prdisasters.com blog ANNOUNCES 2006 AWARDS

PR watchdog and blogsite www.prdisasters.com, with the assistance of Media Monitors Australia, has announced the results of its 2006 PR Disasters Awards.

The 'downunder' winner is the Australian Wheat Board’s disintegration, and associated political fall-out, in the face of continuing in-depth coverage of its alleged corrupt payments in Iraq.

Media Monitors, using the only comprehensive database of media information in Australia, quantified the negative media stories identified by contributors to the prdisasters.com site.

As defined in the book 'Public Relations Disasters', a PR disaster is an incident that catalyses sustained negative media coverage for an individual or organization, which subsequently damages personal or professional reputation.

Media Monitors calculated that the Top 10 PR Disasters by syndicated mentions of each story across press, radio and television over the full year 1/1 to 31/12/2006 in the Australian media were*:

1 AWB – Inquiry
2 David Hicks – no trial in sight
3 Private Jake Kovco – funeral repatriation
4 Sheik Hilaly – veil/meat comments
5 Dianne Brimble Inquest - P&O criticised
6 Milton Orkopolous - abuse scandal
7 Big Brother - ‘turkey slapping’ incident
8 Marcus Einfeld - speeding tickets
9 Mel Gibson - DUI arrest
10 Ben Cousins (West Coast) - drink driving

PR analyst, author and blogger of PR Disasters, Gerry McCusker, commented: “Because your reputation is one of your greatest assets in life, it’s essential to learn the new rules of reputation management. Clearly, the first is that not all publicity is good publicity.”

Other notables mentioned just outside the Top 10, included Aussie footy stars Brendan Fevola and Wendell Sailor, as well as US Vice President Dick Cheney.

Ends


Note to editors: ‘Public Relations Disasters: Talespin’ by Gerry McCusker is published in paperback by Kogan Page (2006).


*Only issues relating to specific incidents that led to negative coverage have been calculated. General policy matters (e.g the war in Iraq, industrial relations laws, interest rate rises etc) which may be seen as overall negative issues have not been included.