realise why politicians never come on the show," he said. Too late. That young Tories had sexual fantasies about Mrs Thatcher must be one of the lamest gags in the book but Ross persevered. Mr Cameron is famously cool under pressure and Ross is famous for embarrassing people. Someone had to give.
Eventually, after a discussion of Lady Thatcher's achievements, Ross suddenly popped the question: "But did you or did you not have a ---- thinking 'Margaret Thatcher'?" And the lisping "Wossie" didn't mean "rank" either. In the good old days of broadcaster-politician relations, Mr Cameron might have hurled his microphone on the floor and stomped out, muttering about BBC bias. Instead, he just laughed.
Mr Cameron "has a sense of humour", says his spokesman, adding that while Ross's language was "not ideal", that "you just have to react normally to it which is what he did".
"He didn't go on the show to look cool or be funny, it was to reach an audience we don't reach out to enough - bright, intelligent 30 and 40-somethings who are not highly politicised. We want to get them interested in politics and to show people who are tired of politics that David's out there."
She stresses that they had also discussed serious subjects such as the war and drugs, and said that the complaints about Ross's crudity were an "irrelevance". "If we could come across well and it was clear at the end that Jonathan liked David - and that was quite obvious - that is a hugely powerful message," she adds.
The suspicion one often has about politicians who suddenly appear on what seems a completely inappropriate show is that - like many at Westminster - the only television they watch is news.
But the Cameron team insists it knew what it was letting itself in for. "David watches the show a lot," says the spokesman. "He wasn't trying to be funny or outwit Jonathan Ross."
But if you can't hit back, you can end up playing the patsy. Mark Borkowksi, a public relations expert, says that politicians who sit down to chat with the likes of Ross cannot engage in the same sort of banter and inevitably end up being the straight man in a comic double act.
Politicians have unwisely convinced themselves that being interviewed by funny men cannot be anything like as risky as being grilled by John Humphrys or Jeremy Paxman, Borkowski believes.
"This strategy is slightly backfiring. They don't recognise that they're being used as cannon fodder," he says. "The Jonathan Rosses will just take the p--- out of them, they're just there to generate jokes. It's just mind-blowing that they can't see they're going to be made to look complete charlies.
"Jonathan Ross was praying to the god of television saying: 'Thank you for giving me this idiot'. But he wasn't going to hang him out to dry because he'll want him back again."
Borkowski goes on to cite Charles Kennedy's frequent appearances on the BBC's Have I Got News For You as "the best example of it all going terribly wrong" as it simply gave people "more ammunition" to tease him about his private life.
While there is nothing wrong with trying to reach a new audience, viewers are now savvy enough to realise that is the intention, says Mr Borkowksi. ''Cameron looked like the guy who wears the wrong shoes with the wrong jeans. People know you're doing the show to be cool and that makes it uncool."
He isn't suggesting that politicians stay away from light entertainment - they just have to be more original about how they do it. Sadly, it seems that to be truly successful, you have to do it completely unwittingly. Posterity records only one example of a politician escaping with some credibility intact.
Tony Benn was once quizzed by the spoof "yoof" television interviewer Ali G (played by Sacha Baron Cohen) for a programme supposedly aimed at introducing young people to politics. He was completely taken in.
But unlike other victims, who tried to be hip and happening with Mr G, the MP unwittingly turned the tables by lecturing him about the dreadfulness of his attitudes. "He was wholly cynical and wholly ignorant," Mr Benn said later. That's the only language they understand.

WILL GROUCHO BECOME ANOTHER OLD FOLKS' HOME AFTER £20M SALE?

Will Groucho become another old folks' home after £20m sale?
Independent - London,
... Mark Borkowski, one of the founder members of the Groucho, said: "When something changes in a place like that, of course you're uneasy. ...

