Bet you didn't know this: American public relations firms make bank serving as mouthpieces for foreign governments of all sorts, including the ones who are not particularly friendly toward America.
Like Russia. CBS News reports that the Vladimir Putin op-ed that has everyone so up in arms was placed in the New York Times with the help of New York-based Ketchum Public Relations, which has offices all over the world and has been representing the Russian Federation since 2006:
A Ketchum official told CBS News that Putin, along with some in his inner circle, wrote the op-ed. But Ketchum offices in Moscow, London, and Washington all worked to get it published.
It's all part of the media and public relations work Ketchum has been doing for the Russian Federation since 2006.
According to Justice Department filings, Ketchum was paid $1.9 million by the Russian government during the first six months of this year. It got another $3.7 million for public relations work for Gazprom, the oil and gas company controlled by the Kremlin.
Peter Mirijanian, a communications consultant, told CBS News, "I look at these huge contracts that a lot of these firms have with foreign governments and scratch your heads and go -- what exactly are they doing?"
The firm said it publicized Putin's speeches and promoted the Winter Olympics in Sochi. It also operates the website ThinkRussia.com, and its related Twitter and YouTube accounts.
I've mentioned this a few times before, but I owned a public relations firm for seven years, so I'm pretty familiar with the process these firms go through in securing and servicing clients. It really doesn't shock me that an American firm represents the Russians. When there's money to be made, someone in the industry will grab the contract. What does astound me a bit is the amount of money the Russians are spending on Ketchum.
Just stick with the $1.9 million over the first six months of 2013. Typically PR firms bill by the hour, although sometimes they will work on monthly retainers that are based roughly on the hourly rates of the people working on the account.
The most senior people in a major PR firm might bill $450 an hour, but they're not the ones billing the bulk of the hours on an account. The day-to-day stuff is done by mid-range folks who might bill $250, and junior people who might bill $150. (I'm allowing somewhat for inflation. When I first got into the business in 1995 with a major firm in Detroit, lower-level people billed $90 an hour.)
Let's say for the sake of argument that Ketchum's average hour on the Russian Federation account is billed at $250 per hour. If this story is accurate, Ketchum is billing more than $310,000 per month. For what? If it's straight hourly billing, they would have to be billing 1,240 per month on the account. That would take 31 people working on nothing but that one account, 40 hours a week. It's possible that some of the money goes to media buys or web-hosting expenses, but that's still an awful lot of money.
The other thing that surprises me is that a PR firm's intervention is necessary for the president of Russia to place an op-ed in the New York Times. I would think the editors of any American newspaper would take a call from the office of a major world leader, and that's 90 percent of why people hire PR firms in the first place - because of their access to media decision-makers. If the op-ed editors at the Times are more responsive to PR firms than to world leaders, well, I didn't think it was possible for me to respect the Times any less - but I'm not so sure now.
At any rate, I just thought you'd like to know. Much of the propaganda you hear on behalf of foreign governments is presented to you with the assistance of American PR firms who are paid big bucks to make sure you hear it.
