MP Chuka Umunna: caught editing Wikipedia page (Credit: Getty Images)
Thanks to Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith from PR Week for much of this content.
Labour MP Chuka Umunna is in the firing line after failing to deny that one of his team likened him to Barack Obama on Wikipedia, under the pseudonym ‘Socialdemocrat’.
In case you aren’t up to date on all things Wiki, Wikipedia forbids users from editing posts to promote their own or employers’ interests.
Umunna said: ‘I don’t have any recollection of that log-in or the changes. But I can’t say for certain that someone with my campaign did not set up that log-in.’
Our thoughts:
Lacking recollection sounds like a nice little get out of jail free card but it isn’t really.
This is akin to the good old “no comment” ploy that people seem to think immediately gets them off the hook. It doesn’t, it leaves a vacuum that needs to be filled and guess what, it will be filled by speculation and the “other side’s” point of view.
Cue much mirth from rival parties who will delight in this opportunity and add further fuel to the fire.
This will run for a while yet.
Here’s some more thoughts on what to do and not do in a PR crisis.