Crisis Management: Death by Journalism?: Understanding the media – from archives For chilling insight into being on the wrong side of negative news coverage, read Jerry Bledsoe’s Death by Journalism? One Teacher’s Fateful Encounter With Political Correctness. This book by the former newspaper columnist and author of Bitter Blood and other bestsellers, vividly recounts a local example in which […]
Crisis Management: Death and a career – trying to save a reputation: Crisis communications A morning TV news anchor in our area named Tolly Carr allegedly struck and killed pedestrian Casey Bokhoven while driving while impaired. With a suspected offender whom many felt they knew because of television, it became personal. With a death it could hardly be worse. I’ve never met Carr […]
Crisis Management: Dealing With An Avalanche of Media: Crisis response How do you protect your reputation when media swarm around you and your company? A client of mine is about to tell you. He juggled 19 media contacts in 2 days – television, newspaper, and radio reporters. They descended upon him during a most public controversy. Without […]
Crisis Management: Dealing Calmly with National Bad Publicity: Crisis Response In 2005 just about every initial news media report on student Nathaniel Heatwole sneaking box cutters and other banned articles aboard airliners mentioned his school – Guilford College. NBC Today’s lead story from Katie Couric began with the words “Guilford College, North Carolina, student Nathaniel Heatwole.” The […]
Crisis Management: Deadly Crisis – And Surviving It: crisis response When your organization is in deep trouble you feel like you can’t breathe. You wonder whether you’ll survive. Yet, sometimes you can triumph and even regain glory. Case in point: the following story in which the client’s identity is protected. My pager went off one Saturday morning. […]
Crisis Management: Cutting employees? Be sensitive! Here’s how.: Crisis planning A large corporation announced closing a plant and laying off several hundred employees in this area. A local newspaper columnist criticized the company for insensitivity toward workers saying, “Notice you didn’t read such words as ‘regret,’ ‘sorry,’ or ‘pain’ in the carefully worded statements. It seems as […]
Crisis Management: Customer Service Debacle – At an airport!: Crisis Response How good are you are at solving crises? Assume you are an airline CEO and learn of the following real world case as told me by a family – customers of yours – stranded at Dulles International Airport. We’ll call them the Smiths: a family of […]
Crisis Management: Curing “CEO Disease” and other communication ills: Crisis communications How could someone as shrewd as Microsoft’s Bill Gates be such a poor witness? That’s what some observers asked after seeing Gates’s videotaped deposition for his company’s antitrust trial many years ago. Instead of the usual enthusiastic, incisive, boyish wunderkind, there was a hangdog, sometimes morose […]
Crisis Management: Crisis Planning Lessons From Tragedy: Crisis preparation The specter of hijacked planes hitting the World Trade Center and Pentagon frightened us to the core, but it inspired spontaneously excellent crisis management. While no one anticipated such an horrific homeland attack, executives around the country quickly informed employees; ordered evacuations; canceled, reduced or delayed work schedules; […]
Crisis Management: Crisis Management Insights From 9/11: 9/11 At that terrible time we were all asking what the implications were for all of us. Those of us in crisis management certainly were and here is what I wrote shortly after 9/11. We are in uncharted waters and I believe the administration is doing well. However, missteps are […]