Former UC Davis Chancellor Katehi Way More Obsessed With Her Online Reputation Than Initially Thought

from the get-me-off-the-google dept

Earlier this year, we discussed how UC Davis detailed in a report that it spent $175k with a reputation management firm to try bury the 2011 pepper-spraying incident that has become so infamous, as well as to bolster the positive reputation and search results of its former Chancellor, Linda Katehi. While Katehi was still Chancellor, she had issued something of a mea culpa that was unfortunately riddled with excuse-making and vendor-blaming, but in which she also appeared to take responsibility for the report's contents. Students protested anyway, as they should have, given how the report detailed that Katehi was far more interested in her own reputation online than she was in any kind of reform of campus police. Which, if you'll remember, was what kicked off all of the negative reporting starting in 2011 to begin with.

But now a new report has been issued that makes it clear that the $175k with the one reputation management vendor was just the tip of the iceberg, and that Katehi's obsession with her own online reputation was far more serious than anyone had known. Indeed, her attempts to meddle in her own online search results started long before the 2011 pepper-spraying incident.

When she was appointed chancellor, news accounts questioned her tenure at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was provost and allegations emerged that children of politically influential backers were given preference in admissions. Katehi denied knowing anything about those admissions. The report found that she was so concerned she would be tainted by the scandal that she called an aide at UC Davis, whose name was redacted from documents, and asked him to take quick action.

“Though Chancellor Katehi was on vacation, she contacted and asked him to edit her Wikipedia page concerning her knowledge of the Illinois admissions scandal,” the report found. “(The aide) advised the Chancellor that they should not edit her online biography because Wikipedia would attribute any edits to UC Davis. Staff made the revisions under protest.”

In 2011, after a campus officer strolled past a line of seated protesting students and calmly unloaded a pepper spray can directly at them, the ensuing backlash was met by Katehi primarly with an expanded effort to control what the wider internet thought of her. While the initial reporting indicated a single vendor had been paid $175k on Katehi's request to try to control messaging about the school and herself through a barrage of good, but trumped up, press, UC Davis actually hired three different reputation management firms to do this, all to the tune of over $400k. And she appears to have been more concerned with her own reputation than that of the school she was to be stewarding.

Katehi and her staff sought out firms on the East Coast and in Sacramento, meeting with them and discussing how to create a LindaKatehi.com webpage, edit Wikipedia posts and submit op-eds under her name to publications that might crowd out negative press from others. The report noted that improving Katehi’s reputation also would improve that of the university’s. But documents show that she constantly sought help in what one aide recalled as her desire that they “get me off the Google.”

“Linda wants to understand generally how we plan to address the lingering negative pepper spray-related online search content associated with her name,” reads a September 2012 email from Barry Shiller, who was brought in after the pepper-spray incident to handle her communications strategy.

All three firms eventually hired by UC Davis at Katehi's request promised to bury the 2011 incident through editing in positive content to the Wikipedia pages of Katehi and the school, by creating a brand new website bearing Katehi's name and filled with positive coverage, and to create "listening reports" to detail any news coverage that mentioned her or the school so that coverage could be further addressed by the outside reputation consultant. Included in all of this was an investigation into those who were creating negative edits on these pages. What Katehi intended to do with that information is unclear, but it hardly seems like the information could be used for anything but retribution.

It goes without saying that as we, the link above, and several other online media outlets are discussing these revelations, and placing them alongside the original 2011 incident for context, the work of the three vendors and the nearly half a million dollars paid to them has failed. Reputation management of this sort rarely works. And when it blows up, as it usually does, the cover-up is always viewed as even more horrendous than the original crime, which is now thrust back into public discussion.

And this was really easier than making an honest apology and trying to reform campus police abuse?

