Accentuate the Positive, 3.0

Managing reputations in a vacuum is easy. But life is messy — and like sanitation engineers, our job is to make the work environment a little more livable for our execs, stakeholders, and stockholders.

Sometimes all it takes is one wrong click of the mouse. Eric Govan got bounced out of the Golden State Warriors PR department for sending an inappropriate e-mail to a rather large list. Since this happened in the same market as last year’s 49er training video debacle, the effect is somewhat magnified.

Sometimes, the ball bounces in your favor. At the Sundance premeire of “Thank You For Smoking,” Katie Holmes’ anticipated sex scene was nowhere to be found. The explanation is that the projectionist screwed up:

Jason Reitman isn’t mad at the projectionist he said accidentally eliminated Katie Holmes’ sex scene from a screening of “Thank You For Smoking.”

In fact, he joked that he deserves a raise.

Reitman said the mysterious disappearance during the Sundance Film Festival has been great publicity for the movie. He also understands why some people prefer to think Tom Cruise ordered him to cut the scene. Reitman said the problem with the term “projection error is that it’s the truth but it sounds like a lie.”

As it stands, that little bit of publicity may pique some needed curiousity. It’s not like Katie has millions of people thinking she’s been brainwashed by Tom’s Scientology buddies or anything.

Dick Cheney is the first Vice-President to shoot a man since Aaron Burr popped a cap in Alexander Hamilton. However, the real duel is being waged now in the media.

The first volley, much like the bird shot that hit Harry Whittington, is coming from the comedians. After all, this is fair game for comedy.

What may be more problematic is the response from anti-gun advocates James and Sarah Brady:

“Now I understand why Dick Cheney keeps asking me to go hunting with him,” said Jim Brady. “I had a friend once who accidentally shot pellets into his dog – and I thought he was an idiot.”

“I’ve thought Cheney was scary for a long time,” Sarah Brady said. “Now I know I was right to be nervous.”

There are times to use news pegs to plant your take in the media, but are these comments from the Bradys even on target?

Jim Brady, in consecutive sentences, appears to say that Cheney wants to shoot him in the woods. Then, he equates an accidental shooting with idiocy.

Which is it? Is Cheney a deliberate danger? Or is it really an accident?

Sarah’s comment also seems out of place. She thought he was dangerous, as though he had ever invited her hunting?

It’s also not as if Cheney was using a controversial automatic assault rifle, or even a handgun, which was at the center of the Brady cause and mission for so long:

The Brady Campaign, the Million Mom March and the Brady Center believe that a safer America can be achieved without banning all guns.

If you’re not going to ban all guns, then which ones do you leave in society? Hunting rifles and shotguns are too big to be concealed, and too specialized for criminal work. Cheney’s bird gun is the type of weapon that usually attracts the least concern and political heat (unless you’re from PeTA.)

That’s why the Bradys’ comment on this situation seems a little forced, smacks of partisanship, and could dilute their future impact. It plays to choir, and doesn’t appeal to the middle.

I’ve been fighting a nasty virus for the last few days, and have missed out on the chance to pipe in on the West Virginia mine tragedy, and the media disaster that followed. So here are a few opinions before I get to my take:

The Flack: “Should we blame the messenger? I don’t think so.”

Mason Cole: “In a chaotic situation, it’s terribly hard to get a good grip on the steering wheel. The more that can be done, though, the better the communications process usually work, and the more everyone affected can have assurance about what they’re dealing with. “

Kami Watson Huyse: “Clearly the International Coal Group, the company who ownes the mine, did not have an adequate crisis communications plan.”

Jeri Cartwright: “If nothing else, this tragic event should remind every CEO and PR person to assign someone to develop a communications crisis plan.”

Scatterbox: “There is no question that International Coal Group violated every standard of crises management. The company’s lack of preparedness and incompetence in managing communications both within and outside the unfolding tragedy will unfortunately be studied by PR and management executives for decades to come. But much of that lesson will focus on the increasingly understood possibility that competing news interests will run with miraculous but unconfirmed headlines like a raging herd of snorting, blind buffalo.”

Jeff Jarvis: “But now, in our age of instant news and ubiquitous communication, the public sees this process as it occurs. It’s not the news that’s live; it’s the process of figuring out what to believe that’s live.”

