For all the talk in PR circles about the value of corporate reputation – and reputation in public life – there’s been precious little concern shown for it in a host of recent events.

News Corporation chairman, Rupert Murdoch’s appearance at the Leveson Inquiry into media standards, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, and Culture Minister, Jeremy Hunt’s response to the BSkyB email revelations, Chancellor George Osborne’s handling of the economy, Barclays Bank’s attitude to executive pay and the Bahrain Grand Prix – the list goes on.

First, Murdoch: compared to his mostly defiant appearance before the Parliamentary Select Committee investigating phone hacking at News International, his performance at Leveson was sparkling. Who would have imagined hearing Rupert Murdoch say “I failed”? However, when the well-rehearsed mask slipped, the full-blown ugliness of his attitude towards any outside challenge was revealed. What could have been an opportunity to rebuild, or salvage, some remnant of reputation for himself and his organisation was jettisoned. And this could, as Reuters suggests, compound his problems with the Parliamentary Select Committee’s report into phone hacking, out this week.

Taking the Government’s current predicament as a whole, there appears to be too great a willingness to reach for the smoke screen. Shielding Jeremy Hunt behind the running order of the Leveson Inquiry just makes him look guilty as hell for mismanaging his and his special adviser’s relationship with BSkyB. Want to protect your ministerial reputation? then get on with an investigation and be transparent. And on the economy, George Osborne is sticking doggedly to a plan that is not only being roundly rubbished for its incompetence but has reversed the country into recession part 2. But, instead of acknowledging its own poor fiscal decisions, the Government resorts to blaming its preferred punching bag, Gordon Brown.

For Barclays Bank, it’s taken shareholders anger for the reputation card to be played, with a third refusing to back the company’s executive remuneration report, citing the effect of colossal pay deals on the bank’s reputation. Meanwhile the decision to progress with the recent Bahrain F1 Grand Prix carries a reputation risk for its sponsors, according to risk management consultants Maplecroft, Torbjorn Soltvedt, noting  a “risk of indirect complicity for sponsors and organisers in human rights violations carried out by state security forces.”

So, what price reputation? At this rate, it will be consigned to the bargain bin of corporate concerns.

But does it matter? Not so, according to The Economist’s Schumpeter, which takes a swipe at what it calls the “reputation management industry”:

BP’s expensive “beyond petroleum” branding campaign did nothing to deflect the jeers after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Brit Insurance’s sponsorship of England’s cricket teams has won it brownie points in the short term, but may not really be the best way to build a resilient business. Many successful companies, such as Amazon, Costco, Southwest Airlines and Zappos, have been notable for their intense focus on their core businesses, not for their fancy marketing. If you do your job well, customers will say nice things about you and your products.

Branding? Sponsorship? Fancy marketing? Schumpeter’s own central conceit is undone by its own misunderstanding of what reputation management is. Little wonder some corporate and top flight political attitudes to reputation are, proverbially speaking, all over the show.

Maybe, if the purpose of commerce and politics was solely to be successful and retain power, Schumpeter would be right. But aren’t there broader responsibilities to society  for companies and our elected representatives?

As Dr. Charles J. Fombrun, founder & Chairman of the Reputation Institute says in response to the Economist’s article: “In the short run… it’s true that many companies can and will prosper without directly focusing on building reputation. But these companies are also likely candidates for going awry in the long run because lax practices mean they stockpile huge risks that later prove costly to mitigate (consider, for instance, the tobacco industry’s current payouts and regulation). Lacking a solid reputation, many of these companies also fail to take advantage of the opportunities they have to outperform rivals along the way.”

If those in society’s highest places are treating their reputations with the level of derision currently demonstrated, what does that mean for the value of reputation more generally?  Surely, the bargain bin isn’t where it belongs?

Football clubs and the media have a tetchy relationship. It is regular practice for Premier League clubs to ban the media from media briefing and press conferences when a manager has been unhappy about something written or said.  Sometimes, as a football fan and as someone who works in PR, you do  wonder sometimes whether it is because of the comment about football or the damage it might be perceived to do to the ‘brand’.

For clubs like Manchester United, where Sir Alex Ferguson seems to have an ever revolving door of journalists who have been banned from his media conferences, the impact  is minimal. After all, he refused to speak to the BBC for eight years and it didn’t seem to do much harm. But what about clubs lower down the leagues.

