260: Blind Gossip, Spin Tricks, and PR Ploys: The Murky Waters of Media Manipulation

I didn't want to do it. I didn't. I didn't want to do it. And then I did it. All these people were dinging me during the whole Oprah Maui the Rock campaign. I jumped into TikTok. I gave my PR two cents. I love Oprah. I love Oprah. A lot of people engaged. Oprah had her moment. She had one of her first really big backlashes. I mean, this is a woman who has certainly taken heat her entire career. You know, back when she was on her show, whether it was who she was married to or not marrying Stedman, but her weight going up and down. I mean, she's been through a lot. There's no doubt about what she was sued. But the backlash from the Maui incident was a little bit different. And the reason why we know this is because of how she reacted. Now, I'm not going to go too deep into Oprah because I have another episode about Oprah coming up. I'm writing a piece as a Forbes contributor about it, and I did some interviews, and it's really a piece that explains what happened to Oprah. But I'm coming back to Oprah because she was back on the air this week, and when I saw the press around her, I didn't even see the headline. And I knew, I knew something was at play. And then I saw the headline and I went, oprah, why did you do this? Take a listen to the clip and then I'll tell you why she did.

You all have been seeing the headlines. The new weight loss drugs everybody's talking about. Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro. Are these new drugs a miracle cure? Are they safe? That's what we all want to know. I don't know if there is another public person whose weight struggle has been exploited as much as mine over the years. So I am ready for this conversation.

Welcome to the Indestructible Care podcast. I'm Molly McPherson, your crisis communication strategist. This week diving into the complexities of public divorces, the pitfalls of online scrutiny, and the PR tactics that can backfire. Oh, Oprah. So Oprah did a bit of a media blitz to talk about her latest efforts. Now, one of the things that I said about the whole Maui debacle, and I'm not going to go too deep into it, but I did say that it was a bit of a diversion tactic because Oprah received a lot of grief living in Maui, being a large landowner in Maui. And then when the fires happened, you know, it brings increased scrutiny to someone like an Oprah, she opened up her private road so people could evacuate, you know, from the fires. But part of the story is Oprah has a private road. Why does Oprah have a private road? And then more people are illuminated to the fact that Ms. Oprah has all this property in Hawaii. I'm going to come back to Oprah at a later date because I'm working on a piece as a Forbes contributor about that whole issue with the rock and her Maui's People Fund, because there's so many lessons to be learned there. And the people who I spoke to on this article really educated me. So naturally, I'm going to put that out to you all as well. But then here comes Oprah now. And so I wanted to bring it into this episode because it happened this week. I noticed that she was spinning a new tail, and I didn't even have to go deep into the headline. And I knew exactly what she was doing. I just knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. So here's a headline. Oprah Winfrey Explores Weight Loss Drugs, recalls being shamed for her weight. The talk show host asked doctors if this is a, quote, miracle moment when it comes to obesity treatment. Now listen to that line. Listen to it. So the first, the header, Oprah Winfrey Explores Weight Loss Drugs, recalls being shamed for her weight. So right there, she's evoking this history that we can all remember, people of a certain age of what it was like for Oprah because she struggled with her weight. Her entire broadcast, she struggled with her weight. But if you've been paying attention in the last, oh, I don't know, a year or so, if you look at Oprah, she doesn't look the same. She sells very big hair, the voluminous hair, which I love her hair. I love it. And then her wardrobe distracts from the fact that Oprah has a much different body than she used to. But we never knew about that, Right? And I thought, how interesting, because she's the spokesperson for Weight Watchers. After all, she's part owner of Weight Watchers. Why on earth would Oprah Winfrey not be talking about the fact that she's lost all this weight? Why wouldn't the chief spokesperson, the ambassador for Weight Watchers, who all of a sudden now has lost weight. And I remember when she came into Weight Watchers, Gayle King did the same thing. And Gayle King, you know, stood on the scale, showed everyone how much she weighed because it was such a bold, brave thing to do, which it kind of and to be honest, I don't even remember how much she weighed. But do you remember this, how big they were? And then all of a sudden they're not, and we don't know why? Well, why? Well, it's baked into this statement. So the headline, what we're going to do is we're going to start off with that Oprah is being shamed for her weight. So we have to bring in the personal, the relatable, because a lot of people can probably relate to that. But then in the subtext, the talk show