(Most of the above are found in my “Sez WHO?” reading list to the right. If you are one of those authors and I haven’t told you so, you guys are great.)

Let me now share my perspective.

During the initial aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I was working 18-hour days (In my Red Cross capacity.) I was literally chain-phoning, and the vast majority of my communication was incoming-external, to media. The remainder was internal, tracking down the latest information to feed those requests.

I am not a techno-boob. I was using Blackberry and e-mails to push as much information as possible. We were pushing media to a webpage, updated hourly with new shelter information. I was posting actualities and e-mailing them to radio stations, and that worked like a charm. I was leveraging everything I had.

What I couldn’t do was monitor everything that was going out. And sure enough, when a reporter (more likely a disc jockey) went crazy with imaginary information, it took me a while to find out about it. And it will drive you crazy, doing hours of interviews explaining why you can’t accept in-kind donations, only to find out a radio station is telling people what items to bring to your shelters.

Reporters will run with what they have — and many of them will do so based on their feeling that they “have enough.”

I’m not absolving the owners of the Sago mine for their lack of preparation. Lord knows there have been enough mining accidents to get national attention to prompt one to create a better plan. I am wondering, though, if preparation would have made a bit of difference in this case. Yes, the families had three hours of false hope. Do you think the media would have cared if it had only been an hour? Only 15 minutes? The “crushing heartache of false hope” still would have been the lead.

Had Sago corrected the issue promptly, there still would be the same criticisms going on right now. (Notice that no one is looking on this affair and saying “thank God it didn’t stretch to six hours.”) It’s unfortunate. Let’s learn from it. Let’s be prepared.

And God rest the souls of the lost, and the left behind.

I never did trust that little Elmo. Now I’ve got a reason.

A little background: my little girl just had to have an Elmo-themed birthday when she turned two. My wife made a lovely Elmo-cake, and we avoided Extreme Elmo saturation by going with the simple plates, napkins, and hats.

Being the dutiful parents, we took waaaaaaay too many pictures of the party, and only then discovered the evil that was lurking above the scalps of the innocent: Once you got a little elevation, you could clearly see the not-so-subliminal message from Elmo: Elmo wants you to die.

So, this really comes as no surprise to me: Toddler’s Talking Elmo Book Asks ‘Who Wants To Die?’

Family members said 16-month-old Miranda Boll’s new book, “Potty Time With Elmo,” was supposed to teach an interactive lesson using voice commands.

However, when the book’s buttons are pressed, it reportedly says something it is not supposed to — “who wants to die?”

Yikes!

Apparently, this thing has been floating around like a ticking media time bomb for awhile — one guy just sold his “collector’s item” on eBay. At some point, you’d think the publisher would have done something a little proactive, but no. Not a mention anywhere on the site for parents who might be inquiring about this. (Then again, I did have to search them out — it’s not like the media is even spreading their name around.)

Maybe Elmo’s outer fur is laced with some type of space-age spray-on Teflon polymer. He seems to slide right by, past the suspicions of unwitting parents across the world. I’m just glad that I have seen the light, and prevented the Little Red Menace’s nefarious mind-control powers from overwhelming my impressionable young son. My boy is at such a tender age, and I am so fortunate he is free from the evil. Here’s a picture of my boy…

Or maybe a million of them? Or 5,700,000 of them? That’s how many people ultimately got the rootkit spyware injected into their computers as a part of a copy protection scheme.

Angry consumers have already started stirring the pot with talk of a HolidayChristmas season boycott, and now the news gets worse for Sony. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is adding charges that the company violated anti-spyware laws.

The new charges brought by Abbott contend that MediaMax software used by Sony BMG to thwart illegal copying of music on CDs violated state laws because it was downloaded even if users rejected a license agreement.

Wow.

That’s going to take a while to recover from right there.

You can throw out all of the original apologies, because now it seems Sony had to know that it was digging around hard-drives. You don’t “accidentally” create an installer program that ignores the EULA.

The readers at Slashdot have already played out the same scenario, involving catfood.

Some have perfected the art of the stunt, and some haven’t.

One entity that has played the stunt card well is GoldenPalace.com. The internet casino has paid people to streak, box, and climb buildings wearing temporary “Golden Palace” tattoos.

You might be more familiar with the company’s rather unusual collection of weird eBay items, made famous at the end of most local newscasts.

