Mark's PR

This is probably the biggest story I've handled - the extremely sad assisted suicide case of Dr Ann Turner, who ultimately went abroad for help to die with her very caring and supportive family, whom I got to know well and admired for their courage and integrity. The arrangements I put in place for them and the media were sufficient to make this one of the year's biggest stories and it dominated broadcast and print from the moment it broke.  This is a tiny smattering of the coverage, which included many front pages, and a negotiated exclusive with the Sunday Times that weekend. There were ongoing news stories from this despite Dr Turner's death.

This story I researched and offered to the FT on a freelance basis. It was front and inside lead story that weekend, March/April 2007.

This story was looking like it was going to be headed, "no euthanasia in UK". See, for example, this story on the BBC news website. My job was to turn that around. That I accomplished by finding a new story angle and selling this in very quickly... as the headlines below testofy to. It made most newspapers front or leading pages. The ones below are from the Metro, the Guardian and the Daily Mail.

 

 

This front page Daily Telegraph story arose from a briefing we at the NLC (National Lottery Commission) held about the rules the NLC wished to see changed for the lottery licence. Its a fairly minimal story but with the right angle its interesting - it wasn't what Camelot, the Lottery operators who we regulated, wanted but they certainly didn't lose out and as it turned out, the rules were not changed in the way the Commission wished, anyway! A lot of stories one reads are anticipatory and do not come to pass but this will not always be obvious to the reader! Another coda for public sector bodies: often what a public body with a small profile does will be translated into what the Government is doing or planning to make it sound like a bigger story.

Being on the end of breaking news is not easy and sometimes nigh impossible, but you can try things to cushion the impact of what is coming. Example (1) is the Evening Standard story (all other papers picked this up) about a software problem that may have caused millions of Lottery winners to be underpaid. The Commission had to show it had the matter under active investigation and handled this one well. The eventual outcome can be found on the category of Mark's PR notes under burying bad news! (2) This typically lurid headline in the Daily Mail is one we can't see and it bedevils any organisation when its staff or supporters put their foot in it, intentionally or otherwise. Good briefing is the prevention; damage limitation is what comes after. But that depends on the extent of your influence on the source of the story. We made the best fist we could to defend this eminent philosopher Baroness but ultimately the damage was done. (3) The Sunday Express reported gambling hysteria ...well...i think we did get a single phone call.... this story was all headline and no trousers, as the extensive quote from me shows. The issue never raised its head again which is a sure sign it was pointing in the wrong direction at the time. (4) The Daily Express also tried to run some knocking copy against the Lottery Commission - it was open season on us at that time - but again extensive quotes from me provided a helpful balance and context. The lesson from the last two pieces is that the headlines oftyen betray the news story. If you are a casual browser to this web space, take heed!