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Papa John's PR firm targets bloggers

Papa John’s public relations firm has been tracking down bloggers who write posts about the pizza mogul’s comments on Obamacare for months and asking them to correct or remove their posts.

The national crisis PR firm Sitrick and Co. targets bloggers who have written about Papa John’s founder and CEO John Schnatter saying that because of Obamacare, pizzas would have to go up in price about 11-14 cents and individual franchises would have to close stores and cut jobs. Schnatter did not make either of those claims, Sitrick and Co. chair Mike Sitrick says.

Sitrick told POLITICO that his firm has been in contact with a few dozen bloggers — but no major publications — about their posts on the subject and that most have either corrected the items or removed them entirely once the “mischaracterized” quotes are brought to their attention.

He and his associates point bloggers to Schnatter’s November 2012 op-ed in The Huffington Post, where the pizza mogul wrote that he “never said” hours, jobs or stores would be cut as a result of Obamacare. The post includes a transcript of Schnatter’s exchange with the reporter.

As for the pizza price issue, Sitrick informs bloggers that it is a mischaracterization of a quote from an investor call last year. During the call, Schnatter said the company estimated the costs would likely go up "but our business model and unit economics are about as ideal as you can get for a food company to absorb Obamacare, ergo, we have a high ticket average with extremely high frequency of order counts, millions of pizzas per year.” Schnatter made headlines for his comments and he was widely mocked by late-night comedians such as Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart for his take on the impact of Obama’s health care law on Papa John’s.

The PR firm hasn’t had to send out too many requests since the op-ed ran, Sitrick said, but did reach out to one website last week. Blogger Will Stabley wrote an article about an Aug. 9, 2012 segment on CNN called “Fact-checking Papa John’s CEO.” The piece concluded that Schnatter’s estimate “came out of the oven a little bit too soon” and said the pizza increase claim was false. Stabley picked up on the clip on Jan. 25, writing an item headlined “CNN confirms Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter was lying about ObamaCare price increases.”

In response, Sitrick told Stabley that he mischaracterized Schnatter’s comments and asked that he correct his post or remove it.

“The remarks that are the subject of your post and an answer to a question he was asked while speaking to a college class have unfortunately been mischaracterized by some in the media. (See Mr. Schnatter’s Huffington Post op-ed which is attached.) Where we have seen these mischaracterization we have asked for a correction or that the story be taken down. Fortunately, in virtually all of these cases, we have been dealing with responsible journalists who have done just that. (We somehow missed the CNN story about which you wrote.),” Sitrick wrote in an email to Stabley. “We would request, Mr. Stabley, given that the information is demonstrably false about what Mr. Schnatter that you do the same, preferably removing the post.”

Stabley said he never replied to the email or heard from Sitrick again. Sitrick, however, wrote Stabley a follow-up email asking, "Am I correct that the story you are referring to was broadcast in August?"

“It's interesting that Papa John's went after Stabley Times for relaying what CNN reported, but never went after CNN for the original report,” Stabley wrote in an email. “Of course they claim to have ‘somehow missed’ the CNN story.”

Sitrick, meanwhile, said Schnatter’s comments have been “completely distorted” by some bloggers and that his firm has been on the lookout for blogs that relay the misconstrued quotes since last year. There have been noticeably fewer blogs tackling the subject since Schnatter published his November op-e, Sitrick said, but when posts appear, his firm gets in touch.

“When we see these blogs come up, we send them notes and overwhelmingly, with very few exceptions, they apologize and remove it,” he said.

As for Stabley’s blog post, Sitrick said he found it especially interesting because it was based on a report from August. “It’s not particularly timely,” he said of Stabley’s January item.

Sitrick's firm started working for Papa John's in mid-November, and only after the firm was retained did the company begin to reach out to bloggers.

While Sitrick said most bloggers accommodate the request and clarify the quote or remove their posts, Stabley wrote a post on Jan. 26 about his contact with the firm. The post was headlined, “Papa John’s targets journalists, asking that ObamaCare coverage be taken down.”