The Jesus Cheeto

$22.50

The Christ Pierogi

$1,775

The Monster Flake

$156

Gigantor the Lemon

$29.99

The Pope Hat Dorito

$1,209

The Grilled Cheese Mary

$28,000

Well, here’s the latest:

The bat that all-time baseball hit leader Pete Rose used for his 159th home run will be sawed in half to determine if it was corked, according to the Internet casino that purchased the bat at auction for $103,631.

Mike Heffner, the president of Lelands auction house in New York, said before last week’s sale that the black Mizuno bat showed signs of having been corked.

GoldenPalace.com, the betting Web site, said in a statement that it will saw the bat in half to see if it’s been enhanced, an event that will raise money for charity and draw media attention for the casino.

Good for them. Not so good for Donald Trump.

Yeah, I’m picking on him again, for mixing his messages like he wants us to mix our drinks.

On this morning’s radio commentary, Trump talked about his late brother Fred who had problems with alcohol. He talked about his agonizing decision to lend “Brand Trump” to vodka, having seen the effects in Fred Trump’s life. Donald reasoned that someone else would be selling vodka if he didn’t, so he announced he’d be giving all of his vodka profits to MADD.

Funny — none of that altruism was mentioned three weeks ago when it was initially announced.

Sounds like a backstroke, Donald. Your PR people are fired. Again.

With a hurricane season of this past year’s magnitude, there are bound to be a lot of little lessons learned.

From communication lapses for communications companies, to the artful use of worst-case scenarios to manage expectations, you’ll find a mixed bag of PR success in the wake of Hurricane Wilma.

Like when Rome is burning, for instance… or when New Orleans is flooding.

The after-action reports on Hurricane Katrina are still quite preliminary, but already we’re getting a better view of exactly what did and did not happen in the days leading up to landfall. Worse, it seems as though the after-landfall response might have at times taken a backburner to political theater.

Even worse — a new batch of e-mails released by a congressional panel seems to suggest that the Lousiana Governor’s office was a little too preoccupied with perception, and not spending enough time on the actual reality.

In one e-mail, Blanco’s assistant chief of staff, Johnny Anderson, complained to her executive counsel and other staff members on Sept. 2 about the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s evacuation of thousands of Louisianans to other states.

“I think that we should make every effort to keep as many of our evacuees in state as possible,” Anderson wrote.

“It is not acceptable to allow FEMA to send more people out of state than in state. That will come back to haunt us,” he said. “You send that many black folks out of state, we will have a perception problem. Why can’t we make every effort to send folk to the northern part of the state. Word is already (sic) that we are only sending blacks out of this state. We are make (sic) a strategic error. FEMA will not have to answer the people, we will.”

It seems as though the new release was meant to level things out, as the committee didn’t want to create a perception that then-FEMA director Mike Brown was the only suit thinking about suits.

Today’s release of e-mails seemed to signal a new line of criticism — one aimed at creating parity among Brown and Blanco, equally preoccupied with their images and equally detached from the suffering unfolding around them.

“Please put KBB in casual clothes, a baseball cap, etc. she needs to visit a shelter in prime time and talk tough, but hug on some folks and be sensitive,” consultant Liz Mangham, of the Southern Strategy Group of Louisiana, messaged Blanco’s press office five days after the storm hit.

“She looks tired, but too comfy in her suit,” Mangham advised. “Please put the secretaries in caps and jeans….I don’t care if they are in the field or not … they should look like they are.”

Of course, there are claims by both Blanco’s and Brown’s camps that these selective releases of communications are distorting the real picture.

I can certainly understand the importance of projecting an image of calm and of unity. You want the public to have confidence in what you are doing, or else you’re allowing an unnatural panic to hinder the effort. But this is just the sort of event that can make the public at large distrust the motives of a PR practitioner. Wrapping truth in easily digestible bites is an art, and a necessary one — as long as you aren’t substituting the wrapper for the truth.

So much of this could have been mitigated with a simple e-mail response that said “I’m a little busy to worry about clothing right now…” Anything that would have indicated a semblance of the sort of priorities the people would expect.

For future reference: Keep PR in the proper perspective… and remember that the internet leaves a wonderful paper trail.

Within a week after the landfall of Hurricane Katrina, and while I was still deep in “Red Cross mode,” I got a lot of questions about FEMA.

Actually, the questions were more along the line of “Whose fault was this,” and more often than not, they were pitched my way from our shelter guests.

