Accentuate the Positive, 3.0

In San Fran, even fumbles have aftershocks.
What did they know, and when did they know it?

As chronicled on last night’s “Outside the Lines” on ESPN, a lot of the heat directed at the San Francisco 49er’s over their media training video has to do with timing. Apparently, the top brass had known about the video for months with no repercussions.

Uh oh.

Tightest ship in the shipping business? Four million people might beg to differ.

CitiGroup now admits that personal information on 3,900,000 consumer lending customers is now floating around somewhere.

Unlike other security lapses, this doesn’t involve an internet transfer. Instead, Citi was sending a physical tape with the data to a credit bureau.

And UPS, which ships 14-million packages a day, just happened to lose this one.

Citi is doing its best to point the finger at UPS, even going as far as releasing a statement that is tantamount to a pink slip:

“We deeply regret this incident, which occurred in spite of the enhanced security procedures we require of our couriers,” Kevin Kessinger, executive vice president of Citigroup (Research), said in a statement. “Beginning in July, this data will be sent electronically in encrypted form.”

While this looks really bad for UPS for the time being, let’s put this in perspective.

First of all, this is not another one of those stories about an internet breach or a computer virus or a phishing scam that has put your personal financial information at risk. No one (as far as we know) set out to procure this stuff. It’s just lost.

Second, the odds of someone stumbling across the tape who can recognize what it is and have the appropriate equipment to read it is fairly small.

Third, has it occurred to anyone that maybe CitiGroup might be just a little behind the times here? Running large chunks of data through a sneakernet? I’m sure a secure intranet connection would be faster, with more frequent transfers. (I’ll bet a dedicated fiber line directly to Experian would be cheaper than this PR headache will be.)

I’d like to know how many other outdated and inefficient measures Citi takes with regards to my profile. Is the electronic transfer going to be any safer? Isn’t the use of couriers supposed to keep the hackers at bay? If electronic transfer is safer, then why has Citi been hoofing it? If the relative shift in safety is unknown, then why issue an immediate policy change? If one method is clearly safer than the other, why haven’t they been using it? If not, then why suddenly switch?

I know what Citi is trying to accomplish in retaining consumer confidence. But its actions come across as rather rash, especially when placed under responsible journalistic scrutiny.

Maybe it’s time to break down and buy identity theft insurance.

(In the spirit of the Deep Throat revelations, we’ll call this “Golden Gate-gate”.)

In past articles, I’ve commented on the growing media savvy in the sports world. NASCAR drivers, hockey players, and many others have sought specific training in learning how to deal with the media.

No one wants to be the next Latrell — or T.O. — or Jimmy the Greek.

Smart organizations are being proactive about coaching off-the-field behavior and on-the-record interviews.

Now, they ought to take a cue from the San Francisco 49er’s and be smart in executing that plan, too. (Smarter than the team’s ex-public relations director.)

In the video, public-relations director Kirk Reynolds cavorts with naked strippers, spoofs gay marriage and interviews then-team trainer George Chung, who does a parody of a Chinese accent.

Unfortunately, Reynolds works in one of the most diversity-sensitive zip codes on the planet.

The footage was enough for Doris Y.S. Owyang, a Chinese-American lesbian, to declare the end of her status as a lifelong 49ers fan.

“I’m mad. Did the civil rights movement never happen in this country? Have we struggled for equal rights for nothing when a professional football team that has fans in all these communities makes fun of the homeless, the mayor, gay marriage and Chinese.”

Owyang was incensed by scene in which Reynolds interviews a character called Suck Hung (played by Chung), who speaks in an exaggerated accent while translating a Chinese newspaper story.

Imagine the firestorm that would have erupted had there been significant Asian and gay populations in San Francisco. Oh wait. You don’t have to! Quick action on the part of the 49er’s may deflect a lot of the heat onto the “rogue agent” who did this on his own… but you know those wounds will be ripped open after the is tape goes public. You know it’s eventually going to leak to the internet. I’m betting by Monday.

Armstrong Williams has caught a lot of flak — but what about the “flacks” that hired him. (Not the Department of Education, but the middleman in this affair.)

Well, Ketchum PR is now “ketching” it for not stepping forward with a mea culpa. Elizabeth Albrycht says their initial silence became deafening in her CorporatePR blog.

