By: Ekrem Dupanović, [email protected]
In five and a half years since I’ve been daily editing the portal I don’t remember that I ever came into a situation to controvert with some on a personal level. Now it’s happening to me in communication with Nataša Trslić Stambak, CEO of the PR agency Grayling for South East Europe. I recall that in yesterday’s Diary I included the mail I received from Ms. Trslić Stambak, in response to my writings in the Diary of the previous day on PR, where I also mentioned Grayling as a bad example. Yesterday I also wrote that Ms. Trslić Stambak asked me not to publish her email within my apology, but I released it for my own hygiene. I think that’s just good manners – if you make a mistake, as I thought I made, you publish everything in favor of the other side, pour the ashes on yourself, and apologize. So I’ve apologized. Citizens of Sarajevo also gave the former French President Francois Mitterrand the title of honorary citizen, until they realized that they were deceived. Then they asked him to return all the ceremonial papers he had brought from Sarajevo. Same way I withdraw my apology, because Mrs. Trslić Stambak was not telling the truth. She lied to me. And when she lied to me, she lied to you. She can do it to me, but I will not allow that she does it to you.
When this morning she read my diary, she realized she made a mistake by sending me an email the day before and went nuts because I didn’t listen to her request not to publish the letter, because only she knew then that the truth would come out. She called us yellow press, and to my question why they sent us the news of the prize in Berlin with a three days delay, her response was utterly arrogant, absolutely inappropriate for a PR professional in communicating with the media. Speaking of returning something, the jury members who gave Grayling the award could now comfortably say that they f….d up, and ask for the award to be returned.
Actually, here is the complete message that Ms. TS sent me this morning:
“Dear Ekrem,
Here, once again, you have shown how much you care about ‘friendly’ communication. If I said I don’t want you to publish my email, I don’t know why you still wished to post it and what do you gain by that. If for you, as a professional publication, the motive was the same as for some allegedly yellow newspapers and portals, then I have no comments.
And the answer to your question: well can’t we as an agency decide for ourselves when we want to publish some news that concerns us? Allow us this freedom.
Best regards,
Nataša”
What I published yesterday could in no way cause such a reaction. I realized that there is something else there beneath that had upset Ms. TS like this. For some reason she was afraid. I started digging a bit and stumbled upon a document that speaks of how the Croatian National Tourist Board shared the roles in the implementation of the project OOO Award when it approved its implementation. The document shows that Grayling did not have such a dominant and independent role in the realization of this campaign as Ms. TS would like us to believe. The passage below proves that Grayling was, in fact, a subcontractor:
“CNTB is in charge of the project OOO Award. BBDO is responsible for creative direction and design. Grayling is in charge of programming, execution and monitoring of the contest. Client has to approve every step of the project. For any changes from Grayling, Grayling has to contact BBDO and CNTB for approval. If Grayling wants to apply this project to contest, it should ask for BBDO and CNTB approval.”
When I sent her this, Ms. TS, as a top-notch PR professional, responded:
“Now I know who ordered the text. So much for media freedoms!”
Well, Ms. TS, we won’t play like that. For these five and a half years no one could order a text on the portal, especially not a text that is directed against someone, as you now want to implicate me. No one ever! The truth is that almost on a weekly basis there are such attempts, but all these texts immediately fly to the bin. All this discussion – let me remind you – started from the fact that which a Slovenian portal had published, and the fact that we received the news from your agency only on the third day after the award in Berlin. As it was on Friday, it meant that the news would come out only on Monday, and that is five days after the award ceremony. I politely thanked your co-worker and said that for us, as a living portal, this was old news. I got a notice that we didn’t get it on Thursday because it was a holiday in Croatia. This does not exist in PR.
It’s a shame. I lost two days debating with you. I ignored some super nice and positive things that happened in these two days.
No more.
Sarajevo, 1 June 2016.
