By Samantha Sault, Chairman, Qorvis
Today, Bloomberg’s Ben Bartenstein published a story about Qorvis that is a case study in how misinformation becomes news.
If you’re new here, we’ve been responding to Mr. Bartenstein since July, when he sent us a query full of falsehoods about Qorvis and our work. I don’t need to rehash the whole thing; you can read it here.
As expected, the resulting story begins with cinematic flair. But it quickly falls flat into a much more muted version of the original inquiry—seemingly lawyered to death, with the remaining fragments assembled into a series of random vignettes ranging from who attended splashy Qorvis events in Washington and Dubai, to how I met my husband at a party with Dick Cheney.
The Qorvis team is somewhat amused by this today, but unfortunately, it’s still riddled with the kinds of falsehoods and dubious sourcing that have become characteristic of the misinformation ecosystem we’ve been discussing.
Mr. Bartenstein does finally use some of our on-the-record statements about what we have and have not done and who we have and have not represented: “Qorvis has made no secret of its work for those entities. But Qorvis chairman Samantha Sault denied having any working relationships with the sanctioned oil kingpins who, according to government authorities, control them.”
Yup, that is correct. We represented Wellbred and 2Rivers. We have never represented Hossein Shamkhani or Etibar Eyyub.
But there are still some remarkable assertions in the piece.
I requested an in-person meeting with Mr. Bartenstein or his editors. I did not agree to a subsequent request for a virtual meeting. And far from avoiding Bloomberg, my colleague Grace Fenstermaker met with four Bloomberg editors and journalists at APPEC in Singapore just this past Monday. Eyyub came up, and she reiterated on the record that we have never represented him or even met him.
And then:
This is simply inaccurate. Qorvis has never represented or worked for Shamkhani or Eyyub. I had barely heard Eyyub’s name until Mr. Bartenstein started reaching out to us about him.
If former employees believe otherwise, they did not understand our work or the relationships involved.
There are about five people who have “direct knowledge” of what payments we have and have not received. I am one of them. I can tell you that this is not true.
Perhaps most revealing of all, Mr. Bartenstein acknowledges that he spoke not only to current and former employees, but also “industry rivals,” which requires little explanation as to why those sources may not be entirely disinterested.
That original piece was about how false narratives move through an ecosystem and eventually become news.
Today, we have the finished product.
If you like salacious tales, read Bloomberg’s story. Then read ours.
Image courtesy of Bloomberg. This post has been updated with screenshots of the original Bloomberg article.
