Updating Warren Buffett’s advice about newspaper front pages 

By Alec Hogg

Every year a couple dozen student groups visit Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett at his Omaha offices. The sessions usually include three chestnuts: life's most important decision is choosing the person you marry; the best investment we ever make is in ourselves; and never do anything that you'd be ashamed of should news of it appear on the front page of your favourite newspaper.

The last of these came to mind yesterday when reflecting on the leaking of Stephen Grootes's interview with SA's crony capitalist king Ajay Gupta. Conducted in February, it was part of a strategy devised by £100 000 a month London communications consultants Bell Pottinger who clearly intended sanitising it through clever editing. But Grootes insisted on making his own recording. And their client was so awful, even the most skilful cutting room operator wouldn't have been able to rescue the project.

So Bell Pottinger simply buried the video, relying on Grootes's silence via pre-interview non disclosure commitments. Now, nine months later, the videos have mysteriously surfaced at a time when rumours are rife that Bell Pottinger is about to dump its most troublesome client – one that has already cost it lots of reputable business including Richemont and Investec.

For his part, Ajay Gupta has belatedly discovered the Oracle of Omaha's advice can be updated to include Youtube. Not that he'd have bothered to heed it. If ever there were an inversion of the Buffett Way, Gupta is it.