Op Eds, PR Firms and Ghostwriting

[Damajin]

Next time you read a OpEd from a famous person or a noted ‘authority’ on a subject you may be reading ghostwritten material. A friend pointed me at this DC PR firms website: http://keybridgecommunications.com/ which has a pretty extensive rundown of services it offers:

Op-Ed Writing & Placement … $5,000
First, we write a 500-800 word op-ed. Then we place it in one or more newspapers around the
country. If we’re pitching to a national audience, we guarantee that we’ll reach at least 50,000
readers. Includes media monitoring.

Op-Ed Syndication… $2,000
We syndicate an op-ed to thousands of non-exclusive newspapers. This can be purchased as an
additional service after an op-ed has run in a major-market newspaper. Includes media monitoring.

Earned Media Retainer …$10,000/month
We generate a stream of coverage in newspapers, trade magazines, blogs and online publications.
This service includes a dedicated press contact, messaging, strategy, and daily outreach to reporters,
bloggers, and broadcast media. It also includes press releases, newswire distributions, crisis
communications, and media monitoring. Six-month commitment required. (Single months can be
purchased for $12,000.)

Infographics … $5,000
Infographics turn complex data and policy issues into easy-to-understand visual representations. We’ll
distill your content to create an attention-grabbing graphic that conveys your message at a glance.

Radio Interview Tours … $3,000
We book 5 radio interviews around a given topic on leading news or talk stations within the top 300
markets. This includes national and syndicated radio outlets, as well as relevant local shows. If we
don’t book the hits, you don’t pay for them. (Specialty Tours -- i.e., national-only, restricted-times, narrow
geographic focus -- are billed at $5,000/tour.)

Public Service Announcements … $3,000
We write, record and produce all radio content in-house – and we track which stations download
(We can also produce and distribute Audio & Video News Releases.)

Letter to the Editor Campaign …$2,500/month
On a daily basis, we track newspaper coverage of your key issues. Whenever there’s an excellent
letter opportunity, we proactively alert you – and then craft a letter for you to submit. We provide you
with at least 4 letters per month. (Individual letters can be purchased for $1,000 per letter.)

Social Media Retainer …$3,000/month
We’ll run your Twitter and Facebook pages, turning your organization into a social media leader by
generating daily eye-catching content while engaging fans, allies, and key influencers.

Blog Content Retainer …$4,000/month
We’ll maintain a fresh, interesting blog for your organization, expanding your online presence while optimizing your search engine placement results. We’ll write four posts (300-400 words each) per month. We’ll even post the content and monitor the comments for you. (Additional blog posts can be purchased for $1,250 per post.)

Web Development Package … $7,500
All websites include design, setup, content management, contact form, social media links, Google
Analytics, Feedburner, and a gallery. (Individual web development and design services can also be
purchased separately.)

Graphic Design… $150/hour
We’ll brand your company as a polished, professional organization. From business cards and logos to
annual reports, we can handle all of your design needs. Package pricing is also available.

Other Writing… $4.00/word
We specialize in writing blog posts, speeches, web content, brochures, annual reports, books, and
virtually anything else that requires high-quality research and wordsmithing.

Now while most of those are within the expected realms of what a PR firm would be doing, the writing and placement of Op Eds and the Letter to the Editor campaign offerings are a distinct form of Astroturfing (Nancy Pelosi TM) that show for those on this board who have been skeptical in the past about criticisms towards political and social messages being crafted by think tanks or PR firms that this is indeed occurring and is a definite call to question and be skeptical of what you read in the paper or online.

Here’s a PDF with the services and also a few examples of Op Eds the company is claiming responsibility for: http://davidswanson.org/sites/davids.../files/kbc.pdf

Furthermore they have a case study of their own work to highlight, located here: http://www.keybridgecommunications.c...anding-ceo.pdf
To quote:

BRANDING CEO AS INDUSTRY THOUGHT LEADER

For 5 years, Keybridge promoted the CEO of a leading financial services firm as an industry thought leader. We focused entirely on op-ed pages. By the time the CEO left his company, we had secured op-ed hits in virtually every major city in the country on issues ranging from mortgage reform to public school education. On average each year, we generated 360 hits through 24 op-eds.

And another, showing a concerted media campaign on behalf of a Fortune 500 company: http://www.keybridgecommunications.c...fortune500.pdf

And one showing a campaign for a trade organization fighting legislation: http://keybridgecommunications.com/w...ssociation.pdf

TRADE ASSOCIATION BEATS BACK LEGISLATIVE ATTACKS

Keybridge Communications conducted an opinion media campaign for a large trade association whose members were facing a sustained legislative attack on Capitol Hill. In just 12 months, Keybridge generated 692 unique media hits through 64 op-eds. Top placements included the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Houston Chronicle, and many other major-market newspapers and leading online outlets.

Obviously this is just one example of this, I’d certainly have to do some more digging to read through other PR firms websites for examples of this kind but I do want to highlight the idea that those trusted voices we read about in the paper or online aren’t automatically to be assumed to be trustworthy, and that the venerated and vaunted Op Ed should definitely be looked at more skeptically and much more dismissively by those whose natural inclination is to take them at face value, depending on where they’ve been published.

[TrumpIsPresident]

Having dominance over the flow of information is big business for sure, as is manipulating it.

One of the services not plainly stated in that list, but one all the serious organizations offer, is what you call counter-media.

I'm sure most of us have heard of a certain candidates $8 million dollar investment in a firm that employed scores of people with a mandate to troll through popular social media sites like Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, etc, where they would downvote, report, derail, or otherwise disrupt any content that was critical of that particular candidate.

Even more interesting in that case was a story of illegal coordination and corruption surrounding PACs and FEC loopholes used to pull it off.

But yea, information is a resource and just as you'd find a consulting/management company for every form of physical resource you're going to find them for the intangible ones as well.

[Celista]

Yes, high profile individuals tend to have an entire PR team behind everything they do or say. Hiring someone to write an op-ed for you could be a part of that PR image campaign, or it could be about a topic of social importance/personal relevance to the individual in question, who simply wanted someone to write what he or she wanted to say without making that individual sound unintelligent. Some high profile individuals are seriously lacking in that department...

Really everything that a high profile individual says/does should be viewed with a healthy degree of skepticism, or at the very least an acknowledgement that an individual's words/actions are motivated by maintaining their image/brand.

[hydrium]

I pretty much ignore any editorial, I want my information opinion free...just give me the facts with no bias and I'll decide for myself. I don't care what your opinion on the matter is.

We already get enough biased opinions in our supposed neutral news as it is.

[Celista]

I pretty much ignore any editorial, I want my information opinion free...just give me the facts with no bias and I'll decide for myself. I don't care what your opinion on the matter is.

We already get enough biased opinions in our supposed neutral news as it is.

Yeah, good journalism used to be about reporting the facts and avoiding reporter bias. Not sure where/when we started substituting opinion pieces as journalism.

[Espe]

Yeah, good journalism used to be about reporting the facts and avoiding reporter bias.

That was the official line anyway, not sure it was ever true though.

[Damajin]

That was the official line anyway, not sure it was ever true though.

It was more of a thing in the days before the Industrial Revolution, before the coming of the 'Robber Barons' who were able to buy up newspapers or secure deals with the ones not for sale like the Hearst publications for favorable coverage or outright fluff jobs for the products and issues they wanted to push/secure. As for the rest of the world, since most printed material was created by the Church or the Crown it's very debatable if that was ever true.