Up the Creek!

The 2025 Annual Reputation Eye awards, with the coveted Golden Eye for the organisation that’s managed to emerge from crisis smelling like roses, and the dreaded Brown Eye for the PR fail of the year. Contenders include perennial favorites, Optus, the BOM, several badly behaved bosses and the IVF clinic who put the right baby in the wrong body.

Up The Creek! explores the growing industry and reputational impact of AI, how the new media public interest defence will halt defamation payouts and the perils of marketing sponsorships.

Do politicians deserve any right to privacy, how the other internet giants pulled YouTube into a social media ban on children, and the reputational risk of attending a Coldplay concert, all in the latest episode of Up the Creek! Crisis experts Mark Forbes and Ben Haslem discuss the disappearance of privacy, with the Coldplay Kiss Cam that had the world, and Gwyneth Paltrow, talking. They discuss how a Victorian Liberal leader was effectively accused of beginning a relationship when his now wife was 17 and he was her tennis coach. A defamation case is looming.

In the latest episode of Up the Creek!, Icon Reputation Director Mark Forbes and Benjamin Haslem are in the trenches dissecting the gas lobby's attempts to turn the courts, and public opinion, against the greenies. Meanwhile, Rio Tinto is attempting reputation recovery by sponsoring Aboriginal activists, and how the AFL has flipped Tasmania’s political scene on its head.

In our new podcast Icon Reputation Director Mark Forbes and Benjamin Haslem to unpack where the Federal election was won and lost, How comedian Austen Tacious’s direct approach to tour PR earns the ire of the ABC, and how tech giant WiseTech’s problems are a throwback to scandals past.

Crisis experts Mark Forbes and Benjamin Haslem reveal their 2024 Up the Creek! awards, including the coveted Golden Eye for turning a pr sow’s ear into a silk purse and the Brown Eye for fail of the year. Across the PR and media landscape contenders include airlines, supermarkets, a rock icon, high profile radio stars and a disgraced shock jock.

This month Up the Creek! examines current media conflicts including Four Corners targeting Channel Seven and the reputational implications of constant media conflicts over culture, coverage and high-stakes defamation cases. We dissect Australia’s most besieged organisation, the CFMEU, and racism complaints casting a shadow over the AFL.

Up The Creek! Analyses Peter Dutton’s pitch to take Australia nuclear and why Labor is responding with 3-eyed fish memes, the circus of Julian Assange’s flight to freedom and the debacle of Joe Biden’s presidential debate - asking ask if Americans will choose the clown or the cadaver?   Icon Reputation can help you build, protect and enhance your reputation. Learn more at https://iconreputation.com.au/ Reach out for a confidential conversation Phone 03 9100 3191 Mobile 0419 583 892 [email protected]

Up The Creek! dissects Gina Reinhart’s enlistment of her sponsored swimmers to demand the removal of an “offensive” portrait from the National Gallery - demonstrating the ‘Streisand effect’ where attempted suppression only publicises. We also observe the Liberal Party scoring another own goal with women, and the sodden schmozzle of the UK Conservative’s election campaign.   Icon Reputation can help you build, protect and enhance your reputation. Learn more at https://iconreputation.com.au/ Reach out for a confidential conversation Phone 03 9100 3191 Mobile 0419 583 892 [email protected]

Our verdicts on the remarkable media revelations and reputational carnage from Bruce Lehrmann’s failed defamation action against Channel 10.

We dissect the ongoing controversy over invading Iraq based on false warnings of weapons of mass destruction, resurfaced by the mysterious disappearance of key intelligence assessments. We hear new revelations from Mark Forbes, who, as a journalist, was enmeshed in the affair after reporting an intelligence chief said the WMDs didn’t exist.

Mark Forbes and Benjamin Haslem dissect crises and recovery attempts, revealing the 2023 Reputation Eye awards, including the infamous Brown Eye for the PR fail of the year.