Today, the Daily Echo in Bournemouth has published a stinging attack on its local club after it has been banned from attending matches at the club’s Seward Stadium. It appears as if there has been a growing discontent by the current owner and management team about the tone of coverage received during recent months.

The points the newspaper make in its defence are robust and get to the nub of a newspaper’s role in supporting its local club. It quotes the 700 back pages leads since 2009 and the support it gave during administration. The newspaper will have undoubtedly played an important part in helping put ‘bums on seats’ at a club that needs as many fans – and part-time supporters – through the turnstiles as it can get.

As someone who has been involved in the administration of two football clubs – Bury and Barnsley – I know the importance that local media play in keeping the clubs alive. The ‘Save our Shakers’ campaign, which received widespread media support, was a fundamental in helping Bury come through tough times.

It will be interesting to see how the Bournemouth situation plays out and I am sure that the club will come to realise that they need the local newspaper more than the newspaper needs them.

When Rupert Murdoch announced the imminent launch of The Sun on Sunday, he didn’t name the editor.  We’re naming him as Dominic Mohan, the editor of The Sun on every other day of the week.

It’s not a trick headline (OK it is… a bit), it points out something that’s all to easily missed after the melee that Murdoch mustered to herald the launch of his new Sunday paper.  This isn’t a Sunday newspaper.  This is a daily newspaper that happens to have a Sunday edition.  It’s an important distinction.  Sunday newspapers, even the News of the World, have been resourced to work on stories and scoops without the pressure of a daily deadline and with the time to conduct proper investigations.   The Sun on Sunday will be churned out by weary hacks and the first editor in national newspaper history to work a 7 day week.

It also suggests that rather than an act born of a newly discovered appreciation for media ethics the closure of the News of the World presented an opportunity to produce a red top title seven days a week with a vastly reduced staff cost.  Still if Mr Mohan feels the pressure of the increased workload he can take solace in the fact that Rupert has promised to stick around for a while to make sure that everything is running smoothly.

That must be a relief.

Once upon a time, a week was a long time in politics. Now football – seemingly unable to get a grip on racism, scandal and all-round bad behaviour by players and managers alike – is experiencing the same fate.

But the latest action by a major sponsor may now bring some sense to the shambles and place reputation at the heart of what Premier League football clubs should be thinking.

First, the now-former England manager, Fabio Capello, completely misjudged the sentiment surrounding John Terry and the FA’s decision to strip him of the captaincy for Euro 2012, so paying with his own job.

Then, the latest chapter in an already dire story concerning Liverpool player, Luis Suárez and Manchester United’s Patrice Evra began with another handshake-that-wasn’t and ended with a rush of apologies from player and club.

As for Suárez, his brains – as Guardian football writer, Daniel Taylor rightly sums up, “are all in his feet”. But for Liverpool manager, Kenny Dalglish – Liverpool legend and, you’d think, a much savvier professional football manager – his post-match response to “handshake-gate” was woeful. And by alluding to the media as culpable in whipping up the story, he should have seen the abyss widening beneath him. Call me naive, but the manager is more regularly the face of the club than even the players or the management. Therefore, its reputation is firmly in his hands.

Now, the latest twist is that Liverpool shirt sponsor, Standard Chartered, has weighed in with the following (c/o The Guardian):

“We were very disappointed by Saturday’s incident and have discussed our concerns with the club.” A person familiar with the matter said: “It was a very robust conversation.”

Money talks, and a sponsor pumping in serious amounts of cash to a club doesn’t need a player at the heart of the most high profile racism row in UK sport carrying on like a spoilt child while bearing the company’s logo.

It’s taken until now for Liverpool managing director, Ian Ayre, to take a stand by criticising Suárez. But what about Dalglish?

Maybe the “robust conversation” with Standard Chartered may get Liverpool – and other clubs – to wake up to the equal value and fragility of reputation and the very tangible (i.e., pounds and pence) damage that can potentially be inflicted.

Reputation management in top flight football can’t be entrusted to players and managers if they believe their singular responsibility at the club is to kick a bag of air, or instruct others how to.

Do the humble consumers of news care how the news comes about? And do they care to contribute to the stories of the day?

The Guardian’s latest online editorial experiment is about to find out with the launch today of Newsdesk Live, combining its already established “open news list” of each day’s selected stories and correspondents with the liveblogging platform and live comment thread. So, for everyone determined to add a tuppence worth to the news process, the Guardian is the place to go.

