The Media, like an elephant, never forgets!

The news media is very unforgiving, and has a memory like an elephant….it never forgets! Have you noticed that? It is one very good reason to implement great risk management policies, which include a strong media crisis plan, and guard your business and personal reputation closely.

Why do I say that? Whenever there is an article in the paper about a ‘celebrity’, be they business, sporting, whatever, and they have had media coverage in the past, the past issues will always be rehashed. Even if the article is in the real estate section, talking of the impending sale of the person’s home. With every article ever written about the so-called ‘celebrity’ carefully archived, there is no opportunity for their past to be forgotten. That old expression ‘yesterday’s news is today’s fish and chips wrapping’ no longer holds true.

If you have been yesterday’s news, you can guarantee that any subsequent news appearances will remind us of that news, and you will definitely smell of dead fish!

What I find distressing about this is that no one appears off limits. There used to be a belief that people in the public eye deserved what they dished out. Politicians had no private life. But it now appears that any scandal can be presented in all its sordid detail, because of ‘the public’s right to know’.

Consider Michelle Leslie. Michelle is a young beautiful Australian woman who, foolishly carried two ecstasy tablets in her handbag in Indonesia! We all know Indonesia’s attitude towards drug users. She became caught up in a ghastly court case, and was obviously frightened for her life. Perhaps she was poorly advised, perhaps she was just plain desperate, but she claimed to have converted to Islam. Difficult for a model. She won her life back, returned to Australia and has recently picked up her modelling career.

Is this young woman allowed to quietly get on with her life? Sure she made a huge mistake. Most of us do. Think of the story in the New Testament of the Bible, where Jesus challenged the angry mob threatening to stone the adulterous woman – “whomever is without sin, cast the first stone”.

The same could apply to us, and the media, in the case of Michelle Leslie. In last week’s Melbourne Age, gossip columnists chose to cast more stones at Miss Leslie. They wrote:

She was trekking the catwalk last night in a stripey swimsuit but devout Muslim Michelle Leslie’s previous trek to Cambodia – minus the headscarf – to meet and greet some orphans (it does wonders for a tattered image) and the heart-wrenching tale has just appeared in No Idea. The mag’s publicist, Max ‘Show Me the Money’ Markson, told Diary that contrary to reports, he was not her publicist/agent/manager but chipped in that “Michelle could do Dancing with the Stars!” as part of her comeback. As long as it doesn’t clash with her prayer times and she sprinkles a few sequins on her scarf.

The reason for this invective was that she dared appear in one of Australia's women's magazines in a story with a positive spin. I'd have to say she needs a little positive spin to try and counteract all the negative media she received. She is 24! She is a model. Hardly a veteran media performer, versed in the fine arts of handling media intrusion.

We need to ask ourselves what role we play in causing this feeding frenzy of private people. At what point is enough enough, and individuals’ slates can be wiped clean and they can move on with their lives, safe from the media’s elephant-like gaze?