Ketchum's Kotcher Trips Up Blaming Williams

A week ago Ray Kotcher, the CEO of the PR firm Ketchum, responded in writing to a series of questions from PR Week about the controversy over Armstrong Williams promoting the U.S. No Child Left Behind law. Kotcher wrote that, "in addition to speaking on his own show, Williams discussed NCLB on the record with other media outlets on his own initiative before and during the contract." This week O'Dwyer's PR Daily, which Kotcher has yet to communicate with, points out that Ketchum's contract with Williams stipulates, "Mr. Williams shall utilize his long term working relationship with America's Black Forum, where he appears as a guest commentator, to encourage the producers to periodically address the NCLB Act (67 million viewers; reach 87% of urban market)."