Buddy can you spare a Schilling?
It is proving one of the oddest periods in journalism that I can remember. The collective ‘conspiracy’ by hacks from every sector of the industry from cyberspace to the red top tabloids, finally facilitated by MP’s and Lords on the floors of their Houses, has been bizarre to behold. Front pages, blogsites, TV, Radio, Twitter and more have been in the heat of the battle to breach and perhaps finally smash Britain’s strange privacy construct.
And yet it is a campaign that came to rest on one famous footballer and which, so far as I can tell, left its audience of viewers, listeners, readers, followers and commenters more than somewhat bemused. To the wagers of the war, if war it was, there were vast principles of ‘freedom of speech’ in play (even if these principles are handily adjacent to the commercial interest in traffic-driving, edition-shifting stories of celebrities’ misdeeds.) To others, it seems, it appeared to come down to whether famous men slept with less than famous women and didn’t tell their wives. ‘Surprise, surprise’, many punters responded, ‘tell me something I didn’t know.’ So we tried. ‘Well, this or that guy – banker, public servant, sportsman, actor etc – got a court order that banned all mention even of the fact that they had a court order’. Not everyone was exercised – as if to say ‘rich people have always been able to buy whatever they wanted, so why not a bit of legal protection to cover up the behaviour that they might be ashamed of their own followers finding out – be they fans, or family.’
Yesterday saw the arrival on the Stock Exchange of the company that had basked in the accolade ‘the biggest company you have never heard of.’ Valued now at somewhere North of $36 Billion, Glencore plays and dominates the commodities market – trading in everything from rape seed oil to coal.
Glencore’s overnight billionaires suddenly realised, or were made to realise, that their vast wealth would render them subject to ‘public interest’.
What better than to turn to one of a number of corporate law firms whose lawyers describe themselves as reputation management experts. A few days ago, most major news organisations received a pointed letter from Schillings who say they help clients ‘manage what is published and broadcast about them.’ The letter stated that Glencores’ executives were ‘extremely private individuals’. There was a warning that reporting on these executives homes or private lives could pose a ‘security risk’. Schillings seemed to be talking about men like CEO Ivan Glasenburg, described by the FT as ‘one of the great enigmas of the corporate world’. They may also have had in mind Marc Rich who was charged with racketeering, tax evasion, and trading with the enemy (Iran) – until of course, he was controversially pardoned by Bill Clinton in the closing hours of his Presidency. Glencore used to be named Marc Rich& Co.
Today these deeply private men must be hoping they fare rather better than the most publicly exposed privacy seeker in the world, another Schillings client, one Ryan Giggs.