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July 1, 2002
NUNS WITH GUITARS AREN'T ALL
INNOCENT, SAYS DEZENHALL
 

Companies must go on the attack and beyond "solely apologizing and defending" when faced with a crisis, Eric Dezenhall told the June 29 National Journal, which dubs his D.C.-based firm one of the "least publicized, but most feared PR firms" in the city.

"Corporations live in mortal terror of being seen as ungentle," Dezenhall, co-founder of Nichols-Dezenhall Comms. Management, told the NJ. "They live in fear of a nun with a guitar showing up at their annual meeting to protest something. But that nun isn't always innocent."

The magazine dubs his methods a "brass-knuckled, Machiavellian approach" to PR, as it often digs into the backgrounds of client's accusers to expose "hidden motivations." It notes that Dezenhall is unapologetic for using former FBI and CIA agents for assignments.

The NJ article came about after reporter Louis Jacobson read Dezenhall's novel Money Wanders, in which the author's alter ego is hired to handle PR for the Mafia, Dezenhall told this website. He said the book deals with the "disinformation" his clients' adversaries employ.

"There's a role for conventional PR in most, but not all, controversies," he told O'Dwyer's. "We're in the witch-hunt business, and I have yet to see a polite presentation-of-the-facts acquit a client who is an accused witch when the crowd is hell-bent on seeing someone burn.

"‘When the Hell's Angels show up, who do you want on your team, Woody Allen? When the Hell's Angels come dressed as choirboys it only makes our cases more interesting," he added.

A former Reagan White House press aide, Dezenhall formed N-D with Nick Nichols in 1987.

He told the NJ that his clients must be "repentant or unjustly accused" and not "simply in need of a cover-up."

Sheldon Rampton of PR Watch called Dezenhall's tactics a kind "hucksterism" which mostly appeals to the "vanity of corporate executives, who tend to have pretty big egos."

Paul Johnson, regional president for Fleishman-Hillard, told the NJ that just by hiring N-D "your opponent assumes you're going for their throat."

Dezenhall's book is in its third printing.

 
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PR Bob (7/8):
I think Dezenhall is in need of PR counsel. This is exactly the kind of thing that gives our profession a bad name. It's no surprise that he came from the Reagan White House.

 

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