October 3, 2011

Extreme Makeover: Mideast Autocrat Edition

From Moammar Qaddafi to the house of Saud, six repressive rulers who hired PR firms to help clean up their images

<a href="https://secure.flickr.com/photos/byammar/2701802819/in/photostream/">Ammar Abd Rabbo</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

It’s gotten tough for Middle Eastern autocrats to keep up appearances. But Western PR firms are ready to help—for a price. As a disgusted former employee of Qorvis Communications told the Huffington Post, “These scumbags will pay whatever you want.” Some recent examples:

Hosni Mubarak

Egypt

World Economic Forum/Flickr

 Egypt

darkroom productions/Flickr

PR headache:

The former Egyptian president’s (above left) record of 26 years of economic stagnation and political repression

Image makeover:

DC-based Qorvis Communications announces in 2007 that Mubarak has embarked on “a new era of open elections.”

Price tag:

$125,000

Bahrain

World Economic Forum/Flickr

 Bahrain

malyousif/Flickr

PR headache:

The 230-year-old monarchy answers calls for reform with arrests, beatings, and shootings.

Image makeover:

Qorvis publicizes the regime’s $3 million donation to famine-stricken Somalia. Sanitas International and ex-Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi sign on to provide “strategic communications counsel.”

Price tag:

$40,000/month (Qorvis)

Undisclosed (Sanitas/Trippi)

Syria

Anmar Abd Rabbo/Flickr

 Syria

Syria-Frames-of-Freedom/Flickr

PR headache:

International condemnation for the bloody repression of antigovernment protests

Image makeover:

Brown Lloyd James helps get First Lady Asma al-Assad (above left) a spread in Vogue. The magazine calls her “the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies” and Syria the “safest country in the Middle East.”

Price tag:

$5,000/month

Yemen

Egypt

Wikimedia Commons

 Egypt

Al Jazeera English/Flickr

PR Headache:

Months of demonstrations and violence threaten the Yemeni government, headed by President Ali Abdullah Saleh (above left).

Image Makeover:

Qorvis does “media outreach” for the National Awareness Authority, a pro-government propaganda group

Price Tag:

$30,000/month

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

Ammar Abd Rabbo/Flickr

 Saudi Arabia

NidalM/Flickr

PR Headache:

The Middle East’s oldest ruling family, headed by King Abdullah (above left), gets a tad nervous about the Arab Spring.

Image makeover:

A Qorvis press release emphasizes that the country’s restless youth—not oil—are “its greatest natural resource.”

Price tag:

Undisclosed. (The Saudis paid Qorvis more than $11 million for similar work in 2002.)

Moammar Qaddafi

Lybia

Vectorportal/Flickr

 Ammar Abd Rabbo/Flickr

PR Headache:

The former Libyan president’s reputation as a megalomaniacal, terrorism-sponsoring despot

Image Makeover:

Brown Lloyd James helps set up Qaddafi’s 2009 speech at the UN. Hopps & Associates buses in fans to watch and hands out T-shirts. The Monitor Group, a consulting firm, signs up “to enhance the profile of Libya and Muammar Qadhafi.”

Price Tag:

$1.2 million (BLJ)

$665,000 (Hopps)

$3 million/year (Monitor)

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE ON MOTHER JONES' FINANCES

We need to start being more upfront about how hard it is keeping a newsroom like Mother Jones afloat these days.

Because it is, and because we're fresh off finishing a fiscal year, on June 30, that came up a bit short of where we needed to be. And this next one simply has to be a year of growth—particularly for donations from online readers to help counter the brutal economics of journalism right now.

Straight up: We need this pitch, what you're reading right now, to start earning significantly more donations than normal. We need people who care enough about Mother Jones’ journalism to be reading a blurb like this to decide to pitch in and support it if you can right now.

Urgent, for sure. But it's not all doom and gloom!

Because over the challenging last year, and thanks to feedback from readers, we've started to see a better way to go about asking you to support our work: Level-headedly communicating the urgency of hitting our fundraising goals, being transparent about our finances, challenges, and opportunities, and explaining how being funded primarily by donations big and small, from ordinary (and extraordinary!) people like you, is the thing that lets us do the type of journalism you look to Mother Jones for—that is so very much needed right now.

And it's really been resonating with folks! Thankfully. Because corporations, powerful people with deep pockets, and market forces will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. Only people like you will.

There's more about our finances in "News Never Pays," or "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," and we'll have details about the year ahead for you soon. But we already know this: The fundraising for our next deadline, $350,000 by the time September 30 rolls around, has to start now, and it has to be stronger than normal so that we don't fall behind and risk coming up short again.

Please consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

—Monika Bauerlein, CEO, and Brian Hiatt, Online Membership Director

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE ON MOTHER JONES' FINANCES

We need to start being more upfront about how hard it is keeping a newsroom like Mother Jones afloat these days.

Because it is, and because we're fresh off finishing a fiscal year, on June 30, that came up a bit short of where we needed to be. And this next one simply has to be a year of growth—particularly for donations from online readers to help counter the brutal economics of journalism right now.

Straight up: We need this pitch, what you're reading right now, to start earning significantly more donations than normal. We need people who care enough about Mother Jones’ journalism to be reading a blurb like this to decide to pitch in and support it if you can right now.

Urgent, for sure. But it's not all doom and gloom!

Because over the challenging last year, and thanks to feedback from readers, we've started to see a better way to go about asking you to support our work: Level-headedly communicating the urgency of hitting our fundraising goals, being transparent about our finances, challenges, and opportunities, and explaining how being funded primarily by donations big and small, from ordinary (and extraordinary!) people like you, is the thing that lets us do the type of journalism you look to Mother Jones for—that is so very much needed right now.

And it's really been resonating with folks! Thankfully. Because corporations, powerful people with deep pockets, and market forces will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. Only people like you will.

There's more about our finances in "News Never Pays," or "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," and we'll have details about the year ahead for you soon. But we already know this: The fundraising for our next deadline, $350,000 by the time September 30 rolls around, has to start now, and it has to be stronger than normal so that we don't fall behind and risk coming up short again.

Please consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

—Monika Bauerlein, CEO, and Brian Hiatt, Online Membership Director

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate