Obama Nobel speech

11 years ago today I was waking from a night that summed up the hope at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement. Phil Coulter and James Galway had led a sing song into the really hours in our Oslo Hotel. Hume and Trimble joined in that ancient Irish tradition – the session. The culmination of the Nobel day when our two leaders were recognised for their part in the changing the course of this island’s history.  It is such a pity that so much of the hope born in that year is unfulfilled.

Yesterday it was President Obama’s turn. His speech is deep and brave. He tackles the controversy around his – some say premature – award.

Here it is:

Real change will only come when parties start working together

I have written a colum for today’s Belfast Telegraph in which I argue that the SDLP and UUP should start working together to provide voters with an alternative to the DUP – SF coalition.

To sue or not to sue

Tiger Woods will be wondering what legal recourse he has today as the tabloids have a feeding frenzy about the circumstances leading to his car crash last week.  This is a issue a colleague of mine in London, Rob Clayton, has written a lot about. Here are his latest thoughts on the thorny issue of when to sue and when not to sue.

“Publish and be damned” is one of the duke of Wellington’s most famous remarks. It was his response to Joseph tockdale, a pornographer, who was about to publish the memoirs of Harriette Wilson, a famous ‘escort’ of the time. Stockdale had offered to remove all references to the duke, but the duke refused to pay. The memoirs were duly published, making a fortune for both Stockdale and Wilson. Yet, though he was married with children, the duke’s towering reputation was unaffected, perhaps even strengthened by his standing firm in the face of adversity.

Not everybody is so sanguine at the prospect of the media reporting on matters they consider private. Recently, in England, the trading company Trafigura agreed to pay millions of pounds without admitting any liability regarding certain allegations. When a question was asked about this in parliament, however, Trafigura’s lawyers obtained an order preventing a newspaper reporting the question and a further order preventing reporting of the initial order. American readers used to first amendment protection may be scratching their heads, but English law takes a very different view on where the balance lies between freedom of speech and the freedoms of those being spoken (or written) about.

Hence a number of states in the US have enacted laws nullifying the effect of English libel laws in their jurisdictions. But the difficulty of enforcing such laws nowadays is demonstrated by Trafigura’s lawyers abandoning these efforts after Twitter users worked out and wrote about what was going on anyway.

Of parliament, Wellington’s best known remark is “I never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life.” Most of us recognise that our legislatures are not perfect, but the concept in England of parliamentary privilege is clear and we value freedom of speech strongly. In this context, it is surprising if it did not occur to Trafigura and its advisers how massively their efforts could backfire. Once a company makes payments, even without acknowledging any wrongdoing,  the reputation game changes. Fair or unfair, people want to see corrective actions. Certainly, they do not want to see aggressive attempts to coerce the media. It seems inescapably the case that the bulk of the criticism that Trafigura now faces is less about what it is alleged to have done and much more about how it handled those allegations. This is actually bad for everyone. It means that the underlying issues may fester without resolution and, crucially, that the company now has far less chance of convincing the world community that it stands for values that many people would hope to see it (and anyone) support.

A contrasting case is instructive. When Dole Foods’ Swedish subsidiary sued a Swedish documentary maker for defamation, critics accused the company of stifling free speech. It transpired that Dole’s main accusers in the film were paid by a lawyer to say what they said, but Dole dropped its lawsuit anyway. Perhaps it determined that being perceived as attempting to silence criticism could harm its reputation and – given pressure from retailers – its business. So while still maintaining that the film is “fundamentally flawed,” Dole’s General Counsel now says that he looks forward to an “open discussion” with the filmmakers.

Many PR professionals who are averse to “getting legal” with the media may feel that Trafigura’s experience supports this view. Yet it is important to emphasise that legal recourse is usually worth considering and sometimes vital. A false statement published at the wrong time in the wrong place can have devastating consequences.

 It may be imperative to enjoin publication. Without such a defence, rebuilding an unfairly tarnished reputation could take years and may well be beyond the means of many individuals, even of some companies. Investigative reporters pursue agendas and it is understandable that their targets can be concerned not only about getting a fair hearing at the time, but also about how they recover quickly from any loss of reputation.

The big picture is crucial. A successful strategy will have evaluated the benefits of both the assertion of legal rights and the communication of strong, positive messages. Having a close understanding of the opinions of the public and important stakeholders – how you are viewed, how your strategic options would be perceived, what people need to see and know – is crucial in order to get the balance right.

 Far less well remembered than the celebrated quotation with which we started is what Wellington said next. He made clear that “if such trash is published”, he would sue. Many of those mentioned in Harriette Wilson’s memoirs did indeed sue for libel, and their claims ruined the publisher. Yet in the event, Wellington held his fire. Meanwhile the unabashed Stockdale went on many years later to sue the parliamentary publisher Hansard… for defamation!

New NI online hate group emerges on Facebook

A new Northern Ireland hate group has emerged on Facebook. The work of what appears to be a sad group of students, it was created last week and targets young Romanian women who sell roses in Belfast city centre.

