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Famous Like Me > Actress > S > Merrie Spaeth

Profile of Merrie Spaeth on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Merrie Spaeth  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 23rd August 1948
   
Place of Birth: Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
   
Profession: Actress
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia

Merrie Spaeth was born on August 23, 1948, in Philadelphia, PA. She graduated from Smith College in 1970, and from the Columbia Graduate School of Business in 1980.

As a teenager, she starred in the film, The World of Henry Orient with Peter Sellers.

Spaeth is best known for her role in attempts to discredit George W. Bush's political opponents. In 2004, she served as the chief public relations consultant for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT). Previously, she was associated with the effort to discredit John McCain in the Republican presidential primary in 2000. Spaeth told National Review that she was approached to provide PR support after the two Texas millionaires Sam and Charles Wyly, created the front group Republicans for Clean Air to attack McCain's environmental policies. Spaeth said that she agreed to field press inquiries for the group. It "turned out to be the biggest mistake, at least one of the top five," of her life, she said. "I regret being involved in any way," she said.

Spaeth has longstanding ties to Republican politics. During the Reagan administration, she served as a White House Fellow assigned to FBI Director William Webster. She was the first Fellow and one of the first two women on the director's staff. From the FBI, she served two years at the Federal Trade Commission as director of public affairs, and in 1983, President Ronald Reagan named her director of media relations at the White House. Merrie introduced satellite communications to the White House, and the electronic White House News Service. Later, she was worked in communications for Ken Starr during the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

Writing in Salon, Joe Conason described her as "among the most experienced and best connected Republican communications executives. During the Reagan administration she served as director of the White House Office of Media Liaison, where she specialized in promoting 'news' items that boosted President Reagan to TV stations around the country. While living in Washington she met and married Tex Lezar, a Reagan Justice Department lawyer who ran for lieutenant governor of Texas in 1994 with George W. Bush, then the party's candidate for governor. (Lezar lost; Bush won.)"

Spaeth on PR

Spaeth writes a regular column for United Press International on communication issues. In a June 2003 column she warned that crisis management consultants, like generals, were best prepared to "fight the last war".

"The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill spawned a methodology of crisis management that dictated that a company or organization immediately and proactively own up to a problem, and that the chief executive officer himself step forward. This is much too simple, and it can be bad advice," she wrote.

Spaeth recounted an instance where she had advised a hospital client where two patients diagnoses had been mixed up - and quietly settled out of court - public disclosure would not serve the public interest. She then went on to state that "when advising companies, I first ask, 'Will this information get out anyway, and if so, then you must get in control by announcing it yourself. And your spokesmen and women need to have the expertise or stature to convince your important audiences that you care, you have correctly analyzed the situation, and you are acting quickly, appropriately and with integrity'," she wrote.

The need for transparency, she advised, has its limits. "Sometimes, even if one is reasonably certain the information will not leak out, the moral course of action is to announce it. The key word is 'sometimes.' A consultant needs to bring good judgment and courage, not rote lessons," she wrote.

In a May 2004 commentary, Spaeth reflecting on an article in the Toronto-based Globe and Mail, rhetorically asked "does PR need some PR?".

While defending PR, she conceded the industry had a problem. "It must be admitted that PR has contributed to its own problems by those individuals who place themselves in the public eye and say things they know aren't true, or who go along with the CEO or the lawyers rather than jeopardize a large retainer. Yet, do not lawyers similarly say truly bizarre things in public and give their clients awful advice?," she wrote.

"Public relations -- again, understanding, communicating and maintaining relationships -- is a critical function of an organization. It deserves respect," she concluded.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Merrie Spaeth