Look Who it Was Random video

Russia, Georgia Lobbyists Nominated for Worst EU Lobby Awards

798 views · Published 10 December 2008 · 6:53 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: Euractiv · 2008 · News & Politics

Watch on YouTube

From http://www.worstlobby.eu

GPlus and Aspect Consulting: Nominated for supporting the spread of war propaganda in the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia.

Gplus and Aspect Consulting, acting for Russia and Georgia respectively, attempted to distort the publics perception of the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia by putting out misleading and deceptive information about the situation on the ground.

 
When war broke out between Russia and Georgia in August 2008, few of those watching events unfold on TV screens and in the press would have realised the part played by PR agencies in what became very clearly a war of propaganda.

GPlus consulting has acted for the Russian Government since April 2006 and Georgia hired Aspect Consulting in 2007 to reach out to Western audiences.

Aspect Consultings media strategy was designed to depict Georgia as a victim of Russian aggression, issuing a stream of press releases. From the outbreak of the crisis, Patrick Worms, founder of Aspect Consulting, managed Georgias press relations from Tbilisi.

James Hunt, also from Aspect, revealed the strategy was built on exploiting the news medias need for a human angle on coverage, including images for television: We put human beings in front of the camera. We recognised the need for emotionalism in emotional times rather than the way that the Russians did which was to keep, if you like a very robotic, very old fashioned media approach.

The media work went beyond supplying information  they also twisted events. Worms was for example using maps to show foreign journalists that Georgian artillery was aiming exclusively at military targets, whereas there is strong evidence there was indiscriminate shelling of inhabited areas. Worms worked very closely with the deputy foreign minister of Georgia also after the conflict in an effort to support the Georgian version of events to the European media.

More from this channel