All the Bad News at the End of the Year Turns Out To Be No Coincidence

The best time to break the worst news, public relations professionals say, is during the holidays, when many people are too busy with shopping, traveling, and celebrating to pay much attention to current events.So, planned or not, plenty of bad news is being unleashed as many Americans head toward a three-day Christmas weekend.• Eight U.S. marines were charged in connection with the of killing 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Haditha, Iraq, last year, in the largest case involving civilian deaths since the beginning of the war in Iraq.• Fidelity Investments, the country’s largest mutual fund company, announced yesterday that it will pay more than $42 million to its funds after its traders directed business to brokers who courted them with fancy gifts.• A leading investment bank, Deutsche Bank, yesterday said it would pay $208 million to end state and federal probes into market timing in its mutual fund accounts.• The embattled state comptroller, Alan Hevesi, is expected to announce his resignation today.Said the chairman of Rubenstein Public Relations, Howard Rubenstein: “It’s a deeply ingrained strategy with people in public relations. The purveyors of bad news — public relations people and politicians — are very apt to go out with it the night before Christmas, when all through the house, no one was there.”Mr. Rubenstein said people are not only likely to miss news that breaks during the holidays, but that they actively ignore bad news in order to maintain a sense of holiday cheer.“The influencers, the people who carry the money bags around, are on vacation. And as the story appears on Christmas, people’s spirits are good, and bad news sometimes skates right by,” Mr. Rubenstein said.Said George Arzt, the president of George Arzt Communications, Inc., “It’s not a trick. It’s a strategy. If Alan Hevesi resigns on Friday, it’s going to get into the Christmas papers when everyone is looking to do their last minute shopping.”“Politicians who don’t pay their taxes have always released it during the holidays,” Mr. Arzt said.The managing director and chief of staff at Dan Klores Communications, Matthew Traub, said that weekends “can act like quicksand, swallowing up a bad story and leaving no trace of it by Monday morning.”“The holidays can do the same thing, but on an increased scale,” Mr. Traub said.The communications specialists cautioned, however, that the well-worn strategy can backfire.“If you have really bad news, people will always take note of it,” Mr. Traub said. “People think the bad news will dissipate, but then there is not as much other news, so bad news dominates so heavily and there’s nothing to balance it out.” Trading on Wall Street is usually light during the holidays, creating little financial news, according to Mr. Traub.“If it’s something horrendous, everyone has wised up to it and they’ll pull the fig leaf off and they’re exposed,” Mr. Rubenstein said. “An investigative reporter will write about it and say it was subterfuge of a different kind.”

All the Bad News at the End of the Year Turns Out To Be No Coincidence

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