EXCLUSIVE: USA Swimming’s PR Firm, Ground Floor Media, Has Been Paid at Least $13,000 by the Office of the Colorado State Child Protection Ombudsman

by Irvin Muchnick

Documents obtained by Concussion Inc. through a state public records request reveal that Denver’s Ground Floor Media public relations firm — coordinator of a current $200,000 “crisis communications” campaign on behalf of USA Swimming to stem criticism of its handling of coach sexual abuse cases — has also been paid more than $13,000 in PR fees by the Colorado government’s two-year-old Office of the Child Protection Ombudsman.

The ombudsman, Dennis Goodwin, today emailed me five pages of what appear to be Ground Floor Media invoices to his office. The documents are viewable at http://muchnick.net/groundfloorinvoices.pdf.

Four of the pages show billings of, respectively, $5,527.50, $4,072.50, 1,815, and $1,196.25 — for a total $13,230. A fifth sheet (the second in the uploaded package) appears to be a narrative accounting of the $5,527.50 invoice.

We are awaiting response or comment from ombudsman Goodwin on two questions:

1. Is it appropriate for a state government agency to engage the services of a private public relations firm?

2. What is your rejoinder to those who say that a relationship with Ground Floor Media seems especially inappropriate in light of the apparent conflict with Ground Floor’s “crisis communications” services on behalf of USA Swimming (in regard to the organization’s responsibility for widespread allegations of sexual abuse by its coaches)?

P.S. 3:05 p.m. Pacific Time, August 16

Dennis Goodwin has given us the following statement:

FURTHER READING:

Read USA Swimming’s Shocking Internal Memo — Reducing Sex Abuse to a PR Headache