hosts ask doctors. So doctors, this means Oprah's being Oprah. She's doing what she did on the Oprah Winfrey Show. She's talking to doctors, she's doing the research, she's doing the interviews. If this is a, quote, miracle moment, she's putting words out there. She wants people to think, oh, my gosh, is the miracle there for me when it comes to obesity treatment, that framing is telling us, well, if Oprah, you've already answered the question, the answer is yes, of course, because you're telling us that. So opening with this article, Oprah Winfrey famously struggled with her weight for years. So she's tackling a subject that's fascinating to both her and many other Americans, new weight loss drugs that are reducing appetite and changing people's relationship with foods. Oh, my gosh. So she's tackling it. Oh, my gosh. This is the old Oprah. And this is a former journalist, Oprah. I mean, she was in Baltimore. She started as a journalist, so now she's tackling it. The word tackle. Oh, my gosh. She's reporting on it. Right. This is a journalist. Right. Tackling. And now she's relating herself to all these other people, Americans who are looking at these weight loss drugs. Oh, they include type 2 diabetes medications such as Ozempic, Manjaro, which doctors are prescribing off label for weight loss and specifically improved for shedding pounds. More than 2 billion adults, 1/4 of the world's population are overweight or obese, blah, blah, blah. So there's a lot of doctors so far. So here's her quote. You all know I've been on this journey for most of my life. My highest weight was 237 pounds. I don't know if there is another public person whose weight struggle has been exploited as much as mine over the years. Winfrey said. So I'm ready for this conversation. Okay, Oprah, I'm going to agree with you on that. I can't think of anyone whose weight. I'm sure there's probably other people out there. But from my culture point of view and memory, no one beats Oprah Winfrey for the weight shaming. No one at all. And then she says she's ready for this conversation. But you see, this isn't your average conversation that Oprah's having, because Oprah used to talk about obesity all the time. And then she got very quiet about obesity. Why was that? Especially since she was part owner of Weight Watchers. So as the article goes on, we know on and on and on we have Doctors Winfrey talking about the stigma of being overweight and how she said, you all have watched me diet and diet and diet. It's a recurring thing because my body always seems to want to go back to a certain weight. And then it gets into the real story here. So Oprah again is pointing out that she can't eat after a certain time, noting she'd be two pounds heavier in the morning after eating a slice of apple pie at 11 o' clock at night. The new weight loss medications, which people self inject once a week, would likely cut cravings for that late night apple pie. So now the article gets into the medical piece of it. Medical, medical, medical. And what this is all about is the unshaming quote from Oprah. I hope this conversation begins with the unshaming. So Oprah is now the one that is opening the doors to what? Play along. Just play along with me. If you listen to this podcast, you all work in pr. I know you may not be paid by it, but you're all PR professionals with me. What is Oprah paving the way now? If I'm being highly scrutinizing of Oprah right now, I would say, oh, this is the perfect time to do this after Hawaii. She's got to write a new narrative and she's got to write it quick. But Ozempic is a drug that all these celebrities or, you know, people in the public eye are taking, but no one wants to come out and admit that they're taking it. Amy Schumer, I think, is the only person who's admitted to taking it. And then she stopped it because she said the side effects were awful. But there's so many people on this drug and they're losing weight. Well, Oprah, to her credit, is going to be the first one one to say that she's taking it. But she hasn't said that yet, has she? Now, you would think in that article, you would think in that broadcast that's what she's announcing, but she's not. She's not announcing it at all. She's laying the groundwork for it because eventually that's what she wants to mention. Because for Oprah, this is a business deal. So now the new conversation started by Oprah is all about Ozempic. So I'm looking right now at a search result. I have Oprah Ozempic. Oprah Winfrey wrestled with thoughts on Ozempic. Oprah talks Ozempic. Oprah Winfrey discusses weight Loss, Obesity and Ozempic. Oprah Winfrey opened up about Ozempic. What Oprah Winfrey said about drugs used for weight loss. Okay, people, USA Today Today show, buzzfeed, ABC News, cnn, Page Six, Vanity Fair, Oprah Daily. Wow, look at that low SEO, Oprah Glamour. Do you want me to go to page two? Okay, the Rap E Online, just Jared et Canada, the Independent, New York Post, Pink Villa, Hollywood Life. It's everywhere. Oprah is talking about Ozempric. Why? Because she wants to open the doors to it. Because eventually, why would Oprah do anything? Why does Oprah do any anything? She does it for a reason. There's always going to be a reason why she does that. There's got to be a play on it. Now, it's not to