jon@dmcityview.com

But ultimate hot potatoes could look forever

Ball gags, yes. Mouthpieces, no. When it comes to sex offenders getting a good word in, sex offenders simply cannot get a good word in.

After glossing over a few days of Des Moines Registers from last week, I couldn't help but notice that the words "predator" and "sex offender" were everywhere. None of the stories were good. None of the stories helped alleviate our fear. The only thing anyone needed to know was that the people involved are sexual offenders - nothing more, nothing less. I thought to myself, "These guys need a good publicist." After all, OJ Simpson might have cut off his wife's head, but he also won the Heisman Trophy.

Scourge of the earth? Without question. There is a corner in hell reserved for people who prey on children. It's a sickness, experts point out. These individuals just aren't wired correctly. And that's about the nicest thing anyone will say. The guy who drunkenly rammed his boat into another boat could hire a publicist. The guy who strangles his girlfriend because she smoked his last batch of meth could hire a publicist, as could the guy who steals millions from the poor. Hell, even a guy who screws goats, for the right amount of money, could be cleaned up and called an "animal lover." But after making a few phone calls to a few local PR firms, I discovered that no one around here would speak for sexual offenders of any ilk (there were even a few who didn't want to be quoted as saying they wouldn't ever be quoted). In fact, no one would even tell me how much it might cost to make his or her company come around.

"It's a great question," says Jane Keairns, president of the local chapter of the Public Relations Society. "We don't have an official position, but I can present it to our board." When informed she is the president of the association and that she certainly must have a feeling one way or the other, she tells me she's not in a position to give me an answer. When I ask her if sexual predators - even ones who might be unjustly labeled as such - are just too hot for people in her line of work to get close to, she tells me, "Ultimately, it's an interesting point," which is PR speak for: "I'm not going to answer your question."

So the people who are paid to run their mouths for a living are essentially speechless. Michael Jackson had a team of publicists working around the clock trying to repair his image - and no one took the jabs like Jacko - so there must be a price. However, in Iowa, which we tend to think of as being steeped in old-fashioned values and family friendly, it's possible that no amount of money could help the cause of those labeled as sexual predators.

In Missouri, earlier this year and after much legal squabbling, the Ku Klux Klan was finally allowed to participate in the state's highway clean-up program. They wanted a sign that read: "These two exceptionally clean miles of highway are brought to you by good God-fearing Klan folk of the Southern Missoura Klaven." Never mind that the people, who think the sins of a mixed mongrel race will be atoned for on the Great Day of the Rope, are despicable, the Klan got its word out there and was able to position itself as more than just a bunch of nigger haters. Now they hate litter, too.

But if a sexual offender wanted to pick up trash in Iowa or have a peace walk or start a community garden or hold an art show, would he or she get a chance to tell his or her story? Or is it too difficult to get past the words "sexual offender"? It goes without saying that the Klan is organized and likely has access to huge sums of money. But it's still not a popular position to take - despite that what they are doing, in the litter case anyway, is something positive. And that's the problem, according to the Iowa State University Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication's Director Michael Bugeja.

"One predator is too many. One Amber Alert is too many," Bugeja says. "But from time to time there are issues that scare us so badly that the amount of fiery opinion attached to the issue makes it impossible to see that these cases are individual ones."
Bugeja says he's very concerned with people who have made definitive decisions about something without first-hand knowledge, telling me that, from a PR standpoint, "How do you fix something when opinion is more important than fact?"

Disregard all of the men and women who have gone through the system only to be released with the stigma dogging them stronger than ever, what about the guy who grabbed a young girl by the wrist because he almost hit her with his car and wanted to get her out of the street? He's a sexual offender. Or the 17-year-old kid who had sex with a 15-year-old whom he eventually married and started a family with? He's a sexual offender. But can they wash it off, or even dilute it a little? No. Why? Because no one is concerned with what's below the headline. And no one, save for the ACLU (which is busy enough trying to help sexual offenders find places to live), is interested in helping tell the other side of the story.

"Molesters may be excluded from the suburbs," the daily paper informed me last week. And that means all of them. No one would touch them with a 10-foot pole, let alone pipe up and say, "This guy is no monster," or, "This lady is reformed." Not even for a price. When it comes to sexual predators, it's simply better to say nothing at all.CV

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