Interesting roundup this weekend by NPR’s ‘On the Media‘ on how world leaders have repeatedly tried to use the annual opening of the United Nationals General Assembly as a media platform to air their often demagogic views.
Demagogues in New York keys off the appearance last week by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to examine the phenomenon generally. The PR role of the UN’s highest-profile annual forum for world leaders has stirred debate in the past and this year is no exception.
Ahmadinejad’s weeklong tour of New York started off with an appearance on CBS 60 minutes, then moved on to an appearance at Columbia University that netted an extraordinary amount of news coverage and comment in print, broadcast and online media.
Some thought the Iranian president’s PR gambit was a net negative, especially given the round criticism and even derision over his responses to questions about his views on the Holocaust and homosexuality in Iran, or rather, his belief in the lack thereof. Still, the Iranian leader himself apparently felt it created real value for its having allowed him to air his views and engage in debate before a public to which he had had little direct access previously.
Out of touch with reality? Maybe, but one authority on terrorism felt the Iranian president’s New York road show and especially the Columbia University appearance gave him ‘PR power‘ he otherwise could not have garnered through other arenas and other public relations vehicles.
His appearances in New York may not have played well in Peoria, but they certainly provided him a springboard to take his PR show on the road to more favorable audiences. First top after the Big Apple? It was on to Venezuela on Thursday, where Ahmadinejad was warmly embraced by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who clearly won the prize as the annual UN General Assembly Demogogue-turned-PR Star in 2006.
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