American company supplies foreign journalists with statements from Egypt’s Interior Ministry

The correspondent of the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal in Egypt, Tamir Ghabashi, has disclosed that the Egyptian Interior Ministry issued on Friday a statement addressed to foreign journalists in Egypt and that was sent to them from the a mail of a British consultancy firm on behalf of the Interior Ministry and not from the official e. mail of the Interior Ministry.

On Friday Ghabashi tweeted on his twitter feed; this is new: Egypt’s interior ministry statements released in English by British consultancy firm.

Some observers regarded this as “another and a new” breech of national sovereignty.

However, an informed source, who refused to be identified, disclosed to Arabi21 that the firm from which the statement was sent to the foreign journalists is in fact an American company and not a British one and that this interior ministry’s statement emanated from the company’s branch in the UK.

Arabi21 was able to find out that the firm which sent the interior ministry’s statement is called Burson-Marsteller, which described itself as a leading global public relations and communications firm. It says it has strategic insights for innovative programming and that it provides its clients with counsel and program development across the spectrum of public relations, public affairs, reputation and crisis management, digital strategy, advertising and other communications services.

The firm points out through its website that its clients are global companies, industry associations, professional services firms, governments and other large organisations.

It goes on to say: “Our clients often engage Burson-Marsteller when the stakes are high: during a crisis, a brand launch or any period of fundamental change or transition. They come to us needing sophisticated communications campaigns built on knowledge, research and industry insights. Most of all, clients come to us for our proven ability to communicate effectively with their most critical audiences and stakeholders. We develop client programs using an Evidence-Based Communications approach. Evidence-Based Communications is a scientific approach to communications, driven by data at the beginning, the middle and the end.”

It adds: “Burson-Marsteller is a global leading firm in public relations and communications. Its headquarters are in New York and it has 67 offices in 98 states across six continents. It was founded by Harold Burson in 1953. It opened its first office abroad in Geneva, Switzerland in 1965 so as to provide services to the European Economic Community. In early 1980 it became the world’s biggest public relations firm.

The company organised a number of campaigns in order to assuage the fears about protests and criticisms, smear campaign by Google and Facebook and passive smoking. It also worked with regimes that face strong criticisms in the sphere of human rights. The firm also provides public relations services for companies and in the fields of public affairs, technology, health care, communications, trademarks and marketing.

It is worth mentioning that the American firm of Burson-Marsteller published last March its annual study on Twiplomacy detailing world leaders’ links to social media website Twitter, in terms of activity and influence. It ranked coup leader Abdul-Fattah Al-Sisi on top of the list of African leaders who are more influential via Twitter, where he ranks second only to Nigerian President Muhammad Bukhari. The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs came tenth in the list of the most active institutions and leaders on Twitter in Africa.

On 17 November 2015, the head of Egypt’s tourism reinvigoration commission, Sami Mahmoud, said that Burson-Marsteller had been commissioned with the task of drawing a detailed plan for a publicity campaign to improve Egypt’s image abroad.

In a statement to Al-Bursa newspaper he said that the job would include organising a public relations campaign in markets where countries did not stop their citizens from taking up tours in Egypt, such as Germany, Poland and the Ukraine. He added that the company was tasked with the mission of inviting celebrities from the sectors of music and sports to visit Egyptian tourist destinations in order to increase the flow of good news from Egypt to the outside world.

This was first published on Arabi21 on Saturday 9th January 2016.