I wouldn’t want to suggest that the Diary has any kind of Hello!
effect, but let the following sorry tale serve as a warning.
Two weeks ago PR Week brought you the tale of ex-Sun journalist Paul
Hooper who, just after joining Kent County Council as media and public
affairs manager, revealed how he had faced a barrage of media interest in
the Slovakian refugees arriving at Dover.
Except he didn’t. Face a barrage that is. PR Week’s story opened a can of
worms down at the council’s Maidstone HQ, with fellow PROs outraged at
Hooper taking the credit for a job which, it emerges, he was minimally
involved in.
Hooper is now absent from his post at the council. Head of corporate
communications Gerry Moore would make no comment on the situation, except
to say that Hooper is now ’on leave’.
