Rocket Science

A couple of weeks I hooked up with a friend from college (T. ). Before moving over to the ‘Dark Side’ of PR we even worked for the same newspaper. Sitting in the sun enjoying a fabulous mojito he told me a story that completely baffled me.

He had written an article about a large enterprise in the mobile industry. For a couple of months now there are rumors that the company would have to shrink it’s workforce, but everyone involved denies the plans. However, T. managed to find a union delegate that says things are going wrong in the company. If T. guaranteed he would never disclose his source he could write an article about it. When the article appeared everyone was shocked. An anonymous union delegate that says:”We could do the same work with half the workforce.”, is huge news.

things got ugly

People were concerned about their future for quite some time already, as soon as they read the article they stopped working and there was a strike. A normal reaction if you consider the circumstances. The unions started a manhunt to find the T.’s source. They called him and threatened with law-suits, but T. didn’t comply. Unions tried to blame each other saying the source could not possibly be one of their members. Even posters were hanged and tensions between rose to a climax. T. stood his ground, and warned the legal department about the situation.

and then they got dirty

In the mean time things had gotten a bit worse. The unions had find out that one of their colleagues was in fact T.’s father-in-law. T. told me his father-in-law is one of the most loyal employees of the company. Whenever there is a strike, he would be the guy to climb over the fence to go to work. Of course the poor man wasn’t happy with the article T. wrote. But of course he didn’t have anything to do with it.

T. received a union phone call, saying that they had find out his father-in-law was one of their colleagues. They asked him to reconsider and to say who his source was… In other words, they were threatening him. Pure and simple blackmail.

destroy your media relations with one call

Of course I feel bad about T. and the fact that they try to get him through his family. It’s something you just don’t do. But from a PR point of view I don’t understand it either.

Let’s assume rumors are true, and plans are being made to reduce human capital. As a union you would need to put your case high up the agenda. Politician, media, public everyone should support your case. Now why would you go threatening a journalist that writes for the most popular newspaper in your region? PR is not rocket science, or is it?