say that she's like a money greedy person. No, she's just a businesswoman and she is a very good businesswoman at that. And that's what we are seeing right now. But the thing about Oprah is some people are still caught up in this, like Oprah fandom, where they still look at her as a talk show host who is out there just to help people, which is what she certainly did on that show. That's why she was so popular. Women related to her. Women watched her. Doesn't matter what she was talking about. They followed her. And then when she left the show, she went into the magazines recommending books. She was always there to recommend, to share knowledge, to uncover, to reveal. Those are all the things that she did. But Oprah's no fool. But Oprah right now is a mogul. She's a business person. And so that's why she's doing business moves. It's not the same Oprah. Now, I'm not going to shame her. I mean, this is like the new shaming of Oprah. But it's the whole point of this episode. It's about the tactics that are out there that are and I'm just going to call them these subtle manipulations, these PR ploys that happen all over the place. And as someone I know, I'm on TikTok. I talk about celebrities and some people think, oh, this is all she does now is talk about celebrities. The reason why I like it is because all of the tricks of the trade that they're using, it's all PR and things that happen to celebrities happen to everybody, happen to my clients, to my regular clients, same thing. It's just not as exciting because they're not celebrities. But people framing something for their own benefit happens all the time. And. But if you frame it in a story about a celebrity, it just makes it interesting. And now because of TikTok, I do get more people who are known people, you know, who are public people now. Absolutely, 100%. And across all mediums now. I mean, gosh, three years ago, if you would have told me the people I'd be working with right now, like, excuse me, it would be incredible. But you know what? Well known people have the same problems as the hoi polloi. We all have the same problems and so does Oprah. Because what Oprah is trying to do is introduce a drug that too many people are ashamed to admit that they're using. And she's tying it into being shamed by her weight for the purpose of bringing it in to Weight Watchers. You just wait, because now Weight Watchers, it's going to be happening soon that they'll be able to prescribe these weight loss drugs to their customers and people are going to come flocking to Weight Watchers trust. The reason why I know this is happening because I'm reading it right now. Ozempic for Weight Loss Weight Watchers. So the topic of think pieces, group chats, gossip blogs, and more, the swirl around Ozempic for weight loss sometimes overshadows. And the most important thing that it can be a game changer for people living with overweight and obesity. Here's why. See, and that's what it's speaking to, is how many people are shamed because they use it. No one wants to admit the reason why they're 50 pounds lighter is because they have a shot. No one wants to own up to it. The only person who I really know who's public about it is Rosie O'. Donnell. And I just happened to see her TikTok where she mentioned it. And I think she comes out and says that she absolutely uses it, but I think she was using it for, you know, for health reasons as well. But here we are. So what Oprah is giving us, it's a PR tactic. It's just plain and simple. But she is using and leveraging the Oprah that we all knew, the Oprah who struggled with her weight. She wants you to remember that Oprah. She doesn't want to come out and say, hey, Good Morning America. Hey, Today Show. Guess what, Guess what weight watchers are soon going to be selling. No, what she needs to do is she needs to unshame Ozempic. All right, so I'm off of Oprah for now. But also today was the news of Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner. Their divorce has been spiraling and spiraling, my gosh, for weeks. I've done posts about it, I've talked about it a lot. And the reason why it interests me so much is because of just the PR tricks that are happening behind the scenes. I don't like to highlight divorce. It's very personal. It's very messy. It's very triggering for many people. But what team Joe Jonas has pulled off or tried to pull off or attempted to pull off, you know, over the summer against his now soon to be ex wife, Sophie Turner, is absolutely despicable. But also, also completely obvious. Everybody has figured it out because that's what social media is all about. So today came word that Sophie Turner found out about the divorce filing through the media, quote, which means at the same time that everyone else was talking about it, me included, was the same time that Sophie Turner was talking about it. Maybe in a world she may have read my articles or maybe her team has because I've spoken to, oh, my gosh, so many outlets about this Joe Jonas story. Vox, today.com, newsweek, New York Times. Can you believe it? I thought, I haven't spoken to the New York Times in two and a half decades in my career. And now I'm speaking to him about Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner. What? But that was their angle. They didn't