B (2:51)

Yeah, you're hearing that, commissioners. Gold to be found. Yeah, I'm gonna put that in my LinkedIn bio. I agree. I think I just, I want to pick your brains about this because through the work that we've done, I think I've stumbled upon a blueprint for a new way of doing personal pr.

A (3:08)

Well, you know, we really need a blueprint because one of the things that's happening in my world, in our world, high end PR around the world, particularly in the US and the uk, is the levers have stopped working, right? You pull stuff and nothing happens down there. It doesn't influence public opinion. The public, you know, listeners at home see through the veil, they see through pr. So if there's a new blueprint, it could be worth, if we come up with it, we should leave immediately because there's a lot of money, let me tell you, to be made in that. And we're gonna start off talking about the Diddy case. What really fascinates me is that American public opinion around that case, around him as an individual, shifted massively. Now how did that happen? Why did it happen? And let's talk about it.

B (3:50)

Yeah, I mean, so if you're not a huge hip hop fan, who is? Sean Diddy Combs. I mean, I say he was responsible for kind of ushering in hip hop into the mainstre, making it profitable. He worked with Biggie, you know, Biggie and Tupac. So he was there really in the generation that we see as the heads of hip hop or the golden age of hip hop. Now, in 2024, the federal government of the United States of America accused him of sex trafficking, transportation for prostitution, and something called rico, which my lawyer calls rico. But it is actually a charge that was created to take down the mob, the mafia. Absolutely. This is a huge, huge accusation. They said he ran a criminal enterpr that basically functioned to fulfill his sexual desires. I'm going to give a warning here. Because I don't know how much you talk about on fan hitters, but I'm going to be talking about the freak offs. This was an accusation from the federal government that he would have these days, long drug filled orgies called freak offs. And the RICO enterprise, the Mafia, if you will, that he'd set up was basically facilitating these sexual encounters that was in the indictment. What happened after the indictment was filed, I've never seen anything like this before. Social media took off in a way I don't think anybody was prepared for. His team, our team, journalists all over the world, his fans, his people who hate him. Every single day. There was a new accusation about Sean Diddy Combs. And it went from, he is running a child sex trafficking operation in the tunnels underneath Los Angeles. He was working with Hugh Hefner, shuttling Playboy bunnies back and forth. He's keeping children in containers at the port. We're talking videos with millions and millions and millions of views. All of this happened over the months that we're preparing for this trial. So by the time we walked into that courtroom in America, people thought that Sean Diddy Combs was the devil.

A (5:46)

Imagine this in the sort of corporate world that Sam and I talk about week in, week out. Somebody says, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna create an environment where your reputation is trashed so badly and the public think you do such terrible, awful things that when you announce something, or in the case of Sean Combs, that by the time the jury get in the jury room, what they see before them, the evidence they have in front of them, the decisions they have to make, are based on accusations which are nothing compared to what they thought. If you look at the world at the moment, there are many people, and one of them would be the President of the United States, who benefit hugely from saying or allowing the public to think things about them, which when it comes down to it, the truth is not. Not quite as bad. The truth might be terrible, but if it's not quite as bad as the truth that you thought, then there's a PR benefit there. In fact, there's a PR massive victory there for people either in courtrooms or in the courts of public opinion.

B (6:49)

Absolutely. The phenomena that took place during the Diddy trial was baffling. I have no evidence that his team were behind any of what we saw on social media. I can't imagine that they would be because it's such a wild card to play. Yeah. So what happened was people were expecting accusations about children. Some people thought he murdered One of the mother of his children. Some people thought he was a witch. What the prosecution then presented was a very nuanced form of abuse, that they were alleging something that happened between romantic partners, which paled in comparison for a lot of people to what they'd heard on social media. Now I saw what the effect that this was happening on the ground, the support for Diddy by the end of the trial didn't double, didn't triple. It was all overwhelming. I mean, the defense finished to a round of applause in the courtroom during closing arguments. And when they were talking to the judge about whether Diddy had a fair trial or not, they said, my client's name has been dragged through the mud. They've called him a witch. They've said he's abusing children. There were no accusations about children.

A (7:49)

They said these things in court.

