Lie For Me

Too much has been written already on the rise and swift fall of Anthony Scaramucci. There is one aspect that hasn’t been covered much and is worth a note. That is Mooch’s demand that a communications person or PR firm “go to the mat and lie for him” if necessary. That would make him ineligible to be a client at many PR firms who insist on facts and persuasion. Certainly there are practitioners for whom facts are fiction, and they give the industry a bad name, especially when it finally comes out, as if often does, that they failed to tell the truth. The first rule of PR should be “accuracy, accuracy, accuracy.” One accepts a body of facts and tries to present them favorably for a client. Sometimes this can’t be done, but often there are multiple sides to an issue and there are interpretations that highlight positives. Insisting that a PR firm lie for him compromises the business as much as it focused a negative light on him. When I entered the business decades ago, I was told I didn’t have to lie for anyone. That has remained true in my career. I am thankful that I’ve never had a client that expected me to tell falsehoods.