Social Media Panic at Schools: Crisis Management during False Alarms
[by Howard Fencl] A photo of a bomb with today’s date is found in a high school restroom. The school is evacuated. Police are called. Students seeing police with guns drawn on the campus misconstrue the scene as an active shooter on the loose and again call police. They also post the misinformation on social […]
Why ‘Sorry” is Still the Hardest Word
From Michael M. Grynbaum at the New York Times: “I’m sorry.” Two simple words, not so simply said. On Wednesday, the public representatives of two embattled American institutions — United Airlines and the White House — found themselves on national television grappling with a delicate and increasingly common ritual of the corporate and political worlds: […]
Apologies, Non-Apologies, Fauxpologies, Conditional Apologies & Past Exoneratives
By Stan Carey: Writing in 2012 about the nature of apologies, I said that being sorry is about more than just saying the words, “but the words, as an explicit admission of wrongdoing or shortcoming, can be an important part of reconciliation.” With a non-apology the aims and effects are wholly different. The person delivering […]
Crisis Management: Preparing for the Next Big Event
From Deloitte: No matter the crisis—a billion-euro loss, a breach that leaves millions of customer records at risk or a major airline accident with the CEO on board—organizations can take steps to weather the storm, according to Jeremy Smith, global leader of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited’s Crisis Management practice. But instead of aiming merely for […]
Send in the Drones
From our friend, Darrell Clay: Cameras are ubiquitous these days: They are found in or on street corners, hallways, retail stores, restaurants, and more. Even airplane passengers are ready to whip out their smart phones to capture and instantly share video footage on YouTube or Facebook Live. Are you prepared for the next generation of […]
The New Law of Litigation Communications: Your Case Will Now Be Heard – On Facebook
By Thom Fladung, Hennes Communications The Court of Public Opinion is now in session. In fact, it’s always in session – on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media outlets. The practice of litigation communications or litigation public relations is young, as legal and communications matters go, emerging in the early 1980s, according to many […]
Did American Airlines Profit from United’s Poor Example?
[By Nora Jacobs, Hennes Communications] This past weekend provided the crisis communications profession with a Petri dish-like opportunity to study the way two almost identical organizations managed two almost identical situations less than two weeks apart. If we had devised an experiment using the scientific method, we probably could not have created a more precise […]
Fox News Followed The Money In Firing O’Reilly – And Failed Crisis Communications Test
By Thom Fladung, Hennes Communications The axe that hovered for weeks finally fell on Wednesday as 21st Century Fox announced that Bill O’Reilly would not be returning to Fox News Channel, the cable news outlet O’Reilly helped build, in the wake of a string of explosive sexual harassment claims, broken by the New York Times. […]
Crisis Management: Preparing for the Next Big Event
From the Wall Street Journal’s Risk & Compliance Journal: No matter the crisis—a billion-euro loss, a breach that leaves millions of customer records at risk or a major airline accident with the CEO on board—organizations can take steps to weather the storm, according to Jeremy Smith, global leader of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited’s Crisis Management […]
Shooting Your Reputation in the Foot: Self-Inflicted Crisis Management Lessons from United Airlines
[by Howard Fencl, Hennes Communications] A video recently removed from Facebook shows law enforcement officers violently removing a passenger on a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Louisville right before takeoff. The flight was overbooked, and a United crew of four needed seats so they could get to Louisville, where they had a flight to work. Passengers […]