B (7:50)

They said these things in court to the judge. They said it in press releases afterwards. And then if you looked at what happened on social media, in the court of public opinion, he had gone from being literally the worst person in the world to somebody that had been targeted by the federal government of the United States. A private individual, an African American man that was being torn down. What was presented was bad. He's a convicted criminal and he was.

A (8:12)

Convicted on two charges, on two charges.

B (8:14)

Of transportation for prostitution, which is not a victimless crime. And it was difficult to listen to what those women got up and testified to on the stand. And there were people who really suffered at his hands there. But it is the lowest amount of time in jail. It is not life in prison, which is what happens with a RICO charge. It's not sex trafficking. So it was seen as a victim. Is this normal? Is this a playbook wild card response, or have you ever seen anything like this before?

A (8:41)

You know what? I don't think anything's normal anymore. I think things are changing so, so fast that nothing is normal anymore. And we used to have this phrase, the new normal. Even that is old fashioned. Now look, if we're looking for a new blueprint and we're talking about, is there a new blueprint for moving public opinion? That's what we're talking about here. We used to think, when I was sort of growing up in the media industry, we used to think that people had good reputations and people had bad reputations, and unless you sort of, you know, did something terrible, they sort of stuck and they do not anymore. And the Didi case shows us that because you talked about that, and that applies in business and it applies in politics. But I think, and I observe that my industry, the PR industry, doesn't quite get that yet. They don't understand. And a lot of the reason things are moving around so fast is, you know, the digital revolution, the algorithms.

B (9:35)

If anyone's in disbelief about, like, the fluidity of reputation.

A (9:39)

Yeah.

B (9:40)

At the beginning of the trial, like I said, the support for Diddy was. Is non existent and I was sat next to a group of people who were adamant that he was literally evil. And they were just there to watch, they were just interested. On the last day of the trial, those same people were wearing shirts that said a Frico isn't a RICO and asking me if I wanted a miniature bottle of baby oil to take into the trial. This is in the space of two months.

A (10:07)

So it's very clear that, you know, reputation can move very, very fast in one direction or in another. The critical thing, though, for our audience, what we talk about week in, week out, is how do you influence that? Because that is the blueprint. Wasn't it the case, though, Anoushka, that the team around Didi started off in quite a conventional way in terms of pr. They had press releases, they did press briefings, all that kind of stuff. Didn't they start there?

B (10:30)

They didn't reinvent the wheel. They were pretty much doing what you'd expect. When there was an accusation, they would either contact us or we' contact them. And they'd issue a pretty boring statement denying everything. Pretty much the same statement each time. He's never done anything that involves kids and we're not going to comment on every single thing that's said and, you know, who cares about that? So they were kind of shouting into the void. You can see the moment that they start to utilize what was going on in the, in the wild west of social media and bring it into their arsenal. And that was during the trial. I would say this was not done by grand design by them. I think they were just as baffled by this as we are. We were. But I think people will look at that now as a, you can do this, you can swing this, you can make it work, because it worked for Diddy.

A (11:13)

I mean, a lot of people in business listening to this now, which, you know, say if you were working with big pharma around the weight loss drugs, for example, where, you know, opinion is shifting massively thinking, how do we influence mass market? How do we influence what millions of people think about us? And that's the magic, that's the blueprint. Because I think that the. Where people around either at the very least, realized the direction of public opinion and started to either push it or not do anything. Because that can be very powerful to allow it to develop.

B (11:45)

There is a four hour Netflix documentary that was co produced by 50 Cent, Diddy's arch nemesis. And there is footage in there which Diddy, I gotta say, Diddy says the footage is stolen, but nevertheless it's in the documentary. Just a few days before he was arrested, he's in New York, there are police watching his hotel room, and he's on the phone to Mark Agniflo, who is his head counsel. And he says something along the lines of like, I, I don't just go on cnn. That's not where the jurors are going to be. That's not where the conversation is. You need to be influencing in other spheres.

A (12:14)

Let's play that clip.

C (12:15)

There's 9 billion people in the world and 7 billion of them is on Instagram and TikTok. And so you had y', all, you at the wrong place. Looking to see what the people with the possible jurors are thinking. We have to find somebody that'll work with us, whether they from this country or from another country. It could be somebody that, that, that, that has dealt in the dirtiest of, dirtiest dirty business of media and propaganda.

