Time.com offered a viewpoint from gay publicist Howard Bragman (sorry, “one of America's leading crisis communications counselors”) accusing “The Boy Scouts Stoop to a New Low.” The new low? Announcing that they might be surrendering on gay Boy Scouts during the media’s heavy focus on the Boston Marathon bombing.
What if liberals inside the organization want to "soften the blow" to tradition-minded Scouts and Scout parents? The Left can’t even let the Boy Scouts surrender quietly – if that’s what’s going to happen:.
In p.r. parlance, this is called "burying the news." It works like this: when an organization doesn't want an announcement to get attention then they release the information on a busy news day, or a Friday, or in this case, both. The thinking is that more pressing news will overshadow the story; that the shift between weekday and weekend staffs at news organizations will help it "get lost in the shuffle"; and that by the time Monday rolls around, more current events will have overshadowed the announcement, essentially making it "old news."
As a veteran media-relations counselor, I have executed this strategy myself. And depending on what is being announced, it can work. But in this case, it not only has no chance for success, it’s almost guaranteed to anger both the media and the interested parties and cast the Boy Scouts in a more negative lights. The end result is that not only is the issue not buried, it gets even more attention.
It’s not surprising that the Boy Scouts used such a misguided tactic. They have handled the public aspects of this issue badly ever since it first became a topic of discussion in the early 1980s. As recently as January, they announced that they would be voting on a resolution at a national executive meeting, only to contradict themselves by later announcing that the issue “needed more study.”
Bragman’s not talking PR here. It’s apparently bad PR whenever they refuse to get with the LGBT agenda. That’s politics, not publicity. The politics continued:
Not only that, but the compromise that will be voted on in May is sure to appease no one: it allows gay scouts but not gay or lesbian leaders. This calls to attention the sexual orientation of what is essentially a membership of underage boys while at the same time reinforcing the scientifically incorrect and blatantly homophobic stereotype of adult gays and lesbian as pedophiliac predators.
I understand why the Scouts would prefer that this issue simply go away, but that’s not going to happen. The fight for gay and lesbian rights is arguably the civil rights battle of our time. Moreover, the Boy Scouts is running a grave risk of permanently damaging its reputation not only with p.r. blunders but also by being “on the wrong side of history.”
Ah, the "wrong side of history." Any liberal piece isn't complete without that piece of claptrap. What about being on the wrong side of God? Or the wrong side of the Scout law to be "reverent" toward God? Who cares? Bragman insists "Diversity will not weaken the scouting mission, as has been shown in business, politics and even the military. The Scouts will end up stronger, more impassioned and more unified as a result of tolerance and inclusion."
The Left always wants every organization in America to be "more unified" in lockstep with them. They'll insist that only conservatives and religious folks are the "dividers." That's how they play hardball.
This came alongside other Time.com agenda-pounders, like "Transgender Rights: Coming to a School Near You?"
