Monday, July 24, 2017

3 lessons PR pros can take from Sean Spicer’s resignation

“Spicey” is out.

On Friday, Sean Spicer resigned as White House press secretary after President Donald Trump appointed Anthony Scaramucci as the new White House communications director. Former deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will succeed Spicer.

The Independent reported:

Mr Trump had reportedly asked his press secretary to stay on but Mr Spicer told the President that the appointment of Mr Scaramucci was a big mistake and he could not continue.

Mr Scaramucci, a Wall Street financier and long-time supporter of Mr Trump, will replace Mike Dubke, who resigned amid the fallout from primarily Russia-related scandals.

Vox reported:

The backstory appears to be that Trump wanted to give someone he likes and enjoys watching on television a prominent-sounding job — even though he doesn’t have any experience with the job’s actual duties and won’t even be expected to carry many of them out.

… To understand the backstory here, you have to understand the traditional role of a politician’s communications director. Unlike the press secretary, who is a public spokesperson and generally tasked with responding to urgent day-to-day queries, the communications director is supposed to focus on the bigger picture and the longer term. He or she is supposed to try and shape the larger narrative of what the administration is doing, and organize what’s essentially a PR campaign to that effect.

On Friday, Spicer tweeted the following statement:

Trump also tweeted a statement:

Journalists and other Twitter users unleashed snark in reaction to the resignation, with many bemoaning the end of comedian Melissa McCarthy’s portrayal of SeanSpicer on “Saturday Night Live.”

“Saturday Night Live” tweeted a farewell to the skit, too:

It wasn’t the only comedy show to take a jab at the former White House press secretary. “The Daily Show” made a mashup of Spicer’s White House press briefings:

Here are three lessons PR pros can take from the end of Spicer’s time in the spotlight:

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1. Consider whether the PR job or project is worthwhile.

On Sunday, The Holmes Report published an article titled, “Sean Spicer walks away from the worst PR job in the world.”

It followed an article in The Telegraph titled, “Congratulations, Sean Spicer: You’re finally free from the worst job in Washington” and Poynter’s “Here’s why Sean Spicer left Washington’s worst job.”

Not many people are vying for the position, either.

A recent study by USC Annenberg revealed that only 6 percent of PR pros would take the White House’s press secretary or deputy press secretary jobs. The number doesn’t go up much with communicators who identify themselves as conservatives: Only 15 percent said they’d accept an offer for the press secretary position.

One major reason Spicer’s former job is so unappealing is the lack of agreement between Trump’s messages and those given at White House press briefings.

Quartz reported:

“Nobody would have an easy time doing PR for this president,” says Robert Entman, a media and communications professor at George Washington University. “[He] is extraordinarily undisciplined, constantly contradicting himself, stubbornly unwilling to learn about issues, and saying many things reporters know are untrue.”

Brad Phillips, president of Phillips Media Relations and the author of the Mr. Media Training blog, said PR pros should avoid taking a job in which you cannot establish consistent messages:

One of the biggest lessons for PR pros is that there must be message consistency between the spokesperson and the principal. If the spokesperson is continually sent to deliver a message to the press—only to find that their boss has undermined or contradicted them—it will erode all credibility from the spokesperson and render future statements suspect. If you’re considering a spokesperson job with a principal who tends to tweet anything that pops into his or her mind regardless of whatever communications strategy has been agreed upon, run the other way.

Do you really want to take that PR job? Consider the pros and cons before deciding, and include how easy it would be to work with your boss or client, competition and challenges standing in your path to success. Contemplate, too, how taking the position might affect future career opportunities.

2. Know your limits.

Decide what lengths you will go to before you take a client or project, both in terms of ethical boundaries and work to make the client/communicator relationship last.

Doing so can help you make decisions more easily once you do accept a position, and it also can affect future job prospects.

In its study, USC Annenberg reported:

While 36% of PR professionals agree that current White House communications team members do “their best under difficult circumstances,” the majority indicated they would not hire the current Press Secretary or Deputy Press Secretary in a PR-related job, if they were in a position to do so.

Part of knowing your limits is being able to take an honest assessment of the client or organization for which you’re considering working. For Huckabee and Scaramucci, the PR outlook doesn’t seem all that bright.

The Guardian’s Peter Preston wrote:

The plain fact about Donald Trump’s presidency from day one is that he is the only communicator who counts. His tweets, his ad libs, his body language send the messages that really matter; and there’s no sign of that changing. Sean Spicer only seemed important because journalists like to think that the ritual of press briefings make them important. Now that briefing operation is more disembodied than ever, an irrelevance just pottering on.

Kirk Hazlett, fellow PRSA and associate professor of communication, says:

Know what you’re getting yourself into and make yourself answer this question: “How far am I willing to ‘bend’ on behalf of my client?”

3. Remember that relationships are everything.

Relationships will always be paramount to PR efforts, and communicators must build (or salvage) as many as they can with those they, their client or their organization should have.

For Sanders and Scaramucci, that means repairing relationships with reporters.

Quartz reported:

Scaramucci won’t be facing the press every day—that job’s left to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who is promoted to press secretary—but they will both need to make them feel respected. “[He] can’t repeat the sins of the past, consistently repeating/restating a bunch of blatant falsehoods, undermining his credibility from the start,” said a former senior White House communications official, whose current job doesn’t allow them to comment on the record. “You have to build a strategy that recognizes the president isn’t going to change that much, but the tone of the press and staff side of the White House can and should.”

That means opening up a side of White House communications that has been neglected so far, says David Greenberg, author of Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency. “The press secretary’s job is twofold: to represent the president to the press and also to represent the press to the president.” The second part of this job needs a lot of work.

For other PR pros, this advice could apply giving your future employer adequate notice before leaving for a new position—as well as being mindful of what you put online and your tone when interacting with others on social media.

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