The best answer I could give them was that it really wasn’t anyone’s fault. When pressed about FEMA’s role, my answer today is the same as the answer I had then — “FEMA probably would have messed some things up, but it was already botched before it got to that level.”

Now, a congressional inquiry is examining thousands of documents related to that time frame.

The Louisiana documents released late Friday revealed delays and state claims that requests for federal help weren’t received, and reflected partisan battling between the Republican Bush administration and Blanco, a Democrat.

The Mississippi documents, though only a handful were released, showed no political tensions between local officials and Washington. But FEMA officials in the state were among the first to admit that needs weren’t being met.

The most serious external issue here is the total political breakdown between levels. I call that an external issue because there’s only so much an organization can do if another can’t or won’t cooperate.

The most serious internal issue for FEMA — the one they did have the power to handle — was their poor management of public expectations.

There’s a big public perception of FEMA as this superhuman agency, with tens of thousands of relief workers, and helicopters that drop gold dubloons. “Here comes the cavalry, to shower us with money and freshly built replacement homes.” In reality, FEMA is a ragtag band of anti-bureaucrats, who collectively have a better track record than most red-tape-jockeys when it comes to actually getting things done. There just aren’t enough of them (nor is there a need for enough of them) to meet the impossibly high standards we’ve imagined.

FEMA did a poor job of communicating what it does, plain and simple. Residents in hurricane zones wouldn’t be shaking their fists in anger if they understood that a lot of the lack of movement was someone else’s bailiwick. They’d be more understanding if they understood the process — and here is where FEMA failed horribly.

Actually, that’s just one place FEMA failed. But I’ll have something to say about Mike Brown later…

Months after the Armstrong Williams debacle, the Bushies are getting slapped for a Pentagon program that is designed to influence Iraqi media.

There is a key difference, though. The article describes the plan as “propaganda,” and rightly so. However, this CNN article dances a little around the notion that we are somehow throwing money at Iraqi reporters:

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Virginia, said the program, which pays to plant favorable stories with Iraqi journalists and newspapers, is a serious problem.

The idea of “paying to plant stories” is made out to be the equivalent of moral bankruptcy. Yet, isn’t that what businesses and governments do to the tune of billions of dollars every year?

Setting aside any partisanism — this article sets a bad precedent for the modern PR practitioner. Why would firms bother keeping track of media hits if it wasn’t part of their job to effectively place stories?

One of the companies involved — the Washington-based Lincoln Group — has at least two contracts with the military to provide media and public relations services. One contract, for $6 million, was for public relations and advertising work in Iraq and involved planting favorable stories in the Iraqi media, Defense Department records show.

If we stashed cash in the hands of Iraqi reporters and editors, then shame on them and shame on us. Given the newfound freedoms after decades of being a state-run media, it frankly wouldn’t even surprise me to see the opportunism rear its ugly mug. But looking at what was written in this piece, I don’t even see this as an allegation.

Paying PR professionals to do there what they are free to do here is not a contradiction. We are long past the day of the bomber dropping leaflets — fax machines and e-mail are the smartest bombs of all.

There’s something about that word that still rubs a lot of people the wrong way, yet there are those who put adverstising and marketing dollars behind it.

Ghetto Fries, it turns out, are French-fried potatoes topped with Merkt’s cheddar cheese, giardiniera, gravy, barbecue sauce and raw onions.

Apparently, the PR firm touting the fries got a little overzealous relying on the shock value of ‘ghetto’:

“GOT GHETTO? Max’s Famous Italian Beef Serves Gotta-Have Ghetto Fries,” shouted the publicist’s headline.

“Got Ghetto on the brain?” the release continued. “You’re not alone,” then went on to describe the aforementioned Ghetto Fries as a “dish that has captured the attention and appetites of Chicagoans from the North to South sides.”

Today, we add one more reason why smart celebrities and athletes should get media training and interview coaching (past examples here, and here, and here.):

So you can avoid becoming the next Terrell Owens. The talented wide receiver may be one of the best in the game, but he doesn’t think he’s among the best compensated.

Head Coach Andy Reid sent him home for a week for mouthing off. (Yeah Terrell, we know he yelled at you first. That’s what coaches do.) Reid told the media that he wouldn’t have any further comment on the matter — that the next conversation about it would be between himself and Owens. Fair enough.

