During the protests, it became a habit for many, including myself, to repeatedly direct our wrath and ire at the Gallaudet University Public Relations Department for consistently issuing press releases made up of gross distortions, half-truths, and outright lies.
Saying that you work for the Gallaudet PR Department these days must be worse than admitting that you’re the person responsible for denying SSI claims.
However, I asked myself: Just how complicit was the PR Department in regards to the messages being sent out on the administration’s behalf? Were they truly responsible for the messages?
I followed up on this line of thinking with several sources familiar with the situation. These sources have disclosed to the GU Private Investigator that such anger was incorrectly directed at the PR department as a whole and that, in fact, the staff of the PR Department was “cut out of the loop” during the protests, helpless to do anything other than publicly issuing statements and press releases as directed by the administration and its contracted consultants.
You read that right, folks…Gallaudet’s own PR department, which would presumably be far more understanding of Deaf Culture and thus more likely to use less inflammatory language than had been publicly issued, was cast aside by the administration in favor of outside consultants who wrote, shaped, and devised statements and press releases and ordered the PR department to publish these messages on behalf of the administration.
Of course, as any one familiar with the protests know, the press releases were outrageously offensive or in complete denial of what was happening on campus, which in turn further incensed the protestors and, more importantly, drew more support for the protestors. The immediate backlash resulted in severe criticism of the PR department from many quarters.
My sources lend credibility to my opinion that the Gallaudet PR department was nothing more than a patsy, a pawn, and a tool used by the administration and its contracted consultants.
I have every reason to believe these sources and I find them to be sincere and pained by what has happened at Gallaudet to their friends, family, and associates.
Because of this, I offer my apologies to the people of the Gallaudet University Public Relations office for any critical comments I have made that have been wrongfully directed to you as a whole.
Are you a Gallaudet insider and wish to provide information that you feel should be made public but aren’t comfortable going public? Have proof that your friends, family, and associates were wrongly portrayed in public or taken advantage of by the administration? Email me at guprivateinvestigator@gmail.com.
November 9, 2006 at 10:31 am
It seems both sides may be guilty of tyhe same thing. The students were used as pawns by the faculty to do the dirty work so they could perhaps save their positions. and so far its working.
November 9, 2006 at 11:38 am
this is not as much a bombshell as you might suppose, Rob. After some interviews with inside sources, I knew about this and came to the same conclusion as you just did, back in early October, but because i did not want to harm any innocent person’s postion in the PR department, I did not come forward with the information. Many of the Gallaudet PR dept. members were completely shut out by the administration, and were furious with the way the administration was handling the crisis. Many of them wanted Fernandes GONE. To protect them, in my blog, I referred to the ‘PR Spin Machine’ as being those high-priced mouthpieces hired by Jordan to come in and ‘manage’ the crisis for the administration. They are the ones that did this damage to the community, with Jordan’s approval. Coogan, too, was directly responsible for this.
November 9, 2006 at 11:43 am
Oh please. the students were not pawns. Give them some credit. Or are you of the opinion that since they are deaf, they must be ignorant pawns of an evil faculty?