How to escalate a non-story and make a PR disaster for yourself: A blogger named Moni learns that her friend didn’t get her contract at the German chapter of Transparency International renewed. Moni doesn’t like that and writes a (very civilized) blog post criticizing Transparency for not living up to its own high standards. A couple of months go by, then Moni receives a strict e-mail from Transparency’s lawyers saying that if she doesn’t remove the post, they will take legal measures. Moni blogs about this (and removes the post – but it’s there in the cache), and of course this is what happens:
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Bloggers in Germany and internationally pick up the story and it spins out of Transparency’s control. Moni storms up the blog charts. German media get interested – interview with Moni in Netzeitung.
Now the story seems to be over: Moni’s blogging lawyer just issued a statement saying Transparency won’t pursue the issue further. And Moni confirms. Transparency, meanwhile, wonders what hit them: “Whatever we do, it’s wrong… Maybe we shouldn’t have reacted at all”, says spokesman Bäumel.
Freedom of speech is the issue – the german Untertan does not exist. Thats the lesson for TI-D.