What makes news? Sex scandal is always on the front cover!

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As much as I’ve tried, it’s been hard to avoid the Edison Chen sex-photo scandal for the past few weeks. The story has dominated headlines and gossip circles in the Hong Kong and Taiwan media (MAINSTREAM media, I must add). It even made it to the Toronto Star’s World section few days ago.

A friend of mine in Taiwan estimated that half of the Taiwanese population has seen the photos by now. So now let me recap for you:

In the end of January, pornographic photos, which show the 27-your-old actor-singer-clothing designer with Hong Kong female celebrities, surfaced on the internet.

These photos were apparently taken by Edison Chen himself, but were copied from his laptop when he took it to a shop for repair last year.

Hong Kong police had already arrested eight people for allegedly seizing the images and breaking obscene material laws.

Chen fled Hong Kong when the photos leaked out, and the females involved are not making comments.

From there, the media went WILD!This incident is somewhere on the front page, every single day. And with Taiwan’s presidential election only a month away, the story still makes in the prime time news for at least five minute every day.

Last year, in Media Relations class, I learned a newsworthy story must have some of the following elements: (In the News by William Wray Carney)

• Drama and emotion

  • The pictures first appeared on a paparazzi magazine in Hong Kong. Media was able to catch some very dramatic and emotionally moments from the parties involved.
• Odd or unusual
  • The parties involved are celebrities with “positive” images. It is very odd and unusual for their audience to see their personal life exposed that this..
• Local angle
  • Edison Chen is popular in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China entertainment business. Furthermore, he is born in Canada. So that would explain how the story made in Toronto Star.
• Topical, timely
  • The pictures are still circulating and police are still investigating.
• Conflict
  • Between people leaking the picture and Edison Chen.
  • Between media and Edison Chen. He wants people to stop circulating the pictures, but the more publicity this story has the more demanding these pictures become.
• Relevance to audience
  • I guess deep down, people like to gossip!
• Universal appeal
  • I don’t know if this story really has a universal appeal, but I guess everyone fears their privacy being exposed like this. Please comment, if you have a different angle.

This story indeed got quite a few elements on the list. Moreover, how Edison Chen handles this situation also heated up the media attention.

He did not step up in the beginning and manage this crisis. Instead, Chen decided to leave Hong Kong and stay away from the media buzz. Since the key participants are either out of reach or not commenting, and more and more pictures are surfacing on the internet, the media had a full blank canvas to paint. They elaborated the story on many different levels, and dug deeper and deeper into all participants’ history.

After a week of silence, Chen finally made a statement and distributed it through his own blog. However, many people questioned his sincerely after the statement, saying the footage looked like Bin Laden declaring a war. Chen was a victim of this invading of privacy crime, but his statement made him looked like a criminal.

What do you think? How could he have handle this better?

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Filed under Crisis Management, Media Relations