Winning over hostile journalists

How do you deal with a journalist that is consistently hostile to your business?

Putting aside Vladimir Putin's favoured approach of having them snuffed out, there are effectively four approaches.

• Attack
• Circumvent
• Containment
• Win them over

Going on the attack against a journalist is a subject for another time. Subject to say that for most businesses I wouldn't recommend the Malcolm Tucker approach (inspired by the Westminster antics of the Blair government's senior spin doctors Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson). What works in the febrile atmosphere of Westminster and indeed Washington may well spectacularly backfire elsewhere.

Circumventing and containment are the usual approaches to such journalists. So you favour other journalists wherever possible and are ultra-guarded and careful with any comments provided.

It may well take the edge off some negative coverage, but ultimately it ends up with the journalist getting all their information from the opposite side... so they are always going to be hostile, and probably increasingly so. Sometimes it is the best that can be done in a difficult situation. Sometimes it inadvertently makes matters worse.

This blog, however, is a story about the bold approach of attempting to win them over.

Firstly because it is the only approach that will substantially reduce the negative coverage and potentially end it. Secondly, because inviting someone who your team see as part of the problem and maybe an enemy is always going to be a hard-sell (and so it should be... it won't work with everyone).

But it can work spectacularly, and one such case was when a former employer of mine was subjected to a sustained hostile campaign in its role as liquidator of what was then the world's largest insolvency.

Firstly, the firm faced plenty of hostile interests in its (ultimately very successful) attempts to recover large sums of money for the creditors.... many of whom were employees and other small unsecured creditors.

The insolvency was hugely complicated involving vast sums of money, criminal fraud, warehouses of paper and numerous overseas jurisdictions: so inevitably the liquidators fees were high, progress was slow and, consequently, an easy target for the hostile interests ranged against it.

The firm had a wide and deep range of established press contacts, thanks in large part to the efforts of my then boss. While we rarely liked getting the large volume of press coverage, frequently it was as balanced as we could wish in the circumstances.

However, there was one national newspaper journalist following the story who consistently presented us in the worst possible light.

Containment had been the tactic so far, treating him with respect but in an increasingly guarded way. Maybe it had stopped things getting worse, but it certainly wasn't making things get better.

Freezing him out wasn't an option either. Putting aside liquidators obligations to provide certain information, the problem wasn't with the information we were providing him... it was all the information coming from the other side!

To cut the story short, following much internal discussion with a certain amount of trepidation we offered him a very rare interview with the lead liquidator. On the way out of the interview he said to me "He's actually surprisingly nice when you meet him in person." and I hope I didn't let my poker face slip to reveal the relief of that outcome!

I am not able to unpick past events to explain why he had adopted a negative stance (that was before my time), but with hindsight treating him as a problem and keeping him at arm's length was in fact exacerbating the situation. The meeting changed things dramatically for the better.

Part of the success was the disarming sincerity of the lead liquidator. But underpining it was the story he was able to tell of the truly herculean efforts by him and his team, something that had impact and credibility when delivered face-to-face. As ever, substance is more impressive than spin.

Clearly such an approach may well not work with every journalist... especially where you have something to hide. After all, if you meet the journalist there is no comfortable escape if you are asked a question on something you don't want to discuss.

What I can say is when it comes to offering such an olive branch to a hostile business journalist, I have discussed it with numerous PR peers over the years. While it hasn't worked on some occasions, none have said to me that it made the existing problem any worse!

If you want to know about defending against hostile campaigns, I've teamed up with hostile campaigns specialist Jason Nisse for a webinar to cover the topic in much more detail on Friday. Full details are here.

What have been your experiences with hostile journalists... do share your insights on dealing with them in the comments below!