PR killed Baby P
That’s the claim purported in today’s Telegraph.
The claim follows reports that Harringey Council spent more than £3.4m on publicity during the 07/08 financial year, of which £2.2m was spent on PR (communications and other expenditure). It is suggested that had Harringey Council spent that money on child protection and social workers instead of PR, Baby P might have received the care he needed and still be alive and well today.
It may be true that had Harringey Council spent another £2m on child protection Baby P might still be alive, but I think it’s wrong to blame that on PR. If the council hadn’t paid its phone or electricity bills they could have spent more money on child protection too.
I think it shows a real misunderstanding of PR and devalues the industry as a whole. It implies that PR is a luxury that council’s can simply do without. If Harringey Council had spent the money on child protection instead of PR I suspect tax payers in the area would be pretty disgruntled. How would they know that the council had spent an extra £2m on child protection without the council spending money on PR to let them know?
The article goes on to report the terrible news that Harringey Council is now spending money on crisis PR. If they hadn’t spent money on crisis PR and either gave no comment or put people forward who had received no media training, they would have fueled yet more criticism by the media. Really the council are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
The sad fact remains that Baby P is dead. No amount of spending on crisis PR or child protection can change that now.
