By Sandy Trigg, General Manager.

What is exactly is a PR scandal? I should probably know – right! But a headline popped into my inbox yesterday that made me fizz… ‘Netflix swiftly distances itself from Kevin Spacey amidst PR scandal’.

Yes, I think Kevin Spacey has probably taken some poor communications advice and someone should (and maybe did) urge extreme caution before he tweeted his response to an allegation made against him. But let’s call it exactly what it is – he finds himself accused, rightly or wrongly, of being a sexual predator. His scandal is not a ‘PR scandal’.

Public Relations is an industry – as communicators we cannot take responsibility for the mess Kevin Spacey finds himself in. Anyone of us could probably have helped him choose is words a little more wisely and provided some counsel, but that is the only role public relations can have within this sorry little play.

The actor in questions finds himself amidst a sexual misconduct scandal – public relations has nothing to do with this. It appears that the headline writer is wanting to make this anything but what it is.

What do you think?