PR Rule #1: It's About the Message, Not About the Methods

Generally speaking, it's a bad sign when your PR strategy becomes the story, rather than the messages you are trying to send.

And so it was today, when the New York Times ran five nearly identical pictures on its front page of Obama giving health care reform interviews on five Sunday talk shows, accompanying a story about the PR strategy. This follows other recent stories about Obama's PR offensive, which once again obscures any messages he is trying to get across.

The New York Times cleverly pointed out [and showed in pictures] that Obama didn't even move from his seat for the interviews, which were obviously done back-to-back in a fancy White House room. The same backdrop, down the potted plant, appears in all the pictures. Can't you guys even get that right?

This isn't like those Hollywood star interviews, where the out-of-town reporters all get five minutes with the star hyping a new movie. In those cases, the poster for the movie is always the background -- get it? In this case, maybe you could have held the interviews in the White House health clinic at least. Sheesh.

I continue to be amazed at how poorly the Obama communications team has handled the health care reform issue. They let the opposition build up steam and credibility, while doing a poor job building their own momentum and credibility. Granted, the president has communications tools that far outstrip the opposition, so they can still rally from behind, but to me as a comms professional, the message I get is this: they're amateurs.