School Shooting PR Consultant Apologizes After Calling Critics ‘Crazies’ and Reporter ‘Skanky’
From the Sun Sentinel: crisis public relations consultant created a crisis of her own for the Broward school district, after a video came to light in which she dismissed the district’s critics in the Parkland massacre as “crazies” and called a reporter a “skanky” “jerk” who “smells bad.” Sara Brady, who was paid nearly $75,000 to assist […]
Social Media Outpaces Print Newspapers in the U.S. as a News Source
From the Pew Research Center: Social media sites have surpassed print newspapers as a news source for Americans: One-in-five U.S. adults say they often get news via social media, slightly higher than the share who often do so from print newspapers (16%) for the first time since Pew Research Center began asking these questions. In […]
Disbarment for Anonymous On-Line Posts Should “Send a Message,” Says LA Supreme Court
From our friend and colleague, Karen Rubin, attorney at Thompson Hine in Cleveland, Ohio: Do we need another reminder about the perils of posting internet comments on cases and matters we are connected with? Apparently we do, and here’s a strong one. Earlier this month, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana was […]
A Crisis Management Lesson: Leaders Under Fire Who Choose to Say Nothing Give People Nothing to Believe In
By Bruce Hennes, Hennes Communications From pointed guns to pointed fingers, the damage left in the wake of the Feb. 14, 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, has been gut-wrenching. The gunman, of course, is ultimately to blame for an act of pure evil. But many others involved, from the police officers first […]
Sorry Really Does Work – Boston Hospital’s Apology to Widower
By Bruce Hennes, Hennes Communications We’ve long been fans and proponents of Sorry Works! In fact, I make sure to include information about Sorry Works! in literally every single presentation I do throughout the year (over 110 in 2018). From their web page: Sorry Works! is the nation’s leading disclosure training & advocacy organization. They […]
A Playbook for CEOs Attacked by Trump: Thrust, Parry, Ignore
From Kevin Miller, writing for Bloomberg: (Bloomberg) — Bosses of the world’s largest corporations are still learning to deal with one modern peril: when President Donald Trump shows he’s not afraid to call them out on Twitter. General Motors Corp. is the latest example. Even though Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra reached out to to […]
The Stakes are Higher for Women in Charge of Safety
By Rachel Schallom, writing for Poynter: The first time I made a security decision, my stomach was in knots from the moment I said yes to the second I got the text confirming the reporter was home safely. This wasn’t an international story. The reporter took a short car ride to the assignment and would […]
2018’s Best Crisis Management Response: The Crisis Was Live, Southwest Airlines Was Ready
By Thom Fladung/Hennes Communications We’re hard-wired to hope bad news goes away. And when that hope is dashed, as it so often is, we hope that the fewest number of people possible find out about our bad news. So, imagine your bad news being broadcast live to potentially millions of people. That’s what Southwest Airlines […]
The Body Language of Collaboration
From Carol Kinsey Goman: Most leaders agree that effective collaboration is more important than ever in today’s turbulent business environment. But the collaboration so critical to organizations is being blocked by internal power struggles, by a lack of unified goals and rewards, by a self-preservation instinct that results in information hoarding — and, perhaps surprisingly, […]
How Companies Should Handle Media Attention Amid Criminal Allegations
From our colleague, Rob Glickman, principal, head of litigation and criminal practice; McCarthy, Lebit, Crystal & Liffman: When companies become tied to a criminal investigation, whether or not it or its employees have actually committed a crime, it can be on trial in both the criminal court and the court of public opinion. Media coverage today […]