Anwar – Damage Control Needed!
By now, many of us would have read Caught in political sex trap by Philip Dorling and Nick McKenzie of The Sydney Morning Herald and/or Jabahar Sadiq’s article in TMI on WikiLeaks reveals Anwar ‘walked into’ sex trap HERE.
Now what shocked me was NOT the disclosure in the two aforementioned articles but rather this article on Anwar silent, tweets blame on SB for WikiLeaks sex expose.
I am not going to comment on the expose but wish to focus on how DSAI is managing this disclosure.
Here’s what Shazwan Mustafa Kamal reported in TMI:
Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim used Twitter today to dismiss a revelation by WikiLeaks that Australian intelligence believes he engaged in sodomy, claiming the source was Malaysia’s Special Branch police.
The opposition leader did not take calls to comment on Australia’s The Sun-Herald report but responded via his Twitter micro-blogging account when queried.
Of late, I am not at all impressed with PKR or Anwar or their so-called public relations methods in handling crisis situations. In the past few months, PKR has been plagued with internal problems ranging from the Zaid-Azmin issue, election issues and of course, Sodomy II. Have they handled the situation/issues effectively for damage control? It almost seems as though shooting themselves in the foot has become a hobby!
First of all, the slow response is most worrying. Any PR practitioner would know that once any damaging information is announced, there has to be immediate action taken to plan and execute those plans for damage control via a rational, legitimate and CONVINCING and RESPONSIBLE response to deflect whatever damaging forces hitting the organization.
Secondly, why use Twitter to communicate his response? Whilst I am all for Twitter, it is sad that DSAI does not realize that the readership of online portals that carried the news item outnumber that of his own Twitter followers. So, what does he want to do? Just convince his Twitter followers alone or as many as possible in the country or even the region of his innocence?
Thirdly, let’s look at DSAI’s flippant response which seems to indicate that he is not bothered to act effectively to address the issue as soon as it was made public! If he could not handle the crisis, at least he could have informed the MSM about how he is going to tackle the situation. However, his sheer flippancy is worrying and makes it difficult for many to believe his side of the story! Does the lighthearted response indicate how much he values his reputation?
Fourthly, if indeed the disclosure is flawed, should he not have issued a statement not just to the MSM but also to the source of the expose? The absence of such a press release or public statement or even the silence to requests for comments is MOST disappointing to say the least!