The racist group, entitled ‘abusing Belfast rose sellers’ has already attracted 343 members from both sides of the traditional divide in this region. Its comment zone is full of hateful comments.

An ‘Alistair Frew‘ wrote; 

“ Loving this i fuking hate the bastards im going to get a big bag of coppers and throw them at them someday…. Unfortunately im in london admo so ill have to make do with throwing them at asian rose sellers….. its just not the same…….”

Kyle Burnside contributes;

“ if you talk to them in a borat accent and pretend that they’re jews its quite effective.”

Then there is Jordan Patrick Ryles who says;

 “they always pester me outside of limelight. the best thing i seen though when they where there was a tramp who came over with a trolley full of random shit and a sign saying “fuck the rose sellers, buy random shit from me instead” hah! fucking hilarious”

Another comment came from Andy Stewart who wrote:

“my mate actually pissed on one while we distracted her..she wasnt a happy romanian..”

Time for the Assembly to look into online bulling and hate me thinks.

Ceann Comhairle and his expences

Elaine Byrne in the Irish Times today is reflecting on what to say to her students about trust in politics and the ruminations of the Oireachtas Commission.

John O’Donoghue, chairman of that same commission, is very welcome to address my class of 20-year-olds and explain to them his definition of values that justified a political culture awash with five-star hotels, chauffeur-driven cars on stand-by, Michelin-starred restaurants and official trips with his wife that coincided with prestigious race meetings at Longchamp, Chantilly and Sandown.

Real history of the perfect pint

Arthur’s Day has passed. The signing of a lease 250 years ago in Dublin was converted into a global marketing moment and with some success.

Today in the Irish Times Cormac O’Grada, has a fascinating article chronicling the quarter of a millennium search for the perfect pint. Turns out it was invented in London, developed in Belfast and make special in Dublin……

A further irony, since “Arthur’s Day” merges marketing and history, is that for a long time after Arthur’s death, Guinness was far from being our “national” drink. Only after the Great Famine did it begin to make inroads into rural Ireland. Its conquest of the remoter west and southwest came quite late, a century or more after the foundation of the brewery.

A survey prompted by Guinness’s bicentennial, carried out by the then Irish Folklore Commission in 1956 (and now housed in the National Folklore Collection in UCD), highlighted the novelty of the pint of plain in many places as recently as the late 19th century.According to a Longford informant, “all the old men I’ve talked to agree on this, that porter and stout are comparatively new drinks . . . In their young days there was no such thing as porter, and. . . their fathers before them drank nothing but whiskey”.

From Fair Head in north Antrim came a report that McCaffreys, a Belfast brewery, had been the first to produce a black beer in the North, and that Guinness did not appear on the scene until early in the 1900s.

11 plus petition launched

Parents wishing to express their outrage at the Executive’s failure to agree a solution to the selection crisis can now sign up to a petition being backed by the Belfast Telegraph.

The petition does not call for selection to be scrapped or retained. It simply calls for our politicians to sit down and work this one out together.

You can find out more about the petition and sign up here.

Intimate communications

So do you get it now?

The energy price debate we are not having

Today’s electricity price announcements will spark the usual debate about the need for cheaper energy. Gas prices come down, electricity follows. There will be calls for tighter regulation and competition. Good news and fair comment but only half the story.

What we are still not discussing in a meaningful way is the other ways in which we could produce cheaper and more sustainable energy for our region. Today we spend about 10% of our regional income importing fossil fuels. The general consensus is that fossil fuel prices will remain volatile in the years ahead as the global pressure on a depleting resource tightens. In a couple of decades it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that we might end up spending 20% of our money on imported fuels.

There is a growing school of thought that we should test regional policy to ensure it has a positive economic impact and reduces our reliance on imported fossil fuels thus giving us some protection for the vagaries of the global energy market. Experts believe that for every £1 million saved on importing fossil fuels, £10 million could be freed up to make investments in renewable alternatives. Save £4billion, invest £40billion.

The big difference is that this money invested is spent locally and not paid out to foreign companies selling us foreign gas, coal and oil. Energy policy is a devolved matter. At present customers pay for imported gas when we could be paying for locally generated renewable energy. There is enough biomass potential in this region to heat most of our rural housing. We have enough wind to meet a good chunk of our energy needs yet there is no serious political debate taking place about the opportunity for locally produced cheap energy.

PR man Kelly appointed NI Economic Envoy

Declan Kelly, a former Manging Director of New York  PR firm Financial Dynamics has been appointed US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland by Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

This is the second big appointment in a year for the Tipperary family as Mr Kelly’s younger brother Alan was elected as Labour Party MEP for Ireland South in June.

Declan played a prominent role in Mrs Clinton’s presidential campaign and was behind a major fundraiser for her in Dublin some 18 months ago. Mr Kelly is a no nonsense operator. 

After a brief stint as a journalist with the Irish Examiner he worked for Dublin public relations firm Fleishman Hillard Saunders and later set up his own PR agency with Jackie Gallagher. The company was sold to international group Financial Dynamics.

Most recently, he was executive vice president of FTI, the global business consultancy giant with more than 3,500 employees.