Did Owens adopt a similar strategy? No way! With his agent by his side, Owens went on ESPN for more than eight minutes last night and blasted the team and the coach and the ownership and the media. It’s all our fault that he isn’t treated like an adult.

Had he sat there silently while agent Drew Rosenhaus did all the talking, it would have made for a better appearance. But this was more about “not getting disrespected.” Never mind that the whole thing is a turn-off for the fans who can forgive his salary if he performs on the field.

T.O. needs to G-O and find some media coaching, and fast. Especially since he was recently with the San Francisco 49ers, and we know the quality of the media training players got there.

If you’re going to deflect a reporter to a spokesperson, make sure it’s not a dead end.

The board of directors of the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club in New York is on the hot seat. A former board member (who was one of the go-to-guys in launching liberal talk network Air America) is now being investigated for redirecting more than half-a-million dollars in grant money and “investing” it in the Air America startup.

Air America has been quick to point out that it is under new ownership, and has the appearance of deniability.

The current Gloria Wise board is running into trouble, though. Hugh Hewitt at the Weekly Standard tried getting some answers:

My producer and I have spent a lot of time trying to get a member of the board on the record about the investment. The only one who agreed to talk to us referred us to Rubenstein Public Relations. An assistant to Richard Rubenstein called me to relay that he didn’t know anything about the “Gloria Wise story.” Odd.

Either there is a huge disconnect in protocol at Rubenstein (which I highly doubt,) or someone is trying to buy some time.

To make matters worse, the article didn’t mention which board member had been approached, so now this little cloud of avoidance is hanging over all of them, until it gets cleared up.

We’ve seen in the Richard Scrushy case how important your pre-trial PR posture can be. Looking like you’re ducking tough questions is not the way to get there.

The Office of Corporate Counsel holds a lot of sway in many businesses, but isn’t immune to big PR blunders.

Many times, the office lawyer nixes promotional ideas for potential liability, and even parses your media communications for trivial little changes. That level of internal authority can give the J.D. a bulletproof mentality, especially when it comes to ignoring the expertise of the PR practitioner. Face it… when was the last time the boss told counsel to “hold off” while the public relations department pondered the action?

Well… it should have happened in Baltimore. A Greyhound bus crash injured 34 people there on Monday. While the victims were still hospitalized, Greyhound lawyers combed the hospital looking for people to sign a liability waiver — offering at least one person “medical expenses plus $2,500.”

I’m sure the corporate suits saw this as a no-brainer, and a way to avoid some costly suits. But the strategy did not sit well with passenger Chris Childs:

“I thought it was tacky. It basically matched how I feel about the company,” said Childs, 36, who has retained a lawyer. “I never figured somebody would offer you money on the day of the accident.”

Now, the company will spend an undetermined sum (in time and cash) to re-build a positive image. The bus crash is an accident, and can be forgiven. Sending the sharks into the E.R. is willful, and hard to forget.

In typical fashion, Greyhound’s PR representative had to clean up a mess long after the roads had re-opened:

When asked about Childs’ account, Greyhound spokeswoman Kim Plaskett said that any passengers who want to complain about customer service should call the customer-assistance line at 214-849-8966.

“I can’t confirm what happened in the emergency room,” said Plaskett.

“I can say Greyhound representatives did go to the hospital to make sure they were taken care of.”

…and in typical fashion, the Office of Corporate Counsel gagged her. Hey lawyer-types, when it comes to protecting corporate image, “leave the driving to us.”

…and know when to fold ‘em.

Especially when your name is Kenny Rogers. He’s the pitcher for the Texas Rangers who is fighting a 20-game suspension for assaulting a cameraman *before* pregame warmups. This guy is a walking, talking advertisement for the benefits of media training.

Rogers was booked on the 18th on his midemeanor assault charges, and what did he do?

Surely, he didn’t accost the photographer getting video of his booking. I mean, surely, right?

No.

Rogers stared at the guy for several seconds, then said “I bet you’re real proud of yourself now, don’t you?” The videographer said “I’m just doing my job, Kenny.”

I know the Texas fans love it, but the booing on the road will be the worst punishment. Robbie Alomar had to deal with that for years after spitting on an ump.

Somebody had better get in soon to teach Kenny how to play well with others, before another poor soul finds himself defenseless in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.