ANY self-respecting journalist will shudder at the prospect of getting a terse ‘no comment’ from the subject of their latest exclusive.

It’s bad for the reporter (s/he looks easily fobbed off); bad for the story (it looks unbalanced); and bad for the subject (s/he/it looks like they have something to hide).

Our advice to any client, almost whatever the circumstances, would always be: “don’t say nothing, at least say something”.

To stay schtum or refuse to comment can sound the death knell for reputation.

We thought this lesson had been well-learnt by the media-savvy corporate world – until this week.

That was until the giant computer company Fujitsu, the employment agency Kelly Services and Her Majesty’s Customs and Revenue all combined to commit the cardinal sin.

In triplicate.

The occasion? The story which appeared exclusively in the Liverpool Daily Post about 20 agency workers with Fujitsu, who were sacked with just half an hour’s notice after up to eight years service – and without getting a penny in redundancy payments to their names.

We declare our interest at this point: Sound Communication is project managing this North West TUC campaign and produced the press release upon which the Post story was based.

We had been speculating about how the three organisations involved might respond to the accusation of the “exploitation” of the agency workers, working on the multi-million pound Government contract.

This is how the Post prominently reported it:

“Fujitsu, which employs 116 of its own permanent staff at the office which handles tax returns for HM Revenues and Customs, last night refused to comment.

HMRC also refused to comment and Kelly Services did not respond to a request for comment.”

Unfortunate that the well-staffed press offices of all three organisations could not manage to formulate a single sentence in reply to the 20 agency workers. For it leaves the strong impression that the sacked staff were the hapless victims of corporate greed and naked exploitation.

Or as one of the workers remarked to us: “No wonder they didn’t say anything: they can’t defend the indefensible.”

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