Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/04/geo-group-too-filthy-for-edelm.html
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smear campaigns against vegan mayo
More on-topic, speeding up this process of dumping scumbag clients is one of the reasons that corporate boards should have a seat reserved for an employee representative (similar to in Germany).
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They’ve warned investors that their growth and profits are threatened by “public resistance” and “deliberate mischaracterization of our longstanding role as a quality service provider to ICE.” The company says it will address this by “taking steps to more aggressively tell our story to members of Congress, state legislators and the general media.”
Aggressively tell our story.
Now, that’s the sign of a good PR firm. /s
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Seriously, if freaking JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo won’t do business with you, well that’s a whole new level of dirty. They even do business with Trump.
Mind boggling.
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The first victory in the war again &!%#-ing all mayonnaise!
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I’ve known some folks who work for Edelman worldwide, and they’ve been just fine. Reasonable clients, nice folks. But Edelman in the states seem to be the official spokespeople of evil, especially back under Bush. It’s amazing there’s a “too far” for them. It’s sad that the US has managed to reach it.
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I think that comment was made by GEO Group, not the PR firm. 
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Basically, we need to up our political donations.
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[comment on Fishbowl that] PR flacks should leave “personal politics out of important client work.”
Ah, I think I see the problem. There is NO PR work that is inherently ‘important client work’. It might be important to you, or important to your bottom line, but it isn’t intrinsically important.
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Agreed, 100%.
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Ah, I missed the subject flip in the paragraph before. PR work, then.
Because somebody actually had to think that up for it to exist. Insert another /s here.
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What about ‘activist investing’? Have their share prices, specifically voting stock, dropped to a price point where it would be possible for a significant number of people to purchase a share, gain access to investor information and generally vote in favor of actions and policies that would result in shuttering the company?
I’ve often fantasized about doing something similar with WalMart stock after winning a lottery jackpot: buying up a huge chunk of C-class stock in WalMart, walking into the nearest franchise and transferring ownership of the shares to the floor-staff, explaining what they mean and how to use them.
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Or just work in commune to have an appropriate impact on share prices.
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Not pearl clutching or personal politics. Basic ethical and moral behavior.
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A glimmer of hope for some employees that their concerns will be heard in some cases. Sadly, there will be another PR firm ready to step in and coerce the gullible into thinking private prisons are awesome. A firm whose employees are too oppressed to speak out against immoral clients. No matter how despicable a corporation is, one even more despicable will crawl out of the woodwork when the opportunity arises. There is no bottom of the barrel here.
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So the question is; how do I make it look good for our client company to operate concentration camps for people? Do I feel good about saying our client runs a better class of degradation and abuse than someone else would? How do I make it acceptable to rip children from their mothers knowing they may never see them again. If you struggle with this in terms of it being ok or not have you considered euthanasia as a step you could take to make the world a better place? Really, how do I make it look good to destroy families? Hop off the planet asshole. Lighten the load a bit.
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That inter-paragraph flip was pretty harsh and sort of blur-screened my brain when it first hit me!
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GEO Group needs the “services” of a different type of firm… the kind of firm that “helped” Toys-R-Us… that’s a recipe that can be followed and repeated for both world improvement and profit.
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“How do you want your aggressive storytelling, Congressman? Wire transfer to your Cayman Islands account, or unmarked, non-sequential bills in a brown envelope?”
This whole news story reminds me of the episode of the Mark Thomas Comedy Product when he gives PR advice to Indonesian Torturers at the UK’s largest arms show.
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One for the philosophers here - are Edelman worse than Bell Pottinger?
For your consideration, BPP spun Sri Lankan government’s attacks on a Tamil civilians as ‘humanitarian’ actions; got $500 million from the DoD for a public relations campaign that involved creating fake terrorist videos; and smoothed the reputations of a selection of loveable characters including General Pinochet and the charming Assad family.
Sadly BPP won’t be in competition for future awards as they folded after being caught up to their armpits in the Gupta scandal right at the heart of South Africa’s rampant corruption under President Zumba.
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