Documentary Drives Home a Lesson on GM’s Public Relations
A lot of years ago, I wrote a piece for the Saturday Evening Post about a bachelor factory worker in Chicago named Joe Swedie who used every cent he earned not required for basic living to rent movies and show them to kids in hospitals. He discovered what a joyous relief from pain and despair this provided sick children when, as a GI in France in World War II, he took his company projector and films into French hospitals. When he returned home, he just kept on doing it, without help or recognition--neither of which he ever felt he needed.
He was real.
One of the ways he saved money for renting films was by driving an ancient Chevrolet that had 270,000 miles on its speedometer when I first came upon this exemplary man. After my story was finished and accepted, I saw the page layout several weeks ahead of publication and discovered the Post was using a large picture of Joe with his car. This was an enormous plug for the staying power of Chevrolet, so I wrote the CEO of General Motors, told him what was coming up, and suggested that GM could get some further mileage from the story by giving Joe a new car, as publicly as they chose.
The ethics may have been questionable, but the motive wasn’t. Joe’s car was almost at the point of collapse, and I had made his rounds with him enough times to know what a terrible loss it would be to his kids if he could no longer get there. So I took a shot at getting him a new car.
Instead of hearing from the CEO, I received a form letter from the personnel director of the Chevrolet Division saying that the company had no openings at the moment but would put my letter on file. It so angered me that I made a copy of my original letter and returned the form letter to the public relations director of Chevrolet, along with some scabrous comments about the compassion and perspicacity of GM.
This produced a telephone call from the PR director inviting me to Detroit at GM’s expense to have lunch with him. I told him I didn’t want to have lunch with him, I just wanted a car for Joe Swedie, and he said that he couldn’t help there, but he sure would be happy to pop for lunch--and there the matter ended. Joe got a car some months later as the subject of one of Ralph Edwards’ “This Is Your Life” episodes (which is quite another story, almost as bad as the GM episode)--and I’ve carried a mild dose of rancor toward GM ever since.
Which brings me to last Saturday night when I went to see “Roger & Me,” presently playing in Orange County movie houses. This is an absolutely marvelous documentary account of the efforts of an ex-journalist named Michael Moore to get the current CEO of GM, Roger Smith, to come to Flint, Mich., and see firsthand the destruction the company has wrought by closing all its plants there and moving them to Mexico.
The film offers a devastating depiction of corporate greed and stupidity in which GM officials contribute mightily on camera to their own execution. It is also patently and outrageously unfair and jovially tunnel-visioned. Moore uses his interview subjects with a kind of blithe savoir-faire that often leaves them looking like idiots in order to make his points.
I came away with a lot of mixed feelings. First, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing GM--which certainly has the wherewithal to protect itself--get its comeuppance. Second, I realized at what a disadvantage people being interviewed find themselves since they have no idea how the interview will be used, especially if it takes place on camera. That, in turn, raised the question in my mind of whether it is justifiable to stomp some minor players in order to stick it to a bully that richly deserves such treatment. I don’t have an answer to that one yet. And, finally, it left me wondering if the public relations profession had been dealt a mortal blow by “Roger & Me.”
No one--not even Roger Smith--comes out looking quite as bad as the GM PR people. I have no idea if they advised Smith to cooperate and he refused or if they counseled the course of action he took. Either way, they blew it. With cameras grinding away, they played directly into Moore’s hands by sounding confused, officious, obstinate, unfeeling and--a couple of times--as if they were bordering on panic. The only company representative who defended the company’s position in an honest, straightforward way (whether or not one agreed with him) was later fired. GM should have canonized him.
I wondered if local public relations professionals shared these feelings--and how they would have handled Michael Moore and his documentary had they been in charge of GM public relations?
So I called one of Orange County’s leading public relations practitioners who once held a similar post in a major corporation. He was uncomfortable about being publicly critical of his associates so asked if he could talk without attribution--a noblesse oblige to which I agreed.
“First of all,” he said, “the automotive industry is notorious for its bad public relations. So this doesn’t surprise me.
“I would have handled it in the same way I think most of my associates in Orange County--and most good public relations professionals anywhere--would have handled it. Under no circumstances would I have tried to avoid filling the request of anyone with legitimate media credentials. Such avoidance simply makes it possible for the person seeking the interview to make a big deal out of not getting it.
“If the CEO refused my advice to cooperate--for whatever reason--I would try to put the media person with the next highest administrative officer in the company. Openness is always the best policy.”
If GM’s high-priced public relations people had recognized and acted on this simple rule of thumb, there probably never would have been a “Roger & Me.” So it serves them right. Besides, they should have given that car to Joe Swedie.
