Posted on April 17th, 2009
The loss of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver is like a death in the family. It’s the missed conversations, the lost holidays and the sense that something is not there that should be there. You feel this deep sense of loss months after the death of a parent, sibling, spouse or good friend. I’m just now really appreciating what the Rocky meant to me. My sense of loss is greater now than the day the publications ceased.
Like many consumers of news, I am a creature of habit. I’m an early riser. I’ve always been an early riser. My time as a newspaper boy for the Syracuse Post-Standard got me in to that habit way back when. These days as I head out to my driveway to pick up the morning papers, something is missing. Up until February 27th I saw gathering of newspapers greeting me each morning. Now every morning that small pile of papers has been reduced by one with the closure of The Rocky Mountain News. With the demise of the Rocky, I’m feeling a true sense of loss every time I head out to grab the morning news.
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Posted on September 24th, 2008
It’s tough to be the official spokesperson when a crisis strikes an organization. Emotions always run very high when something really bad happens. That was never more evident than in the case of Denise Tyrrell who was the spokesperson for the Metrolink commuter rail system in Southern California. On the afternoon of September 12, 2008 Metrolink Train 111 collided head-on with a Union Pacific freight train near Chatsworth, California after apparently blowing through a red stop signal on the track. 25 people died and 135 were injured in one of the most horrific commuter train accidents in recent memory. Battle-tested firefighters who have seen all matter of death and destruction were brought to tears as they described the rescue effort to reporters. Within 24 hours of the incident, the emotions of the tragedy brought Metrolink to make one of the most common mistakes in crisis management: Metrolink jumped the gun by assessing blame.
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Posted on March 12th, 2008
The sad, shameful and sudden fall of Eliot Spitzer is grist for so many mills that it will defy the 24 hour news cycle; the commentariat will grind away on the private and public agony of the disgraced crusader longer than your average scandal. It is just so rich with irony, so inexplicable, so salacious and the humiliation of the man so profound that it is simply irresistible.
The agony, of course, is not Eliot Spitzer’s alone. There, by his side, through two short but certainly excruciating public statements, stood his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer. The chorus of disbelief heard immediately. Most incredulous were other women. Why? Why would this accomplished, intelligent woman stand by a man who had plunged her into the misery of his indiscretions? Conjecture and comment from the talking heads and knowing but typically anonymous quotes from sources supposedly close toMs.Wall Spitzer are the hottest sidebar to the scandal story. (more…)
Posted on February 20th, 2008
Major League pitcher Roger Clemens invested more than four hours of his time before a Congressional Committee denying the use of performance enhancing drugs. About a week later, his former teammate and friend Andy Pettitte spent less than an hour talking to the media about his admitted use of Human Growth Hormone (HGH). When you do the math, Pettitte got a much better return on his investment of time and effort.
Both Pettitte and Clemens were among the 89 current and former Major League baseball players named in the Mitchell Report as users of steroids and HGH. Former U.S. Senator George Mitchell took 20 months to investigate the use of illegal drugs in America’s pastime. For the most part, players like Clemens and Pettitte did not meet with Mitchell or answer questions for the report. In the case of Clemens and Pettitte, their former trainer Brian McNamee was the source for much of the reports very damning information that the two elite pitchers, one a sure Hall of Famer, had used performance enhancing drugs.
In the court of public opinion you are judged by your deeds (or alleged deeds). This is balanced by something else that is often difficult to measure: your bank of good will. Using the controversy surrounding the use of performance enhancing drugs in sports is a very good way to explain this concept. Let’s start with Barry Bonds. (more…)
Posted on January 19th, 2008
The traditional news media are in turmoil. The old line distribution platforms- print television and radio, are struggling in the business office and in the newsroom. The people responsible for the bottom-line are desperately trying to recalibrate their business models and the folks in the newsroom are just as desperately trying to remain relevant.
Blame it, of course, on the internet.
The desperation in the business office is having an impact on how you are covered by the media, but we will leave that for another day. Let’s focus on the struggle in the newsroom.
Print, television and radio are working hard to straddle two platforms; one foot is planted on the newsroom’s traditional form of distribution, the other on the internet. The first foot is firmly planted and the newsrooms are confident of their footing. Whatever you might think about their journalistic standards and how they apply them, the fact is that standards exist; reporters, editors and producers can articulate them and those standards are remarkably similar newsroom to newsroom.
That second foot is on shifting sand. There are no firm, commonly accepted, widely applied principles, yet, about the practice of online journalism. If they are honest about it, journalists working online will tell you they are experimenting.
As each new medium has appeared, standards and practices applied to that medium evolved as its practitioners explored and exploited the new possibilities it presented. So it is online.
What are the defining characteristics of online journalism?
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Posted on October 31st, 2007
The Colorado Rockies had an amazing run through the Major League Baseball playoffs before falling in four consecutive games to the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. What wasn’t so amazing was the public relations mess that the team created in selling tickets to the World Series games that were to be hosted in Denver. The team made a decision to sell the tickets on-line. For two consecutive days, the Rockies mumbled, bumbled, fumbled and stumbled their way through a ticket selling process that tried the patience of any fan looking to buy a ticket over the internet. 8.5 million hits to the Rockies website in the first 90 minutes of ticket selling on Day One brought the ticket selling apparatus to its knees. The Rockies tried again the next day and did sell all of its allotment of tickets, but not before further angering fans and committing several public relations offenses.