Run by the ever-industrious Guardian correspondent, Polly Curtis, who is adding this to her Whitehall and Reality Check column responsibilities, Newsdesk Live is forensically dissecting a small number of stories – which today includes Stephen Hester’s bank bonus and the UCAS application figures – while giving space to graphics, multimedia and input from the Twitterverse.

Dan Roberts, the Guardian’s national news editor says, in a reply to a reader: “For those worrying about excessive navel-gazing, it’s a fair point if we get carried away, but mostly what you are seeing is part of the editorial process that goes on any way – just usually behind closed doors. More importantly, I hope the Guardian’s recent record in breaking stories shows that taking an open approach often results in better journalism too.”

And the Newsdesk Live concept is now getting high praise in high places…

Citizens and journalists reporting the news? My first editor – if he were dead – would be turning in his grave!

Is international PR agency, Edelman’s annual trust barometer to be trusted?

Or, more to the point, can a PR firm that opts to work with News International be trusted on the subject of “trust”? This is the stance that influential MP and Murdoch-mitherer, Tom Watson, asserted on Twitter this morning – on the day Edelman launched its 12th annual trust and credibility survey.

Watson’s challenge to Edelman led to this exchange with its EMEA CEO, Robert Phillips:

Which led to Phillip’s response (large type) and Watson’s accusation (small type), based on Edelman’s News International connection:

And Phillips’ somewhat indignant plea to Watson:

And a final volley from Watson in return:

So, is Watson right? Is handling PR for News International to be treated as a similarly unethical assignment as – say – representing repressive regimes? And does it destroy your credibility as a communications business?

Only Edelman and NI knows how the conversation went when the deal was being struck, but Watson’s suggestion that working for NI is de facto unethical – ergo Edelman is unethical – is too simplistic and no doubt reflects his own visceral feelings towards Murdoch and co.

If a fly on the wall in the Edelman/NI negotiations told us that the job briefed by the client was to “get us off the hook, spin it any way you want to, but don’t tell us how to run our business,” then Edelman would have to ask itself if this was a gig it wanted.

However, if that same fly reported that the client acknowledged the mess it had made, was willing to make amends to the victims and was committed to a thorough overhaul of its business practices and culture for its own survival and the public good, that’s a different story.

Just as most offenders get the chance to rehabilitate themselves, so companies and organisations deserve the opportunity to put the past behind them and build a new, responsible and ethical paradigm. And if a PR firm is part of a genuine and concerted effort on the part of that company to demonstrate its contrition and willingness to change, then why not? After all, creating good will and understanding among its publics are laudable aims for a company and its PR advisers. According to political commentators Watson, himself, is not averse to the use of PR consultancy.

Tom Watson is not alone in being appalled and disgusted by the endemic corruption and wrongdoing we now know existed in News International. But once the punishment has been handed out, is there no room for second chances?

Does anybody care about having a good reputation in football?

Any casual observer of the so-called “beautiful game” would presume that football or footballers have as much connection with the notion of corporate reputation as an earth worm does.

After years of attempting to kick racism out of the UK game, high profile players for major league clubs are becoming associated with that most repugnant of behaviour. Is it unrealistic to expect respectful on-pitch relations from our footballers, or are they simply too stupid to recognise as acceptable what the bulk of society did long ago?

And, this week, the match between Iberian titans, Madrid and Barcelona – a fixture that’s become predictably ill-tempered – outdid itself for pointless, farcial, reputation shredding bad behaviour.

Spanish sports commentators labelled the performance by Madrid as ”treason against their own history”, saying that manager Jose Mourinho “threw away all Madrid’s history and instead insisted on a lamentable match from which he got no benefit for Madrid. It was all bad: the result, the play, the violence.”

What does this matter, in a sport where – despite money and scandal overflowing in equal measure – fans continue to show up and sponsors back the big teams?

Trusty Twitter friends came forward with their own views:  asked whether it mattered if football clubs had a good or bad reputation, veteran communications professional, @NigelSarbutts, opined “To the fans, sort of; to sponsors, more so, but it’s still trumped by pragmatism. Brands queue up to sponsor any Premier League side I’d say. It’s just ad space.”

Corporate communications expert, @domburch, felt reputation fundamental, even in football: “Of course. Attracting new talent (back office as well as players), new fans, sponsorship – all dependent on your reputation.”

Former Staniforth colleague, Ghida Basma – whose Masters degree dissertation focused on reputation in football, says that the reputation of players can’t help but have a correlation on the reputation of the club.

