Category Archives: opinion and insights

Headwinds: Correcting the Record on Broadcast News

“First, admit you’ve made a mistake.”

This is one of the axioms that crisis management hawks, magpies, peacocks and parrots typically offer when capitalizing on the latest crisis du jour.   Often, these pundits flock to broadcast media to provide requisite talking-head “expert opinion” that helps to legitimize a common media storyline – that a company is bungling its crisis management response by resisting a public apology and acknowledging a mistake.

The irony here is thick, because much of broadcast media itself does not live up to that axiom.

Check out this excellent article in The New York Times, where David Carr deftly draws a distinction between correction approaches of print vs. broadcast media that distort or misreport a story.  Although print media does a slightly better job of correcting the record, his report acknowledges significantly heavier headwinds when broadcast media misrepresents the facts during a crisis situation.

Why?  Here’s a key callout:

 

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Reputation pitfalls of demand-based journalism

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©iStockphoto.com/On-Air

A Ketchum colleague recently shared this post from the Chief Product Officer of Forbes Media.  In it, she describes the Forbes new model of “Entrepreneurial Journalism,” where freelance writers are paid by the size of the audience they attract.

I’m a loyal Forbes subscriber, but I’m disappointed with the direction here.  I believe this will have negative implications for crisis management.

Why?  Several reasons:

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More Qantas/Rolls-Royce problems; more Jaques’ perspectives

Last November, Qantas was thrust into the spotlight for an emergency landing seemingly caused by one of its Rolls-Royce engines.  Recently, the airline has faced a few more incidents involving Rolls-Royce engines. 

Once again, I reached out to Australian blogger and crisis management expert Tony Jaques for more perspectives on the situation.  Following is a summary of our dialogue:

J.D.:  What is the media/public sentiment in Australia right now — any scrutiny pointed at the airline or the engine manufacturer?  Any notable public anger or fear of flying?

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Ketchum Perspectives: Citizen broadcasting and social media reputation management

Ketchum, my employer, recently published the latest edition of its online magazine, Perspectives. Some previous posts I created for this blog have been combined and updated for one of the key articles of the magazine.

Check out the article if you:

  • Are interested in the latest thoughts on the pros and cons of citizen broadcasting 
  • Would like some advice on how organizations should engage in active dialogue through social media before a crisis

Buffett makes good

Like many, I was a little surprised by the initial under-reaction of Warren Buffett’s response to the David Sokol resignation.  In case you missed the full story, Sokol personally bought a boatload of shares of a company that he soon recommended get acquired by Berkshire Hathaway. 

Buffett responded with a rather vanilla quote in the initial press release:  “Neither Dave nor I feel his Lubrizol purchases were in any way unlawful.”  

Quite a flaccid response from the man who once reportedly opined: “Lose money for the firm and I will be understanding; lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless.”

However, rather than rush to WordPress with a damning blog post, I decided to wait until more facts were made public.  On Monday, an article by Andrew Ross Sorkin restored some of my faith in the Oracle of Omaha.

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