art of spin not dead
It appears there was none of the much despised "self-censorship" - or editing of any kind? – being undertaken at the SCMP's new Causeway Bay offices yesterday as the stories came in for filing. Indeed, reading the title "Resources magnate mines China links in IPO plan" the editor likely assumed he had come across yet another innocuous story about some high net worth individual seeking to raise funds in Hong Kong - and nothing more.
But there is more venom to the story, published 24th November, than initially meets the eye. The reporter - who appears to have woken up on the wrong side of bed - sets the tone early on, stating that the interviewee, Clive Palmer, is accompanied by "two nervous public relations people…" She has another jab at the unfortunate "PRs" further down: "Throughout lunch, the public relations woman sitting next to me stares intently at my notepad to make sure I am writing the correct things down."
The reporter doesn't seem to have much time for Palmer himself either. A quote from a McKinsey report noting that some 240 million Chinese will relocate from rural areas to cities in the future is dismissed outright as "an often quoted statistic." Moreover, she seems uncomfortable with Palmer's estimated AUD 6 billion personal wealth, "In September, he bought his daughter a A$5 million yacht for her birthday. She had turned 15," she adds abruptly.
Even Mr Palmer's "beautiful second wife" appears to be fair game – after all she also attended the interview. "…he takes pains to point out that Anna, who could be taken for a Russian supermodel, will be corporate secretary at Resourcehouse [Palmer’s company]," she writes, admitting that he said it "rather sweetly."
To finish it all off, after alluding to an exercise class that Palmer (who's on the plump side) attended on the QE2, the SCMP's reporter says: "And with that, Palmer polishes off his dessert, drains his wine and goes off to meet some potential investors."
If only every SCMP interview were as colourful!




