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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