A (12:42)

You know, over the years. Anoushka, I've been in many boardrooms, I've been in front of people in, in really crises. And what we just heard Didi say is not too far from what you actually hear in private. But what he just said there is the best call to arms that I think I've ever heard of. Somebody in crisis. He understands who he needs to influence and he's unhappy with his team because they're not, they're on cnn, they're talking to the elite, they're not talking to the people that are gonna keep him out of jail or maybe keep him in jail for less time. I think it's absolutely fascinating that, and that's why this case is so relevant. It's relevant to Downing street, to the palace, to business, to anybody who is trying to influence what the public think about, of course, what PR is.

B (13:32)

Well, look, I'm glad you think it was pretty monumental because it felt, it felt like something shifted when I was there.

A (13:38)

Okay, well, we've, we've looked at the Diddy case where it seems that creating, however it happened, a sort of terrible narrative around, around him helped him. Let's turn to another case, the Bridget Macron case, which you've Talked about a lot on Fame Under Fire. We've also talked about on, on Fan Eaters. That is a case where Brigitte Macron, the Macrons, have taken the decision, both in France and in the US to just step in and say, enough is enough. We're going to draw a line here and we are going to fight.

B (14:08)

And it's so shocking. I mean, I cannot believe that they have filed a civil lawsuit in Delaware. For people who don't know, you've probably heard about it. I mean, in my corners of the Internet, this is all anybody is talking about. But for nearly a year and a half, Candace Owens, who is a right wing influencer in the United States of America, has been repeating the claim, the allegation, allegation that Brigitte Macron was born a biological man and then transitioned in her 30s and then obviously married Emmanuel Macron. There are other allegations in there about identity theft, but you name it, Candace has accused them of it. And the Macrons have filed a civil lawsuit in Delaware. The reason that is so shocking is because the civil process in the US Is so invasive. You have to sit for depositions. They will have to fly to Delaware. They can. All their discovery has to be taken. Discovery is emails, texts, their entire lives, really. Everything is put on show. They can subpoena Brigitte's medical records. I mean, it's more invasive in many ways than a criminal trial. So them opting to do that, I understand why people are shocked.

A (15:10)

Yeah. So this case is going to begin probably in the middle of the year, in the summer. And as you say in a civil case like that, everything is up for grabs. So it's a very, very high risk decision for the Macrons to take. But what they are saying is, you know, we are going to stand up to candidate now in this country. Except for on your podcast, a lot of mainstream media just describe Candice as if she's a sort of, you know, I don't know, medium sized sort of influencer and she's sort of, you know, young and all that sort of stuff. Let's just talk a little bit about her influence because this is a. I think she is more influential than nearly every national newspaper in this country and half. And nearly every in the U.S. and when I say those things, people look at me very funny. So can you just, can you prove me right, please?

B (15:56)

She'll probably clip that and put that on her social media. I'm not gonna l. Candace is an uncomfortable thing for a lot of people. Candace rose to sort of fame in 2016. She was very pro Trump. She's African American woman, so she was like an African American voice for Trump. And she speaks very well. She, I say she appropriates the cadence of authority. She comes across really well. She's a very forceful speaker as well. Now she has the fastest growing right wing podcast. Her podcast was getting 3 million listeners a day. She does live streams to 150,000 people. People. She has been directly addressed by Bibi Netanyahu. She's been spoken about by President Donald Trump. She's obviously being sued by the Macrons. She's an uncomfortable thing because she talks a lot of crap. That's the problem with Kenzoans. But the problem is a lot of people are in the cult of Candace. A lot of people believe what she has to say. And I'm not coming out there and saying, you're all idiots. How could you believe what Candace Owens has to say? It's born of a, you know, a fear of institutions. It's born of a mistrust in mainstream media. Yeah, it's born of all of that. And Candace taps into those anxieties, she perpetuates them, and she sort of takes on the position of the individual independent journalist fighting for the truth against all of that. She's taken that Macron story. She said, brigitte is a man. They are lying to you. They are the institution. I am the independent journalist and I'm gonna tell you the truth. Truth. And it has done wonders for her brand and her bank account.

