Public Relations Pros Like Paterson's Approach

Erick German

Crisis management consultants call it "running toward the light."

Gov. David A. Paterson's announcement about his marital infidelity Tuesday was a strategic decision to seize control of a narrative that might otherwise hurt him, experts said, and so far it seems to be working.

"The core reason for coming forward is you are able to define what the story is," said Dan Keeny, a Dallas-based public relations consultant who for 15 years has specialized in minimizing the damage done by uncomfortable public disclosures. "You put the frame around the picture."

Paterson and his wife, Michelle Paige Paterson, acknowledged Tuesday having extramarital affairs during a rocky period in their 15-year marriage. "This is one of the issues I just want to get straight with New York's citizens so that they know who their governor is," Paterson told reporters at a tense news conference Tuesday. "I wanted to come forward because I didn't want it hanging over my head."

The pros say such disclosures help corral the inevitable stampedes that occur when the media gets a whiff of sex. "What he has done is define the facts ... in such a way that is least harmful to his long-term credibility," Keeny said.

Last week, allegations that Eliot Spitzer spent as much as $80,000 on high-priced call girls caused what another consultant called a public relations "earthquake."

"His professional and personal life are ruined for the foreseeable future," said Jonathan Bernstein, a Los Angeles-based crisis manager, who wrote an imbroglio-avoidance handbook, "Keeping the Wolves at Bay."

The former journalist -- "recovering wolf," as Bernstein puts it -- said the broken laws and Spitzer's reputation as a scold helped the scandal topple him irretrievably.

But Paterson's mess is much lower on the Richter scale. "It's a little shaker," Bernstein said. "Everybody says 'whoa,' then goes on with their business. Maybe a couple things fall off the shelf."

The key difference, he said, is New Yorkers are much more likely to identify with Paterson's troubled marriage than with Spitzer's pricey lawbreaking.

Paterson "bringing the skeleton forth from the closet himself is a very courageous and smart thing to do," Bernstein said. "There's probably many people in the country who have been in a similar situation and will empathize."

Others said the role Paterson's wife played in the disclosure gave the new governor still more cover. That she not only knew about Paterson's infidelities -- but also had revealed her own to him -- makes the whole transgression seem atoned for, he said.

"Apparently the confession was mutual and the forgiveness was mutual," said Albert Tortorella, a 40-year veteran of crisis consulting, with the Los Angeles-based Ogilvy Public Relations. "It's going to be difficult, then, for the legislature to want to throw him out."

By supplanting media as the best source of scandalous facts -- and by revealing them all at once -- the professionals say Paterson has drastically reduced the lifespan of his troubles. "This story will go away in a couple of days," predicted Richard Levick, a Washington, D.C., crisis consultant. "Then he needs to stop answering the questions and say it's over and move on."

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