http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article1096068.ece

Will Groucho become another old folks' home after £20m sale?
By Ciar Byrne, Media Correspondent
Published: 24 June 2006
Nestling in the heart of London's Soho, inconspicuous from the street but discreetly glamorous within, the Groucho Club has been the favourite watering hole of media luvvies for more than two decades.
But now members fear the unique nature of the club will change after its sale for a little over £20m to a private-equity firm whose investment portfolio includes care homes, lamp-post manufacturers and road sweepers.
Jude Law, Stephen Fry, Keith Allen, Tracey Emin, Dawn French, Matt Lucas and David Walliams are among the 4,000 members of a club so exclusive that it rejects eight out of 10 applications to join.
Graphite Capital, which has bought the Groucho from Joel Cadbury, immediately sought to reassure members it would be "business as usual" at the Dean Street drinking hole.
The new owner has pledged to expand the club in response to members' requests for more bedrooms and "outposts" of the Groucho outside London.
It has formed a new company, The Groucho Club Ltd, to work with the existing management, led by Margaret Levin and Mary-Lou Sturridge. Mr Cadbury, who led a consortium to acquire the Groucho with Rupert Hambro in 2001, will stay on the board. Graphite said that it "plans to be a long-term investor and fully supports the management's strategy".
But in the past two years, Graphite has invested in 11 companies and exited 15, including the restaurant chain Wagamama, the stationer Paperchase, the bookstore Ottakar's and the fashion outlet Jane Norman.
Mark Borkowski, one of the founder members of the Groucho, said: "When something changes in a place like that, of course you're uneasy. If they're going to expand it and make it better, of course that's a good thing. But these corporate types are never going to keep the same spirit as the people who set it up."
Since Mr Cadbury, the chocolate heir, took over in 2001, managers of the Groucho have installed new kitchens and internet services and invested in what has become an important collection of British art. It now has 150 works of art, including pieces by Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst.
The club wants like to add at least another 10 bedrooms to its existing 19, which members can use at a cut-price rate.
The Groucho is also keen to open up new branches, although insiders said it would not simply emulate fellow private-members' clubs in London such as Soho House, which recently opened in New York, and Home House, which has Babington House, an outpost in Somerset.
The Groucho's founder, Tony Mackintosh, said: "I am delighted to know that the club will continue in good hands. I am also very supportive of the development plans for the future of the club."
Under the sale, Graphite will acquire all of the shares in the Groucho - 92 per cent of shareholders have already accepted their offer.
Graphite, which is based in London, manages more than £750m in funds for private and institutional shareholders. Its investments include the Northampton-based care homes operator Avery Homes, and Countdown, a Swindon-based laundry supplier - all a far cry from the artists, television stars, media executives and writers who frequent the Groucho.
Club history
*The club, founded in 1985, was named after a quip by Groucho Marx. "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members."
It is notoriously difficult to gain membership.
Nick Jones joked that he set up the rival Soho House because the waiting list for the Groucho was so long.
Historically, the club had no rules, but Stephen Fry recently provided the wording for a humorous prohibition on mobile phones - "an anathema, a curse, a horror, a dread and a deep unpleasantness" - illegal substances and string vests.
Members are strictly sworn to secrecy about what goes on inside the Groucho, but that has not stopped lurid tales emerging.
Julie Burchill famously held court there - remembered by original member Lynne Franks for her "little voice and red lips". On the 20th anniversary last year, Toby Young insisted that he did not "go all the way" with a woman in the toilets - an incident written up in the members' book by Christopher Silvester.
Even the wine at the Groucho is unique - with bespoke labels created by Marc Quinn, Peter Blake and Gavin Turk.

CLEANED UP KATE AND THE MEMOIR

Cleaned up Kate drops plan for tell-all memoir
The Sunday Times - UK
... “The book deal was a wise move at the time, but it’sa wiser move now to pull out as she has got her career back on track,” said Mark Borkowski, a public ...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2230928,00.html

Cleaned up Kate drops plan for tell-all memoir
RICHARD BROOKS, ARTS EDITOR KATE MOSS has withdrawn from a £1m planned autobiography that would have detailed the supermodel’s problems with drugs and her troubled relationship with the singer Pete Doherty.
Moss’s agency, Storm, said last week there were no immediate plans to go ahead with the book, which was arranged by Sir Richard Branson with his company Virgin Books.
Moss, 32, learnt last Thursday that she would not be charged with any drugs offence despite the publication of pictures last autumn that apparently showed her taking cocaine.
Initially Moss’s career seemed to be badly damaged by the pictures and she lost several key contracts, including those with H&M, Burberry and Chanel.
Branson took pity as he had done 20 years earlier when he helped the singer Boy George fight his drug problems. The billionaire took Moss to his holiday island last December after she had spent about a month in a rehabilitation clinic in Arizona.
By spring of this year it was becoming clear that Moss’s career was, if anything, doing better than before the drugs reports. She signed a deal last November with Branson’s Virgin Mobile for £3m, the most lucrative of her new contracts. She has since clinched deals with Nikon, Calvin Klein and Bulgari. Her contracts, worth just under £4m before the drugs storm broke, are now estimated to total £11m.
“The book deal was a wise move at the time, but it’s a wiser move now to pull out as she has got her career back on track,” said Mark Borkowski, a public relations expert. “She is perceived to have cleaned up her act. So she can save the memoirs for a rainy day when she needs to re-invent herself.”
Virgin Books confirmed: “We don’t have a publication date for the Kate Moss book.” In January, it said the book should appear by September.
Although the Moss book will not appear for the foreseeable future, the story of Doherty will be told by his mother Jacqueline, who signed a publishing deal last month.
Doherty’s troubles with drugs continued yesterday when he was fined by Swedish authorities after cocaine was found in his bloodstream.

