You could call Michael Sitrick a master of disaster.
But rather than wreaking havoc, the public relations wizard from Los Angeles often works in disaster’s wake to redirect any resulting negative information before — or shortly after — media bloodhounds get their paws on it.
“What a spin doctor does,” Sitrick writes in his recently published book, “Spin: Turning the Power of the Press to Your Advantage” (Regnery Publishing, $24.95), “is figure out a way to get (a story) to go where he’d like it to go — or at least get it to lose interest in going where he’d rather it not poke its nose.”
Sitrick, a former TV, radio and newspaper reporter and speech writer for Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, has “spun” stories during some of the most highly publicized crises in the country for some of the biggest names and corporations in the business and entertainment worlds, including: Kim Basinger, Kelsey Grammer, Don King, Barneys New York department stores and Wickes companies.