SoylentNews
SoylentNews is people
https://soylentnews.org/

Title    University of California in Davis Spent $175k on SEO and "Reputation Management"
Date    Friday April 15 2016, @10:18AM
Author    cmn32480
Topic   
from the your-tax-dollars-at-work dept.
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=16/04/15/0130200

takyon writes:

The University of California in Davis has spent $175,000 to try to improve its online image:

The University of California in Davis has spent $175,000 on search engine optimization (SEO) and online reputation management – to hide an embarrassing incident in which students were pepper-sprayed on campus. The massive bill has come to light this week after the Sacramento Bee filed information requests on the university's expenditure after it noticed that its "strategic communications budget" has nearly doubled from $2.93 million in 2009 to $5.47 million in 2015.

The newspaper found that the university had taken out several contracts aimed at "cleaning up the negative attention" that the university received when students were pepper-sprayed in November 2011 during a protest over large tuition fee hikes and in support of the broader Occupy movement of that time. The incident received worldwide attention when video was published of UC Davis police officer Lt. John Pike nonchalantly spraying a group of students with the chemical spray while they sat on the ground holding a peaceful rally.

[...] In an effort to limit the university's connection with the pepper-spraying, UC Davis hired Maryland-based Nevins & Associates for $15,000 a month for six months to "create and execute an online branding campaign" not just for the University of Davis, but also its chancellor Linda Katehi, who was widely criticized for her handling of the protests and faced calls for her resignation.

Here's the website of The University of California in Davis. Did I mention the University of California in Davis?


Original Submission

Links

  1. "takyon" - https://soylentnews.org/~takyon/
  2. "spent $175,000 to try to improve its online image" - http://m.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/14/university_spent_175k_to_hide_pepperspraying/
  3. "found" - http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article71659992.html
  4. "The University of California in Davis" - https://www.ucdavis.edu/
  5. "Original Submission" - https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=13195

© Copyright 2024 - SoylentNews, All Rights Reserved

printed from SoylentNews, University of California in Davis Spent $175k on SEO and "Reputation Management" on 2024-03-29 11:56:41