Blog: Changing the narrative #1: exploring a new approach to strategic communications in the ME community, by Valerie Eliot Smith

A part 4 was added: https://valerieeliotsmith.com/

 

Last night I watched US House of Cards series 1, chapter 6.

Ambitious congressman Francis “Frank” Underwood is under pressure from the US President to drop his education reform bill because the teachers strike has been going on too long. But Frank doesn’t want to lose face and is determined to push it through.

First, he arranges for a brick to be thrown through the window of his own home one night in order to make it look as though he is being threatened by the teachers. When that doesn’t force the union leader to capitulate, Franks starts monitoring the police radio waiting for a incident involving a child so that he can then spin it through the media as being the fault of the teachers’ strike because the child was not at school. Before long there is a child shooting, which, following the orchestrated media furore, forces the union leader (Spinella) to a meeting at the White House. However, instead of negotiating, Frank tries to provoke Spinella into violence by winding him up and telling him that he arranged for the brick to be thrown through his own window. Sure enough, Frank succeeds. Spinella punches him in the face, and Frank tells Spinella to call off the strike or face felony charges for assaulting a congressman.

Just saying.