FA THINKS ITS STILL 1966

Guardian Sports Friday 9th June 2006

Mark Borkowski: FA thinks its still 1966
It is arguably the hardest job in the world and it gets harder every time the World Cup finals come around. Even so, it is difficult to find a good word for the PR team at the FA

http://media.guardian.co.uk/marketingandpr/comment/0,,1793814,00.html

It is arguably the hardest job in the world and it gets harder every time the World Cup finals come around. Even so, it is difficult to find a good word for the PR team at the FA. True, they have a long history of bungling and incompetence to live up to. But, at a time when even the royal family seems to have worked out how to handle its image in the 21st century, it is still a mystery that at Soho Square it is always 1966. The problem, of course, is communication. It has ever been thus.
The problem is not the lack of communication but the surfeit of it. It is hard for the media to know whom to believe when players have their own PRs, clubs have their own PRs and managers - apart, weirdly, from Sven - have their own PRs. Information, misinformation and disinformation seep out in briefings and counter-briefings and no one seems to have a hand on the tiller.

Up front the FA plays David Davies, a former BBC sports hack whose workmanlike performances never inspire confidence; behind him, in the withdrawn role, Adrian Bevington fails to supply the ammunition for a decent attack. Nor are they mindful of their defensive duties. It was not their fault that Sven sneaked off for private assignations with Ulrika, Faria and Roman Abramovich. But they could have handled the fall-out better.

Then came the Scolari fiasco: rule one of big business is never to announce a signing until the ink is dry on the contract. Yet the FA was so desperate to be seen to be doing something - anything - to replace Sven that it cheerfully confirmed the stories that Luiz Felipe Scolari was on his way to England. Look, too, at why Scolari said no: everything that has happened since has reinforced his fears about press intrusion from our intrepid tabloid hacks.

It is fortunate for Sven's and Nancy's private life that Wayne's metatarsal took over the back - and front - pages. Of course the FA bungled its role of controlling information about this too, in its blinkered obsession with bringing "good news" to the nation and an arrogance that it had control. Now comes the inevitable club v country row with Manchester United, which could have been kept out of the papers with a bit of communication and some careful management.

On Wednesday night, when United were about to release their statement, journalists seemingly had difficulty getting hold of the FA's spokesman for a response - not clever. Even if cynics might say Sir Alex Ferguson, as a wily Scot, was not exactly unhappy to see England's preparations in disarray, one would have expected the FA to present a united front with Rooney's club. But no one seems to have thought of that.

The truth is that the FA does not know what it is doing. It has tried various strategies to improve relations, such as bringing in a journalist (Colin Gibson) under the illusion that the hacks would respect one of their own. But that unravelled with the ludicrous attempt to do a deal with the News of the World, trying to keep Sven's dalliance with Faria Alam out of the paper in return for giving them Mark Palios. Of course the newspaper did what all good journalists would do and ran both stories.

In fact the next England manager, Steve McClaren, shows signs of being a bit savvier than his predecessor, having already hired his own PR man . . . Max Clifford, ironically the panto baddy that stalked Soho Square for years. In a fine example of getting your retaliation in first, that takes out the most likely recipient of any salacious gossip about his private life. Better to keep the master Max onside.

But it still has to improve its act at Soho Square. None of us expect it to be able to keep a bunch of millionaire players out of the headlines. But damage limitation is a vital part of PR - the vital part at the FA - and to handle it properly you need to have all the information at your fingertips, have personal relationships with all the relevant editors and journalists (sport and news). Most of all you need to have the power. The sad truth about the FA is that it has none of those three things.

Mark Borkowski is a media and PR commentator