It’s the second time I’ve heard of a New Zealand food industry body using social media to mitigate negative publicity, and correct misinformation in the international marketplace.

The other was the Seafood Industry Council late last year – and in that case, it involved New Zealand’s biggest seafood export, hoki, and the venerable New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/science/10fish.html).

These are great stories that underscore the value of quick-thinking PR professionals.

First, the hoki story, which I heard about at a session hosted by IABC Wellington* earlier this year.

Last September the New York Times ran a front-page story on New Zealand’s hoki fishery, which questioned the sustainability of the annual catch.

Fortunately, the online story version contained a link to the hoki species page on the Seafood Industry Council’s website.

This link was a “godsend”, SeaFIC’s comms manager Sarah Crysell told us, because it gave her team at the Council the ability to quickly update its hoki pages, and to highlight for readers independent scientific evidence that upheld NZ hoki’s sustainability.

People clicked through from the New York Times online site to the SeaFIC site in droves – within 24 hours of the story breaking there was a 45,000 percent increase in visits!

After some terse correspondence between the Council and the New York Times, the Times’ Science Editor Laura Chang apologised for its conduct in reporting the story (http://www.seafoodsource.com/newsarticledetail.aspx?id=4294968373). Amazing.

Now to the venison story.

Jon Morgan, the Dominion Post’s farming editor, ran a piece last week (http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion/4227319/Quick-reaction-makes-venison-stoush-positive-for-industry) about how Deer Industry NZ managed to turn a row between a judge and a chef on the American Top Chef Masters TV show over the environmental credentials of New Zealand venison into “a marketing coup”.

The row began when chef Rick Moonen chose to cook New Zealand venison for the final competition. Moonen had first-hand knowledge of our deer industry. He was an ambassador chef for our venison (marketed as Cervena) in the 1990s and had visited deer farms here.

All the judges loved Moonen’s venison dish – but he lost the contest by just half a mark.

The next day the reason for the loss emerged. British judge, Jay Rayner, a food writer known for his acid pen, blogged that he marked down Moonen for his “craven attitude to environmental issues”. His main objection (wrongly, as it turned out) was because New Zealand venison is air-freighted to the US.

The row erupted into the social media via Twitter and Facebook.

Deer Industry NZ quickly got involved. Marketing manager Innes Moffat said his team follows American food blogs closely and it was aware of Moonen’s use of venison in the Top Chef final.

Within a few minutes of being alerted to Rayner’s blog, Deer Industry NZ sent Moonen fact sheets on food miles and sustainability. And, within just a few minutes more, Moonen had the facts on his Facebook site – “New Zealand venison is sustainably farmed outside on natural pasture without hormones, steroids or antibiotics. And, it’s sea freighted not flown in to the US. Transport contributes just 10 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions”.

“It immediately took the sting out of the affair,” wrote Jon Morgan.

Meanwhile, Deer Industry NZ monitored Twitter and other food blogs where people were commenting, and added New Zealand’s perspective. It wrote directly to Jay Rayner, correcting his misunderstandings.

A few days later, the website that hosted Rayner’s blog took down his posting.

Sarah Crysell and Innes Moffat and their teams deserve wide praise for the way they each handled a potentially disastrous situation, and turned things round so fast.

As Jon Morgan put it: “There’s a lesson here for other industries that have been on the receiving end lately of misinformed or malignant comments.

“Retaliate quickly and the facts can triumph over adversity.”

* International Association of Business Communicators

In my day, journalists worked hard to ensure they were newsmakers not the news itself. With the rise of celebrity TV journalism, that’s all gone out the window.

Ask Paul Holmes or Alison Mau or Judy Bailey or … Paul Henry.

Love or loathe the former TV One Breakfast host, it was only right that he fell on his sword for his crude comments about the Governor-General, Sir Anand Satyanand and his mocking of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s name.

The argument that Henry’s popularity was because he is prepared to say the things the rest of us think but are too scared to say out loud only made things worse.

Oh, so we are all fundamentally racist here in Godzone?

I’d like to think that we are not.

It has been heartening to hear of the flood of protests received by Television New Zealand.

(It is not so heartening to learn of a possible large golden handshake Henry’s minders have negotiated or the fact that TVNZ required Henry’s “resignation” largely because of advertiser pressure.)

New Zealand is, in fact, a remarkably diverse and culturally liberal place.  It is important to remember this and to cherish it. It is not universal.

A friend reinforced this point for me recently. She works as the director of international students at a local high school. She hosts students from abroad on exchanges, and accompanies groups of New Zealand students to places as diverse as Chile, Japan and France. (A tough job but someone’s got to do it!)

She told me that many of the things we, and our children, take for granted here – having Indian or Korean or Japanese students in your class, having gay families in your school community, having a Maori woman teacher or principal, being billeted with a Somali or Samoan family while on a sports or cultural exchange – are not at all the norm in other countries.

In a recent speech to the school, she told the kids not to take it for granted.

“I’m fairly sure most of you don’t realise how privileged you are to go to a school where there are 50 different nationalities…

“You take it as natural that there will be a variety of backgrounds in your classes and that we have exchanges and we welcome foreigners.”

Many overseas students found our multicultural environment “a real eye-opener”.

“In their own countries, the opportunity to meet different people or nationalities – far less make friends – is very limited if it exists at all. Their worlds and outlooks are far smaller and more limited than yours in this respect.”

So, Paul Henry, I recommend you embrace our rapidly internationalising world for your own sake, if not ours.

And can I suggest Hindi or Spanish language classes now that you have time on your hands?