Jonathan Coad - Reputation Matters: How to Protect Your Professional Reputation

In my line of business, if you arent working with Jonathan Coad, you arent doing it right.

Max Dundas, Founder, Dundas Communications

A confident Coadification of the many perils and pitfalls of trying to bring the modern media to heel, this book should be on the shelves of all those who work in the reputation business. It contains a well-reasoned invective thread regarding what drives the conduct of print, online and broadcast media. Coads advice and experience lies at the intersection of the law and PR.

Jon McLeod, Partner at DRD Partnership, previously Partner at Brunswick and Chairman at Weber Shandwick

Jonathan Coad is a giant amongst lawyers with a vast array of experience working for the great and the good from all walks of life as well as many powerful media institutions. This book is a fascinating insight and clear description of how the media and the law works in regard to reputation. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to protect their brand in todays information age.

Paul McKenna, hypnotist and author

Its revealing when in his introduction, when discussing the British media, Coad states that there is virtually no democratic restraint over these companies and individuals who are therefore substantially free to mislead us for reasons either of financial expediency and/or in pursuit of an agenda. The only limits to this power come from a modest array of regulations and laws by which the media is supposed to abide, but in the case of the press, frequently ignores .
But make no mistake, this is not the perspective of an unhinged conspiracy theorist, this is the view of one of the UKs top media lawyers. A man who for the last 25 years has been in the room in those crucial hours before numerous high-profile media stories have been published.
Reputation Matters is a fascinating, sometimes worrying but always informative read into a pretty grubby and little known world at the centre of the British establishment.

Ben Smith, founder, PRmoment

With integrity, huge skill and high-level knowledge Jonathan Coad guides you successfully through the ethical, legal and personal dilemmas of interacting with the media. A powerful and important book.

Robin Dyer, Head of Ampleforth College

Jonathans vast experience and expertise shines through on every page, as does his warm story-telling prowess. A must-read for anyone responsible for the reputation of others.

Mark Southern, Director, Polygon PR

This is a must-read book for anyone working in legal PR and corporate communications or media management. The cases are well selected, hugely insightful, and very relevant to our modern-day global and digital era.

Yuliya Matvyeyeva, PR and Communication Professional, Ukraine

Buckets of sage advice from one of the very best media lawyers. Read it and save yourself millions in lawyers fees and settlements.

Nick Bastin, Senior Consultant

Compelling and impressive. Coads book is a must for anyone potentially affected by unwanted press attention. This means it should be read by everyone, so they are ready to respond effectively. For, as Reputation Matters confirms, it is a myth that the press is interested only in exposing the crooked and corrupt.

Professor Paul Wragg, Professor of Media Law, University of Leeds and Director, Hacked Off

With the rapidly evolving information landscape, companies have never been more in the spotlight. As a crisis management expert, Jonathan Coad provides in Reputation Matters a highly accessible tool for business leaders, communications professionals and individuals to understand the most effective strategies to mitigate reputational damage.

Angela Gray, Senior Associate Partner, Consilium Strategic Communications

This book is a must read for anyone or any thing e.g. a business or brand in the public eye. And those advising them. Whether youre a celebrity, politician, academic or Coca Cola, understanding the art and science of reputation management within the current legal framework is essential. Jonathans intelligent, practical and sage advice shines through in this brilliant book. Hes your man; in the boardroom and, if needs must, the court room.

Angie Moxham, PR practitioner and founder of 3 Monkeys Communications and The Fourth Angel

Reputation Matters is a detailed, yet thoroughly engaging guide to navigating media hostility, informed by both technical expertise and professional experience. In the harrowing, true stories of press misconduct it describes, it is also a powerful expose of the practices which persist in parts of Fleet Street. It promises to be an essential resource both for individuals personally affected by press abuse, and for those of us campaigning for improvement to press behaviour.

Nathan Sparkes, Chief Executive of the Hacked Off Campaign

Warren Buffett, who knows a bit about making a profit, says this: It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, youll do things differently . He also said, Lose money and I will forgive you. But lose even a shred of reputation and I will be ruthless . Corporate reputation really matters because the World Economic Forum has declared it to be the most important measure of success and it represents more than 40 per cent of a companys market value. I could not find a suitable dictionary definition of reputation for the purpose of this book, so here is mine: quality or character as perceived by others . The purpose of this book is to empower you to protect your reputation.

This book is gratefully dedicated to all the clients who have entrusted their reputation and privacy to me; and to Charlotte, Emily and Benjy, whom I love dearly.

Contents

Acknowledgements

I am immensely grateful to Bloomsbury for affording me the opportunity to write this book. Thank you to Matt James for commissioning the book; and to him, Allie Collins and Jane Donovan for their expert advice which improved it immensely. Thank you to all my colleagues over the years who have so helped me in my work; especially to the wonderful Shelley Vincent and Stephanie Brunton. Thank you also to the brilliant Hannah Ready of 11 Kings Bench Walk for checking and correcting my law.

Apart from the microscopic scope of our first-hand knowledge, we are almost entirely reliant on the media for our insight into the events that impact both our lives and society as a whole. Very few of us know how the media operates, or the characters and values of that small coterie of individuals who decide what we are told and what we are not told about what goes on in the world around us.

That is despite the fact that the power that these individuals and companies wield as arbiters of what information we are permitted to glean, and the extent to which that information is true, is immense. There is virtually no democratic restraint over these companies and individuals who are therefore substantially free to mislead us for reasons either of financial expediency and/or in pursuit of an agenda. The only limits to this power come from a modest array of regulations and laws by which the media is supposed to abide, but in the case of the press, frequently ignores.

In the UK most of the major media outlets are governed by some form of code of practice; the broadcast media being regulated with a degree of efficacy by Ofcom (Office of Communications), and most of the big beasts of the print media being tamely and inadequately regulated by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). Some major corporate news providers, including three of the Fleet Street titles and business news providers such as Bloomberg, have elected to be subject to no form of even token regulation.