Filed Under: linda katehi, pepper spray, reputation management
Companies: uc davis, wikipedia

UC Davis 'Apologizes' For The Reputation Management Industry's Hyperbole And Your Misunderstanding

from the mmmm-no dept

A week or so back, we had some fun discussing the 2011 incident in which campus police for UC Davis calmly pepper-sprayed the shit out of some seated students, because young people are scary. We did this specifically because news had just come out that the school had paid nearly $200k to a reputation/SEO management company to try to obscure this bit of history from these here internets. Because the Streisand Effect is a cold-hearted mistress, instead of burying the incident, the internet began discussing it yet again, all while having some fun pointing out that UC Davis' efforts were equal parts misguided and cynical.

As the backlash grew, it was only a matter of time before embattled UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi publicly apologized for the whole thing. She has now done so. Let's take a look at how she did.

“The university’s identity has been shaken by a series of highly publicized missteps,” Katehi said in a statement released late Monday amid calls for her resignation. “Some were my own doing. All occurred under my watch. For that, I sincerely apologize.”

This, as any good PR professional will tell you, is a good start. As a leader at the school, Katehi takes full responsibility for these transgressions, even for things that may have only occurred under her watch, but also including some that she personally enacted herself. Then she apologizes directly for them. Nicely done. The only way you could possibly screw this apology up now would be to-

But because of the importance of philanthropy to UC Davis and the need to make sure those searching for information about the university get a complete picture, we needed to do a better job telling the world about the university’s extraordinary achievements. So we did what any organization in a similar situation would do ― we sought to strengthen our communications capabilities. We invested in key staff. We added $800,000 to our Strategic Communications budget to cover increased costs for health care and retirement benefits. Another $800,000 was allocated for new and existing employees to work on social media, web development, videography and news. Finally, we also increased the Strategic Communications budget — still comparatively modest for a university of our size and reach — with a one-time, $1 million allocation for a statewide advertising campaign highlighting our contributions to California agriculture.

-fall into the PR quagmire in which you respond to a controversy by trying to divert attention from it to all of the good things you do. I like to call this the "trains run on time" tactic, the fictional retort of those supporting Mussolini's fascist government. Sure Mussolini was a dictator who locked up or murdered dissidents, expunged freedom from his country, and allied himself with Adolph Hitler. But his trains ran on time! Or, sure we tried to cover up the pepper-spraying of non-violent students through a sneaky attempt at SEO manipulation and gaming search engine results. But look at what we did for California agriculture! This tactic rarely works, because the positives are not related to the negatives, making the whole thing an attempt at excuse-making and evasion.

But I'm sure her statement will get better from here-

In hindsight, we should have been more careful in reviewing some of the more unrealistic and ridiculous scope-of-work claims in the written proposals of our outside vendors. What might be accepted industry hyperbole in the private public relations world falls far beneath the high standards of a public institution of higher learning.

Damn, we had it wrong this entire time. UC Davis didn't screw up! The reputation management industry did, with it's hyperbolic claims that the school bought into and paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars for. So, in other words, that apology at the top is really sort of unnecessary, because it's these companies' fault, not UC Davis'. The taking of responsibility has been obliterated by later doing the opposite and shifting blame onto the vendor. Not good.

But it's not like she lied or anyth-

But I assure you: none of our communications efforts were intended — or attempted — to erase online content or rewrite history. At UC Davis, we live with the lessons of 2011 every day. We are a better university because of it. And we succeeded in providing the public with a fuller understanding of everything UC Davis has to offer.

Oh, for Christ's sake, that's exactly what the school was attempting to do. Not by deleting content, but by burying it beneath links to all that agricultural goodness and whatnot. Hell, the vendor's own proposal, which UC Davis signed up for, states that its work will include:

"-online branding campaign designed to clean up the negative attention the University of California, David and Chancellor Katehi have received-"

And:

"-to expedite the eradication of references to the pepper spray incident in search results-"

Eradication and erase are close enough that I'm comfortable in calling the Madam Chancellor a complete liar. And that this statement wasn't so much an apology as it was a dedicated effort at digging the hole UC Davis currently finds itself in even deeper. Stop digging, Chancellor. For the love of the universe, just stop.

Filed Under: linda katehi, pepper spray, reputation management, streisand effect
Companies: uc davis