Private prison link leaves PR giant with its own image problems
Edelman, the world’s largest public relations firm, has a PR issue of its own after taking on a private prisons company that operates immigration detention centers as a client, only to abruptly resign under pressure from employees.
The decision to represent the GEO Group drew fire internally at Edelman, according to several published reports. Dropping the controversial client less than two weeks after beginning the assignment elicited some very public criticism of Edelman from the Florida-based private prisons company.
“It’s truly disappointing that a renowned public relations firm, which prides itself on helping companies tell their story, would allow the personal political beliefs of some employees to undermine a business contract,” Pablo Paez, a spokesman for the GEO Group, said in a statement last week.
Co-headquartered in Chicago and New York, Edelman is a public relations giant with 6,000 employees and $900 million in annual revenue. The privately held firm was founded in Chicago in 1952.
The GEO Group, a publicly traded company with nearly $2.5 billion in projected revenue this year, retained Edelman amid negative reports associated with the Trump administration’s immigration policy, including family separation at the Mexican border and poor living conditions at detention facilities.
Edelman started representing the GEO Group on July 1, according to a source familiar with the situation. On July 8, senior executives from Edelman’s Washington office visited a GEO detention facility in Florida. The PR firm resigned on July 12.
Edelman senior staff assigned to the contract “talked to our employees, heard directly from individuals entrusted to our care, and based on first-hand observations, acknowledged that the story being told about our company in the media is based on false narratives and deliberate mischaracterizations,” Paez said.
Edelman spokesman Michael Bush declined to comment beyond an emailed statement last week.
“Edelman takes on complex and diverse clients,” Bush said in the statement. “We ultimately decided not to proceed with this work.”
A number of financial institutions have cuts ties to the private prison industry in the wake of the White House’s controversial “zero tolerance” immigration policies. Last year, the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund divested about $548,000 from a fund with positions in the GEO Group and CoreCivic, which also operates immigration detention centers.
After being dumped by Edelman, the GEO Group is exploring other PR options, Paez said.
“We have sought out and will continue to seek out a number of strategic communications firms to help us tell our story, which we believe has been largely misrepresented in the media,” Paez said.