want to write about the divorce. They wanted to write about the trickery. Because that's what they found so interesting was their statement, because I did a breakdown about their divorce statement, which I've done in a previous podcast. But what we're learning now, I mean, with this court case, and this is the reason why I wanted to bring it up, the podcast this week is just the intense love of Scott scrutiny that Joe Jonas, his entire publicity campaign has been shattered to bits because everybody figured it out. And now the court documents are public. So all the knowledge is out there about this divorce and that Sophie found out, you know, she has a date there that they found out. She's Putting the dates out there, and everything that Joe's team rolled out secretly is now being busted wide open. So every detail is amplified. And so there's a risk in misinformation and lies. And Joe Jonas is finding that out. Clearly, Jonas has an in with tmz, TMZ and other gossip sites out there. You could tell anyone who's pro Joe that is the outlet that's getting cash. Something like that's the inside. TMZ was 100% pro. Joe and Sophie Turner remain silent, which is what a lot of people interviewed me about, because I'd said that in one of my posts about how in a divorce, the person who is spinning, the person who needs to shift narratives, is usually the one who's the cause of the divorce or the problem in the divorce. It's the silent party. The one sitting in silence is the one who's usually the victim. They're the ones who are usually being wronged because they're not spinning. And also they're sitting on their truth. They don't need to come out and say something. But, oh, boy, did Sophie Turner start saying something when Sophie Turner walked out with Taylor Swift on September 20th. If you're paying attention, when you see something like that happen, what it tells you is that likely on September 21st, something's going to happen next, which something did happen. And that's when we had the court papers from Sophie Turner. Now this divorce is getting very, very messy. And even in the statement, which I had said in one of my posts, that, you know, when you write a statement that says something is amicable, it's always less than. So their statement came out and it looked like they were working together, but clearly they're not. So now with the Jonas Turner. So we have, you know, we have tmz, we have the planting of the stories, we have backridge showing up. And it's not just Sophie Turner. We have photos of Joe Jonas. Now you're going to see photos of Joe Jonas with his kids. You're going to see a lot of lots of photos of Joe Jonas with his kids. Because now the issue, it's about the kids. Sophie wants to bring them to the uk. Joe wants them to stay here. We also saw that they, Joe Jonas, released the information when they really started to step up their campaign. It happened on a Friday of a long weekend of Labor Day weekend. And all these things can backfire because once you start playing with fire, it is going to backfire because so many people online now, so many people read culture stories and they follow culture reporters, and there's so many culture reporters out there. And when a regular, you know, mainstream media, when they hire culture reporters, these celebrity stories are in the mainstream. They're on page one in your Google search. And so you have to fight against that narrative. So that's why the Jonas team, they didn't want to have any negative blowback if he left his wife, because Joe Jonas knew that everybody loved his wife and it would be a blowback. So what he did is they deployed all these tactics, and you know what? Oh, there was blowback, but there's blowback for the tactics he lost resoundingly. I don't know of hardly anyone who is saying that they're against Sophie Turner in this. And they're pro Joe Jonas. So those are the types of tactics that you're going to see. The planting, the pap shots, the framing, like what Oprah's doing. Just look for it. It's very obvious. Last night, I did a TikTok. I did. I was on the Today show in Australia down in Sydney, you know, talking, you know, celebrity beat. And one of the people they asked me about was Lizzo. And they wanted to know, you know, what she was up to. And she really wasn't up to much because her court case is kind of inching along as we're getting closer to it. But one of the things I said is, like, oh, it's September. It's a very busy celebrity PR crisis month. There's one a day. Sometimes there's multiple a day. Last Friday, Drew Barrymore came out with her apology statement, and Ashton Kutcher stepped down from Thorne. And then we had Russell Brand. We had all those three things happening at once on a Friday because that's when they want to drop. The news is on a Friday. Why? So no one talks about it? Yes, they talk about it on the Internet. Yes, they talk about on social media. But news editors, news reporters, the news coverage isn't there around the weekend because they haven't assigned the story yet, but they'll sign it on Monday. So that's why they do it on Friday with the hopes that the story is either goes away or if it's still there, at least the narrative's in your favor, which is what Joe Jonas did. He wanted by Tuesday after Labor Day weekend, he