Every business wants to be seen and heard. Media exposure can skyrocket your business and have a tremendous impact on generating sales, unless it’s for absolutely the wrong reasons.
There are two quotes frequently attributed to Warren Buffet:
“Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless.”
and
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
As a firm that specializes in managing reputations with over 50 years of experience, you can bet we’ve seen our fair share of instances where these are true.
Some media outlets’ business models thrive on delivering us a constant stream of drama. As the old saying goes, “If it bleeds, it leads.”
We’re hard-wired to take in information and assess threats quickly. Our reticular activating system (RAS) constantly filters for information that’s considered necessary for our survival or spotting a corgi going for a walk.
Read on to learn how to handle bad media coverage.
What Is Negative Media Coverage?
Negative media coverage (aka bad press) is any story that makes you look bad, or that your competitors can use to disparage your brand.
It can start with something as simple as ONE bad customer experience that goes viral or a more serious issue like a financial scandal or legal issue.
Negative media criticism can happen for a number of reasons:
- A whistleblower sharing information about your business practices that’s damaging to your reputation
- An article written by a reporter who doesn’t have all the facts or doesn’t want to run your side of the story because they’ve already got their angle
- A social media post about an employee quitting over a toxic workplace or getting fired, and it spreads like wildfire on Twitter
- A blog post or podcast that criticizes your company’s products or services
- An investigative story by a local TV station that catches you doing something illegal or unethical
Negative media coverage is a problem for every company and industry, so the more prepared you are to deal with it, the better off you’ll be.
But Did You Know That Leveraging Media Criticism IS Possible?
While avoiding negative media attention in the first place is ideal, if you aren’t so lucky, there’s still a chance to save your most valuable asset: your reputation. This can happen by leveraging media criticism.
So what can you do if you can’t avoid a negative story?
Stop Perpetuating the Story by Creating Another News Cycle
If you know you’ll be included in a story where other players are involved, and you’re trying to minimize the lines of ink about you, don’t start offering up more information than you’d like to see printed. Let the others ramble aimlessly and provide more fodder for the reporter’s story. This doesn’t mean ignoring a reporter’s request for comment or saying, “No comment.” This means being strategic about the statements you provide.
Just because Hollywood loves to make sequels and reboots doesn’t mean you have to follow that trend. If the story has already run and has begun to die down, don’t kick up the dirt and offer a fresh angle or an excuse for a follow-up story… Unless that follow-up is a legitimate redemption story. If that’s the case, then you can try rewriting your past by creating a positive storyline.
Create a Positive Storyline
The media wants more eyeballs. Give them a sexy or exciting story, and you might be able to turn what seems like a case of bad luck into an opportunity to capitalize on your unique perspective.
A company was pulled into a bad situation that garnered much attention from the community and the press. Instead of hiding in fear, it decided to use this as an opportunity to make monumental changes to how it ran. We’re talking a “you’re either with us or against us” kind of shift.
As expected, the decision caused some minor fallout within the organization, but it focused on the more significant impact of this change on the future. Once the initial flurry of stories died down and considerable progress was made in keeping the promises it had laid out, it launched a public relations campaign like a phoenix rising from the ashes.
Want to learn more on how to protect your reputation in the face of a crisis? Check out A Board Member’s Guide to Crisis PR: Protecting You & Your Organization’s Reputation.
TLDR? Call us at (310) 396-8696 for a 15-minute consultation.
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Gillott Communications is a Los Angeles-based public relations firm that specializes in high-stakes Crisis & Reputation Management with more than 50 years of expertise in strategic communications, corporate public relations, and working with the media.