BlueSky Communications deletes association with Financial Post author from website

A quick break from our Vacation to bring you an update on the Financial Post story we profiled last week.

As you will recall, the Financial Post ran a story titled "Home is where the retirement money is". The author of the column was Denise Deveau.

On March 28th and March 29th we posted that sharp-eyed blogosphere sleuths had noticed that the article had failed to mention that the couple in the story happened to work for the very mortgage broker company that was so prominently profiled. With that knowledge, the article appears to be little more than a glorified ad for the mortgage broker. More disturbingly, the author  was a freelance reporter who appeared to work for two communications companies who specialize in gaining media attention for their clients.

We questioned whether or not this created a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest for the Financial Post.

This week the Financial Post corrected their website version of the article to note the connection between the couple and the company:

Meanwhile it appears the author's connections with one of those communications company's has now been erased.

BlueSky Communications promotes itself by telling clients that:

Whether we are securing regular media coverage for you, making you the topic of online discussions or developing impactful marketing pieces, our integrated, big-picture approach is intrinsically linked to where you want to bring your business... Our outstanding results speak for themselves. We are particularly talented in getting continuous media coverage for our clients that communicates directly to the target market. And after engaging us for a period of time, you will see the impressive impact media coverage has on your business.

One of BlueSky's employee's is/was Denise Deveau - the author of the Financial Post article and a freelance writer. Here is what BlueSky used to say Deveau could do for their clients:

Denise has over 20 years of journalism and corporate communications experience. She handles a wide variety of writing and research assignments in the high tech, financial services, retail, government, education, oil and gas, and consumer sectors Whether it’s a thought provoking article, or compelling marketing collateral, Denise is able to deliver an effective piece that will meet your business objectives.

We say "used to" because Deveau has been deleted from the BlueSky Communications website. Here are screenshots of the eight members of the BlueSky team from their website last week:

Deveau is in the second row, second person. When you clicked on the link to her name you were taken to this page which described Deveau's talents. Here is what it used to say:

Well... that's all gone now.

If you go to the BlueSky "team" page, any mention of Deveau has disappeared. Eight staff members have been reduced to seven:

And the BlueSky page that used to contain Deveau's profile now says 'Not Found':

Like from waves on the sandy beach, the tracks are slowly made to disappear. But the questions remain.

Was there an attempt to leverage benefit from the reporter's access to the media via her associations with various communications companies?

BlueSky Communications advertises that they "secure regular media coverage" for their clients and that Deveau was a member of their team who (up until this week) "is able to deliver an effective piece that will meet your business objectives."

This certainly appears to be exactly what the article in the Financial Post did for Invis - Team Rob Regan-Pollack.

Why has Deveau suddenly been deleted from the BlueSky Communications website?

And doesn't the Financial Post owe it's readers an explanation for exactly what happened here?

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