Mizzou Reportedly Hired PR Firm to Handle Damage Control
“The strategy Edelman presented was to limit media access”
Whatever the PR firm did, it wasn’t very effective. Enrollment is way down.
The College Fix reported:
Report: University of Missouri quietly hired PR firm to quell its ‘perception crisis’
Despite slashing its public relations and Washington DC lobbying offices, as well as its social media team in the midst of financial crisis following well-publicized racial protests, the University of Missouri had quietly hired a PR to help its image problems.
The Columbia Missourian reports Edelman PR, the firm which assisted Penn State during the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal, was paid $250,000 and $350,000 between June 2016 and July 2017, and an additional $123,600 for its services through June 2018.
“The strategy Edelman presented was to limit media access, mostly in the form of written ‘pre-determined statements,’ push positive stories about the university and create a strategy for all representatives to answer expected tough questions the same way.
“Edelman has looked at news releases and provided feedback, proposed specific events to push positive media messages for MU and helped plan the school’s overall public relations strategy, according to the contract and documents. The firm has been helpful to MU, campus spokesman Christian Basi said.”
However, the contract with Edelman was not publicly announced.
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Comments
Want some street cred? Start firing your staff when they inject their opinion into their courses. You can’t pay a PR firm to change your reputation. That must be done on your own, very publicly.
Edelman isn’t cheap either
No PR firm is going to change the websearch results when a prospective student, professor or employee inputs “Mizzou” or “University of Missouri”. They will still see hundreds of articles about Mizzou’s meltdown.
I suspect that someday, these student activists we realize that protesting at a college or university is merely singing to the choir … and equally useless. You don’t win any wars fighting on your home grounds.
One could assume that the administration thought they were useless as well, but the students were too dense to figure out that the protests were merely a form of flagellant.
If you recall, members of the football team joined in the protests.
Missouri Tigers 1-3, 5th East, not in the top 40 of NCAA, after losing 51 – 14 to Auburn