A (17:30)

You see, the thing is, I grew up in the Murdoch company, Rupert Murdoch Company, the son of the New York Post. And that is what they did. That is how you build a mass audience. What you say to your audience is, are you thinking what I'm thinking? And that is what she does. She does it brilliantly. So I recognize, I recognize that. But she is absolutely. And I don't care if she does clip this. She is absolutely brilliant at what she does. We just need to explain to the listeners why Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, has had to stand in the studio and condemn her and attack her. And that is because we don't need to go into the detail. But she has started saying that the murder of Charlie Kirk was perpetrated by the Israelis, that the Israelis murdered Charlie Kirk, for which, by the way, there is no evidence. But for her, of course, to have Benjamin Netanyahu condemning her gives her a degree of global fame which you cannot buy. And that is what's happening here, isn't it? And the Macrons is is really just another route to market for her.

B (18:28)

Yeah, I mean, Candace Owens, like you say, she's not doing anything new here. Conspiracy theories and tapping into what people are scared of is nothing new but her methods of distribution. She is a personal PR powerhouse. She doesn't just get her message out there. She bombards you with her content on every single platform, all the time, all day. It's overwhelming.

A (18:51)

I agree with you. I know what you mean. Which is basically the way it's chopped up effectively and stuck out there. But there are a lot of people listening to this in the PR world of media that don't understand it. So just explain how she does that.

B (19:01)

So if you look at the lifecycle of a piece of content, typically if we're doing this podcast and it's, it's recorded.

A (19:07)

Yeah.

B (19:07)

That piece of content lives as a podcast and traditionally that's pretty much all it would do. Maybe we clip something for social media if we're feeling fancy. For Candace Owens, a 40 minute podcast is also a 40 minute livestream where people can watch you doing it online at the time as it's happening, which builds trust because gives the air of transpar. She'll also do something called clip farming, which is when you take the longest piece of content and you produce 40 or 50 smaller clips from that that you just routinely post on short form social media. So apps like Instagram and TikTok and she will do that throughout the day and it's basically throwing as much of it at the wall and hoping that it hits and you will eventually see her content on your. For your page or your explore page. And that is the difference because it's constant. It's not one big sit down interview that everyone tunes into. No, it's I'm putting this everywhere, all the time. You can't miss it.

A (20:05)

Yeah. I mean, we're talking here, folks, about someone in, in Kansasians who has a major influence on what millions of people think about, certainly the president, but very important things at the moment. So this is not an inconsequential person.

B (20:20)

Another thing that she does well, again, she didn't invent. But she's funny.

A (20:24)

Yes, she is.

B (20:24)

Her videos are funny, her videos are funny. And humor is soft power. Once you have people laughing, you have people looking, then you have people emotionally engaged with you.

A (20:34)

I couldn't agree more. And again, that is a core thing in the tabloid world many, many times when, you know, Rupert Murdoch and people around, We've got to make people laugh, we've got to get them. Use your Humor to get them. If you listen to Steve Bannon's podcast, which I do quite a lot, he's very humorous. And what happens is you come into his and you know, I don't agree, I don't think with a single thing that he stands for. But I'll tell you what, Anushka, after five or six minutes, I'm starting to think, you know, well, you know, you know, maybe there's a point then it's the same sometimes. But some of the stuff that Candice says, you're lured in and these guys are taking over the manipulation of public opinion from all the people that I see in my day to day life in the PR world and in the media world in a way that, that I think we know it's happening, but we don't talk about it enough. And that's why I love Fame Under Fire, because that's what you do.

B (21:28)

Let's clip that guys for Fame Under Fire put take a leaf out of Candace's book. Well, yeah, and I completely understand why people are uncomfortable taking a look at somebody like Candace Owens. I get that. I get she kind of stands for everything that we detest in terms of just peddling complete misinformation. But there are things that we can learn from her when it comes to meeting people where they're at, being in the arena where the conversations are had, not standing on a mountain and preaching from on high, but going, okay, if you guys are on TikTok truth or just being a counter voice. So these people don't just completely monopolize the platform and that's what needs to happen. And we are getting towards that. But the problem is, and we've spoken about this before, it's so fast moving. So everyone's going, oh, I think people are on tick tock now. No, they're streaming now. Yeah, it's all about streaming now. 24 hour live streams and feeling like you're there with the person. It's live, it's completely transparent. They're bringing you into their world. And by the time we catch up to streaming, they'll be doing something else. I don't know how we fix that, but I think the first step is acknowledging that there are people who are doing it well. And if we allow them to continue to do that, you know, uninterrupted, it's not going to be good.

