Communications Line Issue 43 of 8 March 2007

Who’s Guilty?

The headline on the poster advertising the anti rape march in Wellington tonight says “rapists acquitted” over pictures of Rickards, Schollum and Shipton. Legally that’s incorrect as Rickards is not a convicted rapist unlike the other two. But there is certainly a line of thinking among some groups in the community that all three are guilty of more “crimes” than they have been convicted of. This is the sentiment that Helen Clark was tapping into with her remarks questioning how sex between three big police officers and a teenager could ever really be consensual.

Clever politics for what could otherwise be a tricky problem. Whatever the validity of the views about whether Rickards should get his job back, it’s not a matter for Ministers; they don’t employ him. Empathising is a good substitute for action in that situation. And leaving employment issues aside, there is another big card about to come out of the pack, and that is the report of the commission of inquiry into police conduct.

The problem with Commissions of Inquiry is that the evidence on which their findings are based may not have been subject to the same degree of testing and scrutiny as in a criminal or civil trial. Holding the inquiry behind closed doors may be necessary to assist complaints to tell their stories, but the findings are not verdicts and don’t carry the same weight as the decisions of a judge or a jury. They are “inquiries”which ascertain things for further investigation, rather than conclusive demonstrations of guilt or blame.

Two examples; Noel Ingram’s inquiry into the actions of Taito Philip Field, and the late Justice Peter Mahon’s inquiry into the Air New Zealand DC10 crash at Mount Erebus. Ingram couldn’t interview all the witnesses he wanted to (which made his inquiry incomplete) and Mahon had to resign after the Privy Council overturned his findings about “an orchestrated litany of lies” The ruling was that people accused of misbehaviour and criminal acts have to be given the opportunity to rebut the findings against them. It’s called natural justice, and Mahon didn’t follow its principles.

However the findings – if they are as shocking as the PM suggests – should, indeed must, lead to further action by the responsible authorities.

So watch for these things: will there be more inquiries into alleged criminal conduct, perhaps leading to more charges? Will there be changes in the way the police think and behave, particularly in the handling of sexual violence? And will there be any changes in the way the police investigate themselves? At the heart of the matter is the age old problem of Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - who guards the guardians?

Clint Rickards and the supporters of Louise Nicholas and the most recent complainant do seem to agree on one thing: the police investigation was inadequate. Rickards said it was a shambles and resulted in charges that should never have been brought. The women’s supporters see the investigation as not being thorough enough to produce enough evidence to get a conviction.

The public interest demands strong solutions be found in order to restore the tarnished reputation of the police and to rebuild trust in the justice system that offenders will be detected, investigated, tried and where appropriate, convicted. Right now, for a wide variety of differing reasons, no one is satisfied with the outcome.

Empathic Language

“Like most Kiwis, I'm absolutely appalled at what has been going on and what we're seeing reported in our media now the suppression orders have been lifted," Helen Clark was reported this week as saying.

In the 1980s there were a series of train crashes in the UK and in each case a number of people were killed or injured. Government policies were thought to be a factor. Asked to comment on the day of a particular incident, then Prime Minster Margaret Thatcher said, “My reaction was the same as everyone else’s - oh no not again.” In just twelve words she was able convey her shock about the incident, associate with the dominant public sentiment and distance herself from responsibility. Helen is employing the same technique.

Zero Coke: Sue ‘em

There’s a new type of Coca-Cola out in the US, called Coke Zero. It’s not a matter that would normally excite me at all (I don’t drink the stuff), but the ads are wonderfully imaginative in both their creative and media approaches.

Stuart Elliott of the New York Times reports, “the campaign is based on an oddball thought, that the executives at Coca-Cola who sell the flagship Coke Classic brand want to hire lawyers to sue their co-workers who sell Coke Zero. The grounds for the imaginary lawsuits would be “taste infringement” — that is, it annoys the Coke Classic executives that no-calorie Coke Zero tastes so much like their sugared soft drink.