Six days after the scandal broke, Ketchum CEO Ray Kotcher (pictured left) published this letter in PR Week.

“For our part, Ketchum has begun a thorough review of all existing federal contracts and is retaining an outside firm to conduct a complete process that will surely yield recommendations to improve transparency as it relates to government contracts.”

Edit: Welcome to all of the TOTALFark visitors… glad to have you here.
(So tell me, exactly what sort of link to this blog is bringing you all here, anyway?)

You’ve seen this guy. You’ve heard this guy. Later, you’ll probably agree that he had one of the most memorable lines in the entire Star Wars saga: “Stay on target… stay on target!”

Well, he has a name. Graham Ashley. And that role as X-wing pilot “Gold Five” will live forever.

Maybe it’s because that line has become a mantra for crisis communications. “Stay on target… stay on target!”

Conservative pundit Armstrong Williams is exercising that muscle right now, in an attempt to control the damage as previously outlined. Williams was on the talk-show circuit, where columnist David Corn observed the following:

“He was quick with his main talking point: “It was bad judgment, Dave. Bad judgment.” His phone rang. He answered it, said hello, and then told the person on the other end, “It was bad judgment. You know, just bad judgment.” I was reminded that in addition to being a pundit, Williams, a leading African-American conservative and Clarence Thomas protégé, is a PR specialist with his own firm. Not too long ago, Michael Jackson called him for advice. Now he had himself for a client, and, heeding conventional crisis-management strategy, he was practicing strict message discipline: bad judgment, bad judgment, bad judgment.”

Unfortunately for Williams, he let’s his guard down. Corn continues:

“And then Williams violated a PR rule: he got off-point. “This happens all the time,” he told me. “There are others.” Really? I said. Other conservative commentators accept money from the Bush administration? I asked Williams for names. “I’m not going to defend myself that way,” he said. The issue right now, he explained, was his own mistake. Well, I said, what if I call you up in a few weeks, after this blows over, and then ask you? No, he said.”

There comes a point where you need to shut up.

Just as Jek Porkins. Porkins, one of the most famous unknowns in the Star Wars universe, got to say a lot more than Gold Five did. He had such lines as “Red Six standing by” and “I’m right with you Red Three.”

Speaking more can hurt you, as Porkins soon found out.
“I’ve got a problem here.”
“I can hold it.”
“No I’m alright, I’m alright aaaarrrrrggghhhhh…. “

Conservative commentator and talk show host Armstrong Williams got his hand caught in the cookie jar.

USA Today broke the story Friday morning, detailing how Williams’ company got a $240,000 contract from the US Department of Education to highlight the advantages of the No Child Left Behind Act.

The contract, detailed in documents obtained by USA TODAY through a Freedom of Information Act request, also shows that the Education Department, through the Ketchum public relations firm, arranged with Williams to use contacts with America’s Black Forum, a group of black broadcast journalists, “to encourage the producers to periodically address” NCLB. He persuaded radio and TV personality Steve Harvey to invite Paige onto his show twice.

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said he couldn’t comment because the White House is not involved in departments’ contracts. Education Department spokesman John Gibbons said the contract followed standard government procedures. Gibbons said there are no plans to continue with “similar outreach.”

Williams’ contract was part of a $1 million deal with Ketchum that produced “video news releases” designed to look like news reports. The Bush administration used similar releases last year to promote its Medicare prescription drug plan, prompting a scolding from the Government Accountability Office, which called them an illegal use of taxpayers’ dollars.

Forget the ethical problems involved here. This is precisely the kind of trouble you can expect to get into when you aren’t careful about the multiple hats you wear. Williams deserves to be scolded, if for no other reason than for being stupid about how things will look under public scrutiny.

Latrell Sprewell, who once lost most of a season for choking coach P.J. Carlesimo, recently learned a valuable lesson in math:

One pithy comment, plus two reporters, equals infinite fan heckling and taunts.

It seems the former All-NBA guard was a little peeved that Minnesota Timberwolves management wanted to restructure his $14,000,000/year deal down to $9,000,000 — and that “a guy’s got to feed his family.”

And exactly why would anyone take offense to that?

Update (5/19/05): Wolves owner Glen Taylor recently called the pairing of Sprewell and Sam Cassell a “failed experiement,” and said neither was coming back to the team. Well, now he’s backtracking, and Cassell is back — and so is Spree (if he can live on less than $14M)