Moreover, the continuing flap over the phony photos emanating from two major ski resorts has led a wire service, United Press International, to openly threaten to refuse all photos and information from all Colorado ski areas.
Implications were plain enough. Even though just two of the state’s 30 areas were involved, the irate wire service people clearly painted the rest with the same brush. And the the indication was plain that they didn’t particularly trust the industry across the remainder of the country very much either. Guilt by association, however tenuous, seemed alive and well.
The inference was that in its zeal to promote its product, the ski industry has lost sight of certain practical and ethical concerns of authenticity. The background of this tempest which overflowed the teapot is this:
Last November, to illustrate the best early snowfall in many years, Vail Publicity Director Morgan Brooks moved two photos on the special electronic transmitter installed in the Vail marketing department by UPI. One showed children throwing snowballs; the other a pumpkin wearing a dense mantle of snow.
Aware of the interest in Colorado skiing following a drought year, UPI selected both for transmission on its national photo wire and one or the other were in turn used by numerous newspapers throughout the country. Only after the photos had been circulated about the country was it learned that they had been taken two years earlier.
UPI’s reaction was one of anger and indignation. Only a brief time earlier, the wire service had been badly burned by a stringer who staged a dramatic, but phony, purse-snatching picture which also received widespread national play before the hoax was discovered. Valued subscribers were beginning to question the veracity of UPI’s service and the shock waves were passed down through the ranks.
Vail reacted to UPI’s outrage by firing Brooks, who prior to this incident had earned a solid reputation among his media contacts. UPI also pulled transmitters from all Colorado ski area locations, a damaging blow to publicity-generating capacity of the larger resorts.
After all the attendant flap, it was generally assumed that this was a difficult lesson for the Colorado industry, but one well learned. This assumption was proved wrong in late January during the pro-am event at a World Pro Skiing race at Winter Park.
A surprise participant was a self-styled Lebanese “oil sheik” who labored through the course bedecked in native garb—flowing robe, burnoose and the works. The Winter Park marketing department distributed photos of the sheik to both UPI and the Associated Press, both of whom made follow-up inquiries and were assured the sheik was exactly as represented.
Both wire services made the pictures available to subscribers and, again, it received wide usage, along with an accompanying blurb in “People” magazine. Only after residents in Duluth, Minn., began to suspect that the sheik depicted in their hometown newspaper bore a striking resemblance to one George Haddad, a local shoe store owner who had just returned from a Colorado ski vacation, did the hoax begin to come apart at the seams.
Amid another angry wire service barrage, Winter Park Marketing Director Doug Shelton and Promotional Consultant Jim Hoeschler, who together had contrived the affair, were dismissed. (Shelton, however, was later rehired.)
More important, the rift between the wire services, the media and the Colorado industry reached alarming proportions. In an effort to begin healing the wound, Colorado Ski Country USA, the industry’s public relations arm, initiated a special March conference in Denver designed as an educational discussion among media and marketing representatives.
Among the participants was an outraged Bill Lyon, vice-president of newspictures for UPI, who said that such pictoral frauds “strike at the very heart and soul of the news business, which is its credibility with the public.
Lyon punctuated his remarks by saying, “You may be aware that UPI will survive without another piece of news or photos from Colorado Ski Country.” Industry spokesmen observed privately that they could survive without another mention by UPI, but definitely would rather not.
The question, then, for both the Colorado industry and the nation’s ski areas as a whole is what to do to guard against recurrences. A prevailing opinion, perhaps best expressed by Colorado Ski Country President Garry Mitchell, is that the industry remains on shakey ground until it upgrades the position of public relations director.
“As long as the PR person is low on the marketing totem pole in status and salary, we are liable to have the same problems,” he said. At too many ski areas there is little emphasis on attracting persons with prior media experience or, for that matter, much experience of any kind.
As someone observed, “They either succeed and leave, or fail and leave—either way the turnover always is high and the experience level low.” The result is an overall paucity of judgment in a position which is becoming increasingly important to a modern ski area operation. In many media encounters, the PR director is the ski area.
One of the revelations of the Denver conference was the difficulty of some PR personnel in distinguishing between news and publicity. Many marketing/PR people have a good sense for putting out promotional material, but little concept with how the media deals with hard news.
The Winter Park sheik is a case in point. Dressing George Haddad up like an Arab might have been a perfectly fine publicity stunt which probably would have gained considerable local media coverage—provided he wasn’t advertised as the real thing.
One problem come in differentiating sport news photos from long-range promotional ones. For example, a photo for immediate use should accurately show the most current conditions. One distributed in a promotional packet for deferred use need only be representative of what is typical for the area.
Another recurring ski area/media problem is in the realm of “breaking” or “hard” news. This usually comes under the heading of “bad” news—equipment failure, skier deaths or serious injuries. What most fail to realize is that such unpleasant occurrences are almost certain to happen sooner or later, no matter how conscientious the ski area. And they had best know how to handle the situation beforehand, to know what to say when the inevitable phone call comes or the reporter team or camera crew arrives.
Chances are, the media person with whom they will be dealing will not be the familiar ski writer, but a reporter from the city desk who doesn’t give a hoot for the ski area image. It is important to know what to say—and just as important to know what not to say. This knowledge comes from experience—the kind which goes with hiring public relations professionals. And being prepared.