“The ads ask if you are “a victim of taste confusion,” offer to help you “sue a friend” and even assert that “Coke Zero stole the taste of Coke.” The campaign relies largely on new-media efforts like e-mail marketing, video clips posted on Web sites and digital banner advertising. The goal is to suggest through the contemporary nature of the media choices that Coke Zero is a contemporary brand.

“That is important because Coke Zero is aimed primarily at soda drinkers who are aged 18 to 34, with a tilt toward men. To underscore those intentions, Coca-Cola describes Coke Zero as a “calorie-free cola” rather than a “diet cola.” The word “diet” is avoided because it implies — particularly to younger men — that a beverage is meant only for older, female consumers,”Mr Elliott, the NYT’s advertising guru says.

New Politics in the US

It’s a measure of how much things have changed in the US political scene in the last two years that the New York Times can hoist a headline like this: Christian Right Labors to Find ’08 Candidate, and the story goes on to report that “a group of influential Christian conservatives and their allies emerged from a private meeting at a Florida resort this month dissatisfied with the Republican presidential field and uncertain where to turn.”
John McCain is regarded with suspicion for having once denounced Christian conservative leaders as “agents of intolerance,” and former Mayor Rudi Giuliani of New York is liberal on abortion and gay rights and has been married three times. Former governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts has also been “soft” on abortion, stem cell research and gay rights, but had “hardened his views lately.

Other conservative, Christian leaning Republicans, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, all paraded before the Council for National Policy, just as George W Bush did before the primaries in the 2000 election.

The second profound change is that the Democrats now control Congress which has made this headline possible. Democrats Offer Up Chairmen For Donors, says the Washington Post, which goes on to say, “Eager to shore up their fragile House and Senate majorities, congressional Democrats have enlisted their committee chairmen in an early blitz to bring millions of dollars into the party's coffers, culminating in a late-March event featuring House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and 10 of the powerful panel chairs.” In short they are selling access and it’s all legal.

And thirdly, it is clear that the fight for the Democratic Party nomination is going to be a real slug fest between Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. Clinton, Obama Camps' Feud Is Out in the Open, was the Washington Post headline referring to “an increasingly acrimonious competition between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton to enlist the Democratic Party's leading fundraisers and operatives

But the electorate is seeking moderation and the major parties are responding, the New York Times reports. “Democratic Party governors have pleaded with their presidential candidates to ignore the fringes of the party and focus instead on the “middle 20 percent” of the electorate with a pragmatic, problem-solving agenda. (NYT 26 Feb), while Republicans governors wanted a moderate — not particularly far right or far left.”

Quote at your own risk

To make an argument more convincing, it is common practice to quote some great public figure who has said something that supports your view. Kennedy’s “ask not what you can do for your country”, evokes a sense of service. Churchill’s “we will fight them on the beaches,” bristles determination. Americans are particularly fond of this approach, but it pays to check your sources, as the Washington Post reported in this incident which occurred in the US Congress during debate on sending more troops to Iraq.

Rep. Don Young, an Alaskan Republican, quoted Abraham Lincoln as follows, “Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged,"

Problem was Lincoln didn’t say it, though a chap called J. Michael Waller sort of implied that he had in a piece Waller wrote in Insight magazine in December 2003. The quote was repeated in the Washington Times and Young took it from there for his speech.

Waller denies any false attribution to Lincoln, but here’s the interesting bit. FactCheck.org counted 18,000 subsequent references to the Lincoln "quote" by people who typically supported Bush's policy on Iraq and opposed anti war critics. In other words, it’s not hard to get something plausible used even if it is not correct.

One example that springs to mind is Desiderata, the poster popular in the 1960s, whose gentle words of wisdom were supposedly written in the 17th century and allegedly found in a church in Baltimore in 1692. In fact it was the work of a Max Ehrmann, a lawyer from Terre Haute, Indiana. Written in 1927, it was published in a collection of his poetry in 1948, and was later picked up by the flower people in the 1960s as an affirmation of peace and love.

