Oscar de la Hoya: This Year's Marv Albert

Oh, the number of different headlines I came up with for this... all of which would have gotten me rotated right out of doing this blog, of course. But with all of the public relations fiasco stories we've enjoyed over the last year or so - Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, Owen Wilson - NOTHING can top the hot water Oscar de la Hoya has gotten himself into. Maybe. By all means read the story here. And check out the photos for yourself. The defense being given is that these photos have been faked with Photoshop. In terms of emergency public relations work, saying this is a good strategy. "Photoshop" is now a common term among the zeitgeist, even with people who have never used it. It stands as an example of how easily a photo can be altered to create a lie. For example, this famous photo of Lee Harvey Oswald. (Unlike these faked photos, which used scissors and tape. But that's just my opinion.) The Oscar de la Hoya pictures are a little different, of course, because... well, frankly, if that's Photoshop, it was done by the Rembrandt of Photoshop. (Or perhaps the Willem Claeszoon Heda of Photoshop, though I wouldn't go so far as to say the Egbert Lievensz van der Poel of Photoshop.) At any rate, if you are an aficionado of Photoshopping and are even slightly a painter of the Dutch Golden Age of Photoshop, I ask you to look at these pictures of the boxer and tell me if they are fake. Though I tell you now, it does not matter. This is the lesson of a PR crash team: How you respond to a story dictates whether or not it is true. The Photoshop answer is brilliantly chosen, since most people can understand what it would be like to have photos of themselves faked. Even if you call in experts, there is that shadow of doubt created in the minds of the public. If there had been no response, or a tepid, "no comment," it wouldn't matter if someone had glued Mr. De la Hoya's head to a centaur - the pictures would be real. If the pictures are real, the very frankly brave tactic of saying, "Yeah, that's me.... and!?!" would have been refreshingly honest, but would have also ended this man's boxing career. It's hard to stick and jab through 10 rounds when all of Madison Square Garden is calling you, "Nancy." Honesty is always nice, but isn't always the best policy. But as I say, we've yet to find out if these photos are real or not. In the meantime, I'm learning Photoshop, and I already have a great idea for a faked boxer photo: I'm going to slap together a brilliant shot of Mike Tyson not being completely insane. How awesome will THAT be!?!

About the Author: Eric Reid

I am the Social Media Services Manager for Off Madison Ave. I've been with the company since 2006, when I was hired to do SEO, and link building in particular. When social networking sites started cropping up, at first I started using them to create backlinks - but they weren't the best for that, given all of the "nofollow" attributes. However, I did see the potential for all of the direct referral traffic they represent. Since then I've been actively pursuing both tactics for clients: Links that can help them for search, and social postings that get them involved in the conversation. It's about the coolest job you could ever get. ;)

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