One former aide suggested that Mr. Giuliani had little to gain in fighting with victims' families and faced the prospect of unflattering publicity.

Besant and the rest of the International Leadership of the Society largely managed to contain the dissenters and the controversy, but in the process sustained unflattering publicity.

Thus some Democrats say that the increased public scrutiny of the party's fund-raising machine will, at minimum, most likely bring unflattering publicity for the governor and his allies.

In spite of the unflattering publicity that Mr. Chavis's ouster may give the N.A.A.C.P. in the short run, longtime supporters said no lasting damage had been done.

The first part of the inspector general's inquiry, which was released in September, assailed the Navy's official inquiry into the episode, asserting that senior Navy officials had deliberately undermined their own investigation to avoid unflattering publicity.

A mudbath of unflattering publicity followed.

At the root of this practice, recruiters and lawyers say, is the unending drive by corporations to quell unflattering publicity and to control their image as thoroughly as possible.

Faced with unflattering national publicity, Harvard set up a committee of faculty members, administrators, students and employees to look at the situation of its low-wage workers and make recommendations.

Occasionally sobbing, Mr. Biaggi told the court that he had been punished enough as he endured the hostile testimony and unflattering publicity of his trial.

With the governor concluding it was best to stay home, given the unflattering publicity trailing him, Ms. Rell was there, aglow in a sparkling blue dress, representing the administration.