Ryanair got some cheap publicity over the last few days.
The latest idea from the not so cut price airline was to announce plans for “standing seats”.
Naturally, this led to lots of coverage, much to Michael O’Leary’s delight.
And when someone from a European air safety authority said the idea wasn’t going to fly, Ryanair got another round of publicity.
Naturally, coverage differed depending on who was reporting it.
Tabloid splashed out on the idea, publishing pictures of O’Leary grinning, with lots of subheads about the “cheeky ceo” from Mullingar.
A few even recycled some of his earlier whoppers in sidebars.
Meanwhile the broadsheets published handwringing editorials about how the company manipulated the media, bemoaning the fact that even their own high mind columns themselves were giving him publicity.
PR destroys news, because journalists let it go unchecked. No one thought to pick up a phone and talk to an air safety regulator and ask what the rules on air passenger seating were. Doing so would have given them a different story. O’Leary’s proposal doesn’t gel with the EU requirement that passengers should be “properly seated and secured”.
No one thought to publish the truth.
Hence the headline above.
Sorry, what was the lie ?