A short commentary by TJ Walker analyzing actor Ben Affleck’s public relations handling after attempting to remove mention of slave-owning ancestors from a PBS program. Walker describes Affleck’s initial misstep, his subsequent apology on Facebook, and predicts the issue will not have lasting impact beyond partisan critics.
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Actor Ben Affleck is in the news a second day in a row. Yesterday I gave Ben Affleck the bad PR play of the week. The PR bungle of the week, or I shouldn't say of the day because he got caught red handed trying to whitewash his own background. PBS was doing a special on celebrities backgrounds. Turned out he had ancestors who owned slaves. Har hardly a surprise that any white American would have an ancestor in the last 200 years who owned slaves. But he lobbied the producer to get it edited out of the final story. It didn't get in the story. This of course became big news and I gave him demerits. And the bad PR play of the day yesterday, well, he turned it all around. He apologized and I thought a very forthright, honest and sincere Facebook post where he explained that he was embarrassed. He just didn't want people to know he feels bad about it. He's trying to make the point, and you can debate this, that it wasn't really a news show. It was more like a movie. And in the movie business, you're always lobbying the director and the producer to include the scenes you want to take out the stuff you don't want. But he said he hopes that sparks more of a conversation about race, racism, slavery, the nation's history. And I thought he came across perfectly fine. Here's my prediction. This issue is not going to haunt him. It's not going to hurt him because he handled it quickly, he handled it well, and it essentially erased it as an issue. Most people will never care about this again. However, if you're already a Ben Affleck hater, Ben Affleck, as you may know, is a very partisan person. He's very much a strong Democrat, a liberal. He is a routine proponent of liberal Democrats for office and liberal issues. So he is Persona non grata among a lot of conservatives and Republicans, as you would expect. They, of course, will keep reminding him they will make this a big issue. But of course, the issue isn't slave owning past. It is the fact that they don't like his politics. So of course, if he were to ever run for public office, this is the sort of issue that will be called a scandal on Fox News and Drudge again and again and again. But my prediction is it will have absolutely no impact. So Ben Affleck, you get the PR play of the day today. The good PR play of the day. I thought you handled this crisis perfectly after you initially bungled it.