wanted the stories where people felt sorry for him because Sophie was such a bad person and a bad mother. Okay, so what does this mean now? Like, moving forward? Like, what should we be looking for here? We want to have authentic communication. So if you think about it, in the celebrity realm, you can do the same thing in your realm. If you're in regular business or you work in PR or comms or you own a business, whatever it is, you're an influencer. You need to have that raw, authentic communication. I had mentioned Lizzo. One of the things I had said on a TikTok after I did that broadcast, the live hit on that broadcast, is what I told them about Lizzo. I said, just watch for Lizzo to appear now. There's so many celebrity crises right now. She is coming out. She's going to be coming out in full force. You're just going to see her here. She's doing this and then she's doing this. Like I had said, she was at a Beyonce concert, then she might be getting an award. She might appear here talking about this. Oh, somebody sent me on TikTok. Will take me a while to find it, but someone dropped it. Like, oh, my gosh, here's Lizzo. And then someone tagged me on a bunch of lizzo stuff on TikTok as well. And they said, you just said this last night. I'm like, I did. I did say that last night. So how's that for time and again? It's not because I'm so smart. It's because it's just common sense, right? Those are all PR tactics. But what we lose in all that is that if we're not honest and we're not authentic in these communication, that blowback is going to be real. I mean, Joe Jonas isn't going to shake it. Now. What he does have is he has fans and people like him. So he'll be fine. He'll be fine. But for some celebrities, if they go through this, there's no coming back. Alizo, yeah, she'll come back, but she won't be the same. She won't be that same level. And like Oprah, she's huge. A million people love Oprah, but there are a lot of people now who look at Oprah with one eye up. And I'm one of those people. To me, Oprah is not the Oprah from the Oprah Winfrey show, not at all. She is a megalomaniac type business person who's just like a business person now. And there's nothing wrong with that. But you want to see all the ploys for people. Like, she's evoking herself back to the days, you know, when she was that different Oprah. So you're going to lose trust. And a lot of these Celebrities will lose trust with their fans. There is a long term impact when you try to play with the fans because it really also you want to look at it from ethical versus unethical PR tactics. An ethical PR tactic is a press release. It's a media interview. You know, it's putting out real information. But we get into this gray area, right? So when Oprah goes on to all these media shows, all these news shows and does all these interviews about how she was weight shamed. That's a news story. Absolutely. Oprah talking about what it was like when she was overweight 100%. And then she talks about how people are shamed when they use Ozempa. Is that a new story? Yeah. Cause that's true because people do that. But what is an Oprah mentioning that her company that she has a stake in is going to be selling it? And that's unethical to me. That is unethical because Oprah is paving the way to make it okay. So people buy her product and they go to Weight Watchers. And when is it? Oh, it's September. When is all this going to roll out? Go ahead, guess, guess, guess. Did you say right around New Year's? Yes, that's what I think. I have no knowledge other than been there, done that. We've seen this before. Let me know. Have you ever noticed a PR tactic that backfired? I want you to share your thoughts. Go ahead into my PR confidential. Let me know what you think. I would love to comment. Right on. Back to you. It's five ME mollymcpherson. You'll see the link in the show notes. Now, in every episode, I leave you with one indestructible PR tip. It's a practical takeaway to help you build that instant indestructible reputation. And here it is in your communications. It doesn't matter if you're just a person who's on social media, if you own a business, run a business, or hey, you might be an influencer or celebrity listening. Always prioritize truth and transparency, especially when the stakes are high and the world is watching. I know no one listening to this episode right now is at an Oprah level, okay? But if you try and play tricks employees and try and pull one over on someone, they're going to see right through you. I speak to clients all the time. I have hourly and now I'm going to have 90 minute sessions and they bring their blowbacks to me. That's what I get. I get blowbacks. They got a blowback on Facebook. A blowback on Reddit, a blowback here. A blowback. Everybody's got a blowback. And I talk to people about their blowbacks. It's for everyone. And the way to get through it is you have to be honest. You have to be truthful. You have to be authentic. Because if you try and twist and turn and get people to think one way when it's not the truth, oi, you're gonna feel it, because that's gonna blow right back into your backside. That's all for this week on the podcast. Share your insights and questions in the PR Confidential community. Hope to see you there, everyone. Bye.