Bad Science, Gillian McKeith and a PR disaster – another lesson in how not to use social media

As a growing list of public figures are learning through harsh experience, the days of foolproof reputation management are over. It’s become clear that with an unmonitored voice through the medium of Twitter, the smallest misjudgment by a well-known name is done in dangerously full view of the public, with often far reaching consequences.

The latest to fall foul of the tweeter’s first rule  - think before you type - is self-styled holistic health guru Gillian McKeith. For those unfamiliar with her work, McKeith is a prime time TV celebrity and successful author who has made a name for herself advising the overweight, under-exercised and nutritionally challenged. Her herbal supplements, cereal bars and powders are sold in health food shops throughout the country, and it is the questionable claims made about these products that first brought her to the attention of Ben Goldacre: a London-based science journalist on a mission to expose bad science in whatever forms it might take. Goldacre has had McKeith firmly in his sights for a while and his book, the aptly named Bad Science, devotes a chapter to a detailed challenge to her scientific credibility.

So persistent has been his campaign to expose McKeith, that in 2007 a reader of Goldacre’s blog (www.badscience.net) complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about McKeith’s use of the title ‘Doctor’, as her PhD was obtained via a correspondence course from the non-accredited and now obsolete American Holistic College of Nutrition in Birmingham, Alabama. Having been strongly positioned by Channel Four as ‘Dr Gillian McKeith, Clinical Nutritionist’ her star somewhat fell when it became clear that her certified membership of the American Association of Nutritional Consultants was essentially meaningless, as demonstrated by her old adversary Goldacre buying the same membership online for his dead cat for $60.

Last week’s adventures began innocently, with a woman called Rachel Moody tweeting that she was about to start reading the McKeith chapter from Bad Science. Her remark triggered a series of angry reply tweets from McKeith, accusing Goldacre of being a liar and Moody of being anti-American, in reference to criticism of McKeith’s PhD qualification.

 
Being new to Twitter and perhaps realizing the seriousness of her accusations McKeith then deleted the tweets, unaware that nothing can ever truly be erased from the internet – not least because there are those among us with the foresight to take screen shots of such salacious events as they unfold  (the one above comes via http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/gillian_mckeith_does_not_have.php.)

There then followed another series of tweets written in the third person, as if to suggest that someone other than McKeith was at the controls. Those tweets were then also deleted. Finally, and most bizarrely, the last tweet, which remains to this day: “Do you actually believe this is real twitter site for the GM (sic)?” Sadly the answer is a definite yes, as the Twitter feed was linked to her official website and Facebook accounts. Those links have since also been removed, seemingly in an effort to leave no trace of this unpleasant and potentially damaging episode.

Goldacre’s potential libel case against McKeith is a very real possibility, but in the meantime he has offered to discuss directly any concerns about his accusations via an unedited podcast. No response so far. And the flurry of activity on @gillianmckeith seems also to have ground to a halt, the final word from 14th July being ‘the moral of the story: Love your neighbour and your enemies too’.

One other moral that Gillian should bear in mind – use Twitter with care.

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