Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Austrias PR Image

The Austrian government is worried about it's image in the aftermath of the case of Elisabeth Fritzl who was imprisoned in a cellar under her family home for 24 years by her own father and forced to bear him seven children 3 of which were held in the cellar with her. Alfred Gusenbauer, the Austrian Chancellor says his government is planning a PR campaign to demonstrate that Josef Fritzl's actions were not representative of his country.

"We won’t allow the whole country to be held hostage by one man."

I think it's fair to say Fritzl is not the worst Austrian in history (... *cough* Hitler...) so why make such meal of it. A year ago all those journalists were in Portugal searching for Maddie McCann.

No offence to Austria but I don't think anyone, except maybe the Austrians themselves, are blaming them for this one. Punish the crime and stop hiring PR agencies.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

gr8 post,thanks

-Ann said...

I'd say because this is the second high-profile case involving keeping someone in a cellar for years. Once is weird, twice is dodgy, if a third case like this comes out, then it is one of those things that you start to associate with Austria.