Go public or lay low? Miscalculation is costly. Yoda had one: “Do, or do not. There is no try.” So did Kermit the Frog: “Life’s like a movie. Write your own ending.”…
Tag: rules
Different Prisms
A recent Vatican report about U.S. nuns was most significant for what it didn’t say. It didn’t condemn the nuns for “radical” and “feminist” ideas as expected when the investigation began in…
Too Little. Too Late.
Get out in front of a crisis. Or the other side controls the story. When is “at all cost” too high a cost? The NFL is finding out. So are other…
Fiction & Fact
Job #1 in Crisis PR – Separate fiction from fact. We’re all better for having read, seen, or told fiction. Whatever can be imagined, can be. Think Jules Verne, J.R.R. Tolkein, and…
Noise & Substance
Pick your fights carefully. Preferably ones you’ll win. Opinions, they say, are like assholes. Everybody has one. Doesn’t make them right. But people are seldom eager to back down. Sometimes it’s pride…
Gullible
Knowing what sells to the media gives you a fighting chance. Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never is, but always to be, blest. ~ Alexander Pope, 18th century English…
Is Anyone Really Surprised?
Best result in Crisis PR? No story. Next best: Making it less painful. Recently, a group of people was sitting around a table for an informal chat. The topic du jour: Is…
The Fantasy of Rationality
Symbols trump facts every time. Since we emerged from the intellectually impoverished Dark Ages, philosophers and economists have been trying to make people fit into neat boxes prescribed by universal and predictable…
No Margin for Error
In a crisis, you must “know,” not “hope.” In World War II, a new phrase entered the lexicon: “Good enough for government work.” At the time, it was high praise: If you…
Cleaning House
Cleaning house is better than covering up. Penn State got it right. Rutgers didn’t. Amid a sex-with-boys scandal involving assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, Penn State’s Board of Trustees took no prisoners. They…