A (22:41)

Or none of this is hidden either. We can see it. It's all there. I mean, every night when I'm watching TV news here or in the in the US I see Donald Trump's the President's truth. Social posts are. That's how he communicates with the world. Now people know that he owns that company. There's a company called Trump Media and Tech with a. It has a stock market valuation of nearly $4 billion. It's got 29 employees in Florida. Right. It doesn't make any money yet, but the valuation is about obviously like a woman business, the future. Now that's know he is controlling not only what he says and how he says it, but he owns the means of production. You know, we don't talk about that enough. You know, that things are moving so fast now that I sometimes think if I was working one of the, you know, in PR for one of the world's big companies, say a pharmaceutical company where the law can suddenly change in Washington, you can be as a business, I would have have many, many people looking at what Candace Owens is doing and how Trump is communicating, rather than looking at the Wall Street Journal and New York Times and the FT and all those traditional newspapers.

B (23:54)

I think, yeah, you need to look at what Candace is doing. But it's kind of a double bind because Candace is what they say. She's native to the space. Like my generation, Gen Z are digital natives. So she knows how those platforms work and everything feels rather effortless. She knows how to grab engagement in less than one second. So you don't scroll past her videos, etc. Yeah. The problem is when you, you try and replicate it but like from the outside looking in because it just feels, for lack of a better word, like cringy.

A (24:24)

Yeah. I mean we are, as we sit here, distinguished Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his press PR team are about to launch him on Tick Tock and there's been a huge amount of discussion around that. I mean, what do you, when you see that kind of talk, what do you think about it?

B (24:40)

Well, I think, think why didn't they have an account already? I mean, I can't believe they're just doing that. If my whole feed at the moment is just all the memes that the Democrats post, the Republicans responding to them in the comments and there was that whole like takeover from Gavin Newsom's camp when they were building him up to.

A (24:59)

The Governor of California.

B (25:00)

The governor of California who was just cranking out some really funny memes. And you know that they've got two Gen Zs behind that TikTok account just working overtime. And so it was funny and it worked. Worked. I hope for Keir Starmer's sake that the people on the team who are launching it really get the platform. Otherwise we're going to end up with another kind of six, seven, six seven moment.

A (25:23)

I mean, they need to understand what's going on but not necessarily get involved. Right. Because if it's inauthentic, it is going to fail. I have observed, Anoushka, that a lot of people, my generation in the media elite, they don't understand the digital world and then they suddenly dive into it and if you do that, you can make a massive mistake. You've got to understand it before you get involved.

B (25:48)

Wait, are you not Gen Z?

A (25:50)

I don't know what I am. I think.

B (25:54)

No, I completely agree. I mean the only thing I will say about I can't give advice to for business pr, so feel free to ignore me guys, if I'm just chatting.

A (26:01)

You put us all out of business if you do, to be honest.

B (26:04)

But user generated content, so content that occurs naturally anyway when you have those huge companies but the apprentices are doing like come and spend a week with me at this company and it kind of humanizes the workforce. That's some of the best soft launching of having a personality as a business that I can see happening.

A (26:23)

You think that works?

B (26:24)

Yeah, well, I engage with the content. I'm like, oh, I've always wondered what happened here and or like what the inside of that office looks like. And they take you with them and it's very natural. And they are the people who are naturally on those spaces and they are giving a face and a voice and a heart heart to corporate entities. And that to me I would be capitalizing on that and going, it's already happening and they know what they're doing and it's working. Let's encourage them, let's encourage them. Let's give them stuff in their content that makes us look like we are a company full of real people.