Two recent local examples: first, the bestowing on Pita Sharples of the tile ‘kaumatua of the nation’. The description quickly (but only briefly) became currency among journalists, and faded after some debunking. Secondly, at the time of the fire in Waipoua Forest, there were reports that 20 kiwi had been killed. There were not 20 bodies fund, but someone had said, or estimated or guessed the figure, or perhaps just plucked it out of the air. There was no authentication of the figure, but it was a fact for a few days. By the end of the week Radio NZ (and others) were using conditional phrases like "is thought to have killed up to 20 kiwi".

So called facts, however trivial, become accepted if left unchallenged, but they also quickly shrivel in the face of some honest questioning, or even a bit of genuine scepticism.

“Evil Bastards” offensive

Hell’s Pizza in Christchurch had a billboard featuring a picture of Bush, and the words "Hell. Too Good For Some Evil Bastards". The Advertising Standards Complaints Board said the phrase "evil bastards" was offensive when displayed on a billboard because it was visible to all members of the public, including children.

Leaving the political and free speech arguments aside, is this the same Board that sanctioned ‘bugger’ in the Toyota ads? And apparently the current “bloody tough, bloody turkey, bloody terrific” TV ad showing some testosteroned moron doing an uphill shalom around fence posts in a pick up truck is ok? .

PR Measurement Workshop

I’m presenting this at the Tenth Annual Strategic Communications and PR Forum. See http://www.conferenz.co.nz The workshop covers “measuring the value and impact of your PR activities,” and I am also speaking at the conference itself on building a communications plan.

More Democracy

In the Feb 15 issue of Communications Line I noted how voting was being used to engage viewers in pop culture shows like “American Idol”. So I was intrigued to see that the latest Yahoo/Xtra home page is running a poll every day on some topical issue: presumably as a technique to engage subscribers and keep them interested. The New Zealand Herald is at it today too, asking readers their views about whether Rickards should get his job back.

The trouble with such polls is that it is not clear what the results tell us. We know that they are unscientific, that is the results are neither representative nor random. They are also able to be skewed by a determined lobby with the ability to vote in numbers as the Dominion Post found out in its poll about the John Key “underclass” speech. So should we attach any meaning to them at all – other than to see them as a cynical ploy to keep us on the web page, or reading the newspaper or watching the channel offering the poll?

No spam please, we’re subscribers

With the passage of the anti spam legislation it’s timely to make some changes to this newsletter, so there will be a new look next time, one which will be more user friendly. Secondly I’ll be asking everyone to actively opt in. Most of you have already done do, but I don’t want to even come close to sending people stuff they don’t want, so next time around there’ll be an opportunity to update your subscription.

Boost to Manufacturing

Wellington’s manufacturers are being invited to support an industrial development centre – the latest initiative from Positively Wellington Business, and it’s got a recent German migrant as its point man. See http://www.johnbishop.co.nz/writer/articles/art020307.shtml

Boost to conservation

Corporates do like saving endangered wildlife after all. Some are now backing a new fundraising campaign after an earlier initiative failed to win supporters. See http://www.johnbishop.co.nz/writer/articles/art160207.shtml

Entrancing the glogal economy

In Huntly the Main Street is getting a make-over and some changes in traffic movements were required. “Vehicles would now be 'exiting at Huntly Hardware and entrancing at the Hotel,” the local council was told.

I got a news release this week announcing the upcoming release of a study on New Zealand and the “glogal” economy.

In a London tube station, there is a sign asking “What do you call a sophisticated Australian? Underneath there is the answer – a New Zealander.

(It’s an ad for Steinlager)

Lead by inspiration

If your actions inspire others to do more, and to become more, then you are a leader. John Quincy Adams

John Bishop is a commentator, professional speaker, communications consultant, writer and trainer who publishes a free electronic newsletter on media, marketing and management matters. This can be found at www.johnbishop.co.nz. Feedback to saymoretojb@yahoo.com

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