Interestingly, a 10-year-old piece of research suggests that clubs with a reputation for foul play tend to be penalised by referees more, based on a predisposition in the official’s brain that players for a notoriously “dirty” club must be up to their usual tricks. Yorkshire PR man, Anthony Devenish, says: “Leeds takes flack as ‘dirty Leeds’, thanks to the 70′s team. Their rumoured motto? ‘Let’s get blood on our boots’.”

In other fields – business, politics, the military and, more recently, in tabloid journalism – taking a reckless attitude to reputation has a variety of tangible effects, among them imprisonment, loss of trust, collapsing share price, corporate closure and so on.

Surely, the workings of  world’s most popular sport and building and maintaining a good reputation are not mutually exclusive concepts?

A guest post by Tom Maddocks of Media Training Associates

In the era of the TV news ‘soundbite’, the idea of a long political speech appeared to most of us be very old-fashioned, something that would never catch the interest of people with today’s near-zero attention span.  Many would continue to make this argument, pointing to modest audiences even for the leaders’ speeches at the October party conferences.  Yet elsewhere, public speaking appears to be gaining a renaissance, with more and more presentations now being streamed across the web – the popular TED talks being just one example – these have gained over 1.5 million followers on Facebook.  Others (including all the Presidential candidates in the 2008 US election) have used Ustream.tv to stream themselves live over the internet.  In the UK the RSA has made innovative use of the visual opportunities in its RSA Animate series – see http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/videos/

Could more organisations in the public, private and third sectors be making use of these opportunities to find an audience?  To succeed, you don’t need high technology – some of this stuff is recorded with very basic equipment – but if you are representing your organisation, you do need to be able to sound interesting, and look professional.  Increasingly when we run media training courses we find an element of coaching for appearing on videos or webinars is essential, even for people who think they’ll ‘never be on TV’.  So good old-fashioned presentation skills are as important as ever.  Convey energy, convey passion, convey enthusiasm, and ensure you have relevant and engaging content.  Get to the point – whatever your platform it’s usually best to take a leaf from TED’s book and keep presentations, videos etc to 20 minutes maximum -  a lot less for some topics.  Don’t let yourself appear nervous by letting your eyes wander around – if talking direct to camera, keep them to camera.  Finally, remember to smile and convey warmth, so you can really make a connection with your audience.

SEO, according to marketers questioned for the above research, has the biggest impact on lead generation. But what does that SEO actually constitute and is it made up, either partly or mostly, of PR activity?

It’s not a question that’s ever answered in Webmarketing123′s State of Digital Marketing Report. More of that later. In the meantime, what else does the research tell us?

Clearly, the metrics of success are firmly focused on tangible returns: for marketers across B2B and B2C, it’s far more about generating leads and making sales than anything else. Taking the B2B marketer in particular, the lesser objectives include building brand awareness (15%), generating site traffic (11%) or building online communities (5%). Curiously, the latter is even less important for the B2C community (2.8%). What was once considered a desirable digital outcome, certainly of social media, seems to be have been relegated to an uncommercial own goal.

But when identifying what these marketers consider the most important measure for digital marketing – i.e. sales – our B2B and B2C cousins are surprisingly close (62% and 68% respectively). Bearing in mind the comparatively more protracted and complex journey for B2B buyers, it’s a revelation that those selling B2B are looking for such high sales conversions via digital alone.  While I can see it as a vital part of building reputation, understanding and consideration along the B2B procurement pathway, I’m sceptical about its ability to close the deal.

Which brings me back to SEO and impact.

Achieving a high, organic search engine ranking takes more than one technique – some delivered better by SEO specialists, others by professional generators of compelling and insightful textual content. Yes, I’m talking about PR people. But PR doesn’t get a mention in the report. Does that mean PR has become a subset of SEO and, if so, are SEO specialists qualified to advise clients about and generate material hitherto done by PR people?

The lines are blurred and, what seems increasingly apparent, is the need that SEO and PR people have to collaborate; after all, if gaining a high search engine ranking has the biggest impact on a client’s lead generation, the tools to do it are not necessarily the province of one discipline alone.

Update: since posting the above, I found this excellent post by Lance Concannon on the SEO/PR dilemma and how it needs to be worked out for everyone’s benefit.

Where are online marketers spending their digital cash to maximum customer effect right now?

This interesting, US-focused infographic - just produced by Californian marketing company, Webmarketing123 – paints a picture of B2B and B2C online marketers’ current digital strategies.

Any surprises?

There’s a report that goes with it too; we’ll take a look and give you our view later.