The importance of having good PR people in place for organisations in the public eye cannot be over-emphasised.
It’s when they refuse to speak to journalists that matters become ever more embarrassing for organisations such as BBC Scotland.
And West Dunbartonshire Council, of course.
Following speculation last week on the future of Kaye Adams, pictured left, who’s been presenting the mid-morning slot on BBC Radio Scotland since 2010, it’s been announced she has been taken off air as an investigation into her conduct takes place.
Adams faces accusations of bullying and, according to the Mail on Sunday, having allegedly “shouted and screamed” at junior colleagues.
The Bell, an on-line news and features platform much like The Democrat, has revealed that despite some of the allegations against Adams are around a year-old.
But the events at Pacific Quay have unfolded rather abruptly.
Adams was pulled from her show midweek, disparagingly known amongst critics as “The Morning Rant” with Connie McLaughlin, better known as a football reporter, stepping in to present it at the last minute.
Personally, I would have preferred it if Tam Cowan was given the job.
The BBC is still to confirm what exactly is being investigated and the “bad news” relating to Adams refuses to go away.
Yesterday the BBC confirmed Adams has been taken off air following an “internal complaint about her behaviour”, but the corporation refused to comment on the nature of the allegations.
Which was a bad move. It allows the bad publicity to rumble on. It gives it “legs”.
The Bell says the Beeb have confirmed one thing: Adams has “not permanently left the BBC”.
Meanwhile, the team producing the Adams’ show have yet to be given any official explanation for her absence.
They found out about it not via management, but by the usual “insider” sources and in the pages of the tabloids this weekend. In fact, we told you about it last week.
Pacific Quay leaks its sewage straight into the River Clyde.
At BBC Scotland a secret is something you tell one person at a time.
What the moles have told the journalists they have spoken to is mostly mince.
It is that the complaints against Adams are believed to have been raised via the BBC’s Call It Out scheme to address bad behaviour in the workplace.
It’s nonsense for example to report that the initiative was set up in the aftermath of the scandal over former MasterChef presenters Gregg Wallace and John Torode.
In fact, it was announced in the wake of a different high profile presenter scandal, that of Huw Edwards, but this hasn’t stopped people linking Adams and Wallace’s cases.
However, reports The Bell, the two cases are of an entirely different nature and magnitude.
Whatever the bullying accusations against Adams, “we can safely say that comparing the cases of Adams and Wallace is misleading, to say the very least”.
It goes to show that the best way for spin doctors to handle situations such as the Adams case is to comment and come clean immediately.
That usually results in the story being a one day wonder and the bad publicity disappearing from the public prints.
Someone should pass this on to West Dunbartonshire Council. The fact that their ban on The Democrat is based on lies and misinformation has resulted in them receiving bad publicity for years now.
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Is there a planning department at all at West Dunbartonshire Council?
I ask this having noticed that a large advertisement for the Chinese restaurant next door to the Council headquarters in Church Street, Dumbarton, has been fixed to the wall there.
The advertisement – unlike the delicious food in the Chinese restaurant – is tasteless.
The garish colours of this advert are bright red and yellow and the advert itself is about 8×5 feet or maybe 6×4. It doesn’t go with the grey sandstone buildings around it.
It heralds the restaurant being a few yards ahead. And it probably fits well into place with the unpleasant environment that has been created there – again thanks to the Council planners.
My question is whether the Chinese owners of The Jasmine got permission to put this advert up. And why?
I’ve seen quite a few advertisements that would never have been permitted to appear locally in recent times.
The Council used to have a person, Donald Leith, a former police inspector, go around the streets making sure that the planning rules and regulations were being adhered to in this area.
But then that’s when the council for Dumbarton had some respect for the 850 years old town and the people who live here.
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Talk of the town. That’s the Council circular about what is happening to the Council bin collection service.
It’s high time there were changes given the number of complaints about it that appear in the useless Council complaints column which only serves to advertise what a dump the area has become.
We would have thought that if changes were being made then they would be for the better.
But not in West Dunbartonshire.
The people I have spoken are not impressed by the expensive circular sent out to householders to explain where and when and how their bins will be collected in the future.
“Gobbledeygook” is just one of the words being used on the streets.
“You would need a university doctorate to be able to understand what it’s supposed to be telling us.”
The intelligesia, employed in Church Street on large salaries just to answer the phones, will have read this and passed it as appropriate for public consumption.
They will not like this but they will have to take the blame not just for the fact that some people can not just understand it – but can’t even read it.
Why is this? Because the Council are responsible for educating people in this deeply deprived area and when you see the performance at meetings of the convener of education, Cllr Clare Steel, then that’s perfectly understandable.