A (26:55)

Well, you talk about real people and there is the crux of the problem, Anushka, because in business, if I had a pound for every time I've heard a CEO or a big business boss say it's not about me, I don't want to front this. In other words, we'll put a press release out and it's on behalf of the company and it doesn't work because it has to be a human being. And on Fame under Fire, you talk more, as you said earlier about, you know, major celebrities, we talk about business, but business doesn't understand, in my opinion, that if it's going to move into your world it has to be fronted by a human being. And we have to see, don't we? All aspects of that human being have to see them, you know, having breakfast or whatever. Do you want to talk a little bit about what you've had to do in your social media?

B (27:38)

Yeah, it's. It's a weird thing that's happening in, in journalism. I mean, by trade, I'm a journalist first, and that typically meant it was never really about you. It's always about the story. Which is. Which is. Right.

A (27:51)

Yeah, the classic BBC News Division policy.

B (27:53)

Yeah, that's. That's how it's supposed to be. But now if you have something that you're fronting or something that you're working on, because people are so distrustful for many different reasons. They want to know who the person who's telling them the news. And I have been encouraged, and I agree with it in many ways, to share more about myself. In fact, if you are doing a podcast or you're fronting a doc or something, they want to come with you. They want to behind the scenes, you know, and that means, you know, I got up at 5am and I did. This is me doing my hair, and this is me on the way here. And I have found it to be immeasurably helpful because when I was in New York doing the Diddy trial, you didn't, you didn't just hear me pop up for 15 minutes a day doing a court report. You came with me every step of the way. And then I streamed live for two hours at the end of every day, and you could just directly ask me questions that I'd answer on the spot. And I did see. I mean, it's a real ask. And I get that. I really do understand that. But the proof was in the community that we built of people going, you know, I wouldn't normally come to the BBC because I typically hate the BBC, but I know where she is. I know what she's doing. I know she's actually in that courtroom. I know who she's speaking to when she gets out.

A (29:01)

And she's a real person person.

B (29:02)

And that had to combat, you know, that ecosystem of content, combated that mistrust in the mainstream media. But in that way, you're asking journalists to turn themselves into brands.

A (29:15)

I mean, what applies to journalists also applies to business. But I can tell you, Anushka, that what you've said will horrify people in business. The idea that somebody running a business, a CEO, for example, would have to show themselves at breakfast or Whatever. What they like to do is they like to stay pretty anonymous for most of the year and then go into the media and announce, you know, their results or acquisition or whatever it is and then come out pr. Traditionally for my generation, by the way, you asked me if I'm Gen Z. I don't know what, I don't want to know what I am, but I'm definitely not Gen Z has been. We go into the media when we want and we, and we come out of it when we don't. When the politicians have, of course, much more difficult and complicated, complex, they have to be in it. But this is why one of the reasons why business has lost the argument, it hasn't got a voice, it can't speak because of the human beings within it simply don't want to engage in the way that you've talked about.

B (30:13)

I know it is different though, if you, if you're a CEO of a huge business, people don't necessarily want to see you do a day in the life in the same way they would where they would me or somebody else. But like I said, if you can foster the people within your organization who already organically are showing a human side and make them kind of, kind of a business influencer for your organization, you can disseminate some of that messaging through them is one way. I could see that applying, I mean, people might be like, oh my God, I'm not doing that. But I do see big businesses with people, usually younger people at the company who work there, showing their lives, having an interaction with the followers. And you can utilize that because those people are a human face of something without making it you as the CEO.

A (30:57)

Well, that's it from both of us for this week.

B (30:59)

Thank you.

A (31:00)

Thanks as always for listening. Anoushka, thank you so much for joining the pod this week.

B (31:05)

Thanks so much for having me.

A (31:07)

Now, I know we're only mid January, but Anoushka, your year is already filling up.

B (31:12)

Yeah, 2026 is really the year of the celebrity trial. We're going to start with the Blake Lively Justin Baldoni trial in May. Then off the back of that we have Russell Brand over here and Andrew Tate as well. There's a civil lawsuit in the UK from Romania. Don't charge him first. And then we also have the, the two pack trial which is scheduled for 2026 as well. So that'll be a big one.

A (31:32)

And of course, folks, you can subscribe to both our podcast Fame Under Fire and when it hits the fan by subscribing on BBC sounds, But that is all we've got time for today. Anoushka, it's been an absolute pleasure. Bye. Bye.

B (31:46)

Goodbye.