One World, One Dream, One Weather Rocket August 9, 2007
Posted by dixonpaul in Media Talk, PR in the PRC.add a comment
Last night 10,000 ‘ordinary’ people gathered in Tiananmen Square to celebrate the one-year countdown to the Beijing Olympic Games. That’s according to government mouthpiece, Xinhua news agency. However if you listen to the BBC you will learn it wasn’t exactly a ‘Party in the Park’ atmosphere for the whole family to enjoy – all 10,000 are far from ordinary and were exclusively handpicked by the Chinese government; the average Zhou not even enjoying a distant glimpse of the fireworks through the thick blanket of smog.
However, the real event that took place yesterday and one that really split the media, was not the singing and dancing at Tiananmen, but the current visit by International Olympic Committee President, Jacques Rogge, who is in town to ‘plant trees’ (it’s a green Olympics after all), meet Olympic volunteers, and amongst other activities – answer questions from the media. (more…)
Cover-ups Don’t Fly August 4, 2007
Posted by dixonpaul in Crisis Communications, Media Talk, PR in the UK.add a comment
‘The world’s favourite airline’ is experiencing a turbulent week.
First it was announced that BA is now the worst performing of all Europe’s major airlines, then a few days later it was hit with a £270 million fine for price fixing with Virgin. And today – just when they thought the nosedive was over and a spin had been averted – the Times (London) reports that BA attempted to conceal how many bags it was losing after discovering that it had come bottom of an industry league table. BA obviously doesn’t like to spin in the air – or with the media on the ground it seems.
BA, keeping its customers in the dark
Embarrassed by the findings, BA contacted the air passenger watchdog, the Association of European Airlines (AEA), and ordered it not to release the results of its quarterly survey of baggage delays and punctuality. In other words: stop the usual practice of issuing a press release to announce survey results. But that wasn’t enough for BA. They also wanted the figures to be placed on an obscure part of the AEA website, where they would be difficult to find. The AEA were outraged and neither of these requests got off the ground. (more…)
