A PR Dream Team: Why Eliot Spitzer Might Have Gotten Luckier Than He'll Ever Realize

Undeniably, reporters and PR people have to work together. In a sublime world, public relations staff and reporters would offer one another easy, fluid transfer of information, but let's get real. Reporters seek facts and instant access to experts that will validate their stories, while PR folks usually have a solid idea of precisely how they think a story should be told. And rightfully so, as their job is to craft a positive image for the person or entity for whom they work. While the need for information can at times create a bit of a love-hate relationship, quality public relations people will ultimately establish and maintain good media relationships.

We bring this issue up because of a recent Gawker item on Eliot Spitzer, the former Governor of New York outed in 2008 in a prostitution scandal. Spitzer's communications director and press secretary were thrown right into the heat of what the piece refers to as Spitzer's "PR meltdown". It seems that Spitzer's people had established exceptionally good relationships with the New York Times reporters hunting for the juicy scandal, as they apparently allowed Spitzer's press team to preview parts of the stories and asked permission before contacting sources. In the article you can read a play-by-play of actual emails between reporters and public relations team.

The moral of the story? Whether or not a scandal lies ahead in your future, having the right public relations people on your side with good press relationships remains a fundamental necessity. As bad as it seems for Spitzer, in reality with the magnitude of what he did, it could have been much, much worse.

Brett Banter