You don’t have a crisis unless you create victims and the Rockies managed to create thousands of victims all across Colorado. For those who attempted to buy from home or work, thousands of hours of productivity were lost as people sat at their computers and watched the screens go blank as they attempted to buy tickets. This was true the first day and on the second day of ticket sales. For anyone living in Colorado, if you didn’t experience it yourself, you likely knew at least ten people who were shut out by the computer snafu. (more…)
Posted on September 28th, 2007
You know the story. The Idaho Senator pled guilty to charges stemming from a sex sting operation in an airport men’s room. The lid stayed on that story for a couple months until the news was broken by a guy who spends his time outing public figures he believes are closeted gays.Once the news broke, Senator Craig declared it was all a big mistake. He was not soliciting sex in the Minneapolis airport; he pled guilty because, he has said through his attorney, he was panicked about an investigation being conducted by his home state’s leading newspaper alleging that he is…gay.
His choices, it is safe to assume, are equally unpalatable. Wage a legal battle to clear your name and fight to keep your Senate seat while the 24 hour news cycle broadcasts and publishes and blogs endlessly the lurid details of your men’s room arrest. Or, go quietly. Go home to Idaho. Home to private life and let the salacious matter fade from the front page but live with the knowledge that everyone believes you did solicit sex from an undercover cop.
Which choice are you going to make, Senator Craig? Which choice do your family and friends and staff want you to make? There must be intense debate. Should you fight to clear your name, save your political career and hold onto your Senate seat?
Meanwhile, the conventional wisdom is you’re doomed. Your political career is over. You can’t remain in the Senate.
Is that Senator Craig’s real goal? What is the outcome he really wants or believes he can achieve? (more…)
Posted on August 27th, 2007
Atlanta Falcon quarterback Michael Vick says he’s sorry. He’s sorry he lied to National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell. He’s sorry he deceived Falcon team owner Arthur Blank. He’s sorry he let down his teammates, fans and even kids who might view him as a role model. And he’s sorry he used bad judgment. All of these sentiments were expressed in a four and one-half minute news conference on the day Vick formally plead guilty in federal court to his role in a well publicized dog-fighting scandal. He did not take questions from reporters.
While most executives and business owners may rightly feel they will never be accused of anything as heinous as the crimes Michael Vick has pleaded guilty to, the Vick case does offer lessons to businesses and executives who find themselves guilty of poor behavior. Michael Vick the brand has been badly if not fatally broken. Michael Vick the business consists of a 10 year contract with the Falcons for $130-million. He also had millions in other endorsements including a deal with Nike that has since been nixed. A lot of businesses would love to have that sort of earning power. Michael Vick, like any business with a damaged reputation, must take some very carefully considered steps in order to recover even a portion of past glory. (more…)
Posted on August 7th, 2007
What a performance it was!
Destined to become must-see-viewing in every crisis communication consultant’s training seminar.
Bob Murray is the owner-operator of the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah where six miners have been trapped 1500 feet underground since the mine collapsed before dawn on Monday morning.
Murray violated every canon of crisis communications during a televised news conference Tuesday morning. In the course of the extended appearance on live national television Murray:
· Spent precious little time expressing concern for the trapped miners and their families.
· Spent comparatively little time explaining what was being done to reach the trapped miners.
· Devoted most of the news conference to arguing the disaster was the result of an earthquake, not a collapse of the mine itself.
· In the process of making his argument for earthquake versus structural failure of the mine, Murray contradicted scientists from the University of Utah and the National Earthquake Information Center who have suggested that seismograph readings registered at the moment of the collapse are more consistent with the failure of a mine than an earthquake that caused a mine collapse.
· Murray attacked the former head of the U.S. Mine Safety Administration, Davitt McAteer and another former federal mine safety official, Tony Oppegard, calling them “lackeys for the United Mine Workers” union.
· And Murray criticized the news media, singling out and the morning news on the Fox network and Seth Borenstein, a reporter for the Associated Press, for quoting the likes of McAteer and Oppegard who raised questions about mining practices at the Crandall Canyon Mine.
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Posted on July 16th, 2007
Whole Foods CEO John Mackey has built a remarkable business. My jaw still drops every time I walk in to a Whole Foods store. That’s one reason a seemingly customer-oriented, cool, together business like Whole Foods disappoints me when I hear their CEO completely lacking in common sense. Mackey’s anonymous participation in a Yahoo stock-market forum talking-up Whole Foods performance while trashing rival Wild Oats is a bit nutty. The tricky part for public relations professionals who represent Mackey and Whole Foods is how you defend this, at minimum, unethical behavior.
The SEC, FTC and a horde of lawyers will do what they have to do in determining if Mackey’s behavior was illegal. Legal or not, the result of “Rahodeb’s” postings on the Yahoo site is a loss of corporate reputation, the certain death of the proposed merger with Wild Oats and at some point it could mean Whole Foods says “bye bye” to its founder and CEO. (more…)
