The Bush administration has had more than its share of PR blunders over the past few years. Think Hurricane Katrina. Think Weapons of Mass Destruction. Think "Mission Accomplished."

But what happened last week during the worst fires in California history really takes the cake.

Perhaps still stinging from the Katrina disaster, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employees posed as reporters at a fake "news conference," tossing softball questions at their boss, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the agency's deputy director. No real reporters were there, because FEMA only provided news agencies with a fifteen minute warning of the meeting. FEMA did allow real reporters to dial into a phone hookup, but they were not allowed to ask any questions.

The video feed of this fiction was provided to all the networks. Several channels carried it live, fooled into thinking it was real. Others carried clips from it later in the day.

The White House, to their credit, immediately condemned the forgery, calling it an "error in judgement." White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said, "It’s not something I would have condoned, and they, I’m sure, will not do it again."

Duh.

Even the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, called it "inexcusable and offensive". Spokeswoman Laura Keehner said, "We find it offensive, and it won’t happen again".

But the real question here is: what attitude within this presidency created an environment where government employees would ever even consider such an idiotic stunt?

Is it possible that the President who, we are told, rarely reads newspapers and seldom watches TV news, leads by example? If he has such disdain for the press, it’s no surprise that the people who work for him would follow his lead.

Bush apologists like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly may argue that the media have earned the scorn of the President and his people. They may be right. But that’s not the point. When you do something like this, you're not just trashing journalists, you're showing your disrespect for anyone who reads a newspaper, watches television or reads news on the internet. The framers of our constitution understood that when they made the first amendment the first amendment. They understood the inherent danger of a government that controls the information its citizens receive. And if you still aren't convinced, ask any of the refugees who've fled Cuba about the importance of an independent, free press.

That's why any politician, any company, any government agency that cares what people think of them should take the press seriously and treat them with respect. Even in this age of citizen journalists, blogs and web-based news, traditional reporters and editors still have a huge influence on public opinion. You don’t have to like them. You don't have to agree with them. But if you want to put your best foot forward, you better learn how to deal with them.

 

Rarely will you see a celebrity or politician confess as well as Marion Jones did.  Standing before a horde of reporters, cameras and microphones in White Plains, New York, she tearfully admitted to what had long been suspected: that she used performance-enhancing steroids en route to Olympic gold.

 

A few weeks ago, I wrote in this space about Senator Larry Craig and what he should have done when he was arrested at the Minneapolis airport for soliciting sex from an undercover cop in an airport toilet.  Marion Jones followed those rules almost perfectly.  And, as a result, she is already reaping benefits.  Her tearful confession and her request for forgiveness from her fans haves already shifted some of the weight of public opinion to her side. 

Of course, not everyone feels sympathy for her.  But reading blogs on several sites, it’s clear that a lot of people are on her side. 

To be sure, she has a long way to go.  She still faces sentencing in court on charges of lying to federal investigators. And she will probably be stripped of her five Olympic Gold Medals. 

But her heartfelt honesty will almost certainly result in something less than the maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.  Prosecutors have already said they will only seek a six-month sentence.  I’d be surprised if she serves a single day behind bars.  That would be a very different scenario if she had not stood up and admitted her mistake and asked for forgiveness.

The only thing she did wrong was when she suggested she did not know the substance she was using was an illegal, banned steroid until after the Olympics were over: “In September, 2000, before the Sydney Olympics, (former coach Trevor) Graham began providing me with a substance he told me was flaxseed oil," she said. "I continued to use this substance until July 2001."

"By November 2003, I realized that what Graham had given to me was a performance enhancing drug," Jones told the court.  According to published reports, those dates are not the same ones she gave in a letter to friends and family.  But even if it’s true that she didn’t know what she was taking, the best strategy is to not try to shift blame.  It’s like when kids say, “I’m sorry, but…”  The words that follow “but” negate the apology.

But that aside, Marion Jones should serve as a good example of how to respond to bad press.  She (and whoever advised her) deserve a different kind of gold medal: one for PR bravery.

 

See if any of the following quotes ring a bell: 

• “I am not a crook”
• “I did not have sex with that woman”
• “I did nothing wrong at the Minneapolis airport”

Yes- here we go again.

Politicians never seem to learn the most important lesson of public life: tell the truth and tell it right from the very start. Never lie.  Never.  Because you will almost always be caught.  And, as we’ve seen so many times in the past, the lie becomes worse than the act you sought to conceal.

Think how the course of history might have changed if, the morning after the Watergate burglary, President Nixon had called a press conference and said something like this: 

          “Last night some people working for me did a terrible thing.  They broke into the offices of the Democratic National Committee in an attempt to help my re-election effort.  I take full responsibility for their actions and beg every American’s forgiveness.  I promise this will never happen again”. 

  Just think: we would have been spared two years of agonizing investigations, a constitutional crisis that almost wrecked our government and Nixon would have gone down in history as one of our great presidents, instead of holding the dishonor of being the only president forced to resign in disgrace.  It’s also possible Jimmy Carter would never have been elected President, since much of his support came from people disgusted with Nixon’s dishonesty. 

Ditto for Bill Clinton.  If he had admitted his little indiscretion with Monica right at the very beginning, he would have pre-empted all the investigations and avoided any talk at all of impeachment.  It’s also quite likely that George W. Bush would never have been elected President.  Remember, Bush’s 2000 campaign was largely based on “restoring integrity” to the White House.  In the closest election in U.S. history, it wouldn’t have taken too many votes to give the victory to Gore.

  

Which brings us to Sen. Larry Craig.  He did something really stupid in the men’s room at the Minneapolis airport last June.  By his own admission, he reached under the toilet stall partition and touched the man in the stall next door.  That man, of course, turned out to be an undercover cop. 

Like Nixon and Clinton before him, Craig panicked.  He entered a guilty plea to a charge of disorderly conduct, in the hope no one would ever find out. Of course, someone always finds out.  Even if the local news media is asleep, as they apparently were in this case, your political enemies will find out. And in politics, there are always enemies waiting for a chance to bring you down. 

So what does Craig do?  He calls a news conference and tells the world he did nothing wrong. He says it was all a misunderstanding.  He admits his foot strayed under the partition, touching the foot of the guy in the next stall.  And he admits reaching down with his hand, under the partition.  But he says he was only trying to pick up a piece of paper from the floor.  Jay Leno nailed that one the other night when he said: “I don’t even like it when my shoelaces touch the floor” in the men’s room.  Even his fellow Republicans said Senator Craig’s explanation “was not credible”.

 

What should Craig have done?  I’ll offer the same advice I’d offer any public official in a similar situation: 

1. Talk to your lawyer.  That’s why you hired him.
2. Talk to your family and prepare them for what is to come.
3. Tell your political associates so they’re ready when the news breaks.
4. Tell your staff.
5. Last- and most important- tell your constituents.  Call a press conference and confess.  Tell the whole truth and accept the blame completely.  Don’t try to blame anyone else and don’t make excuses.  Just admit you made a mistake that you really regret and then beg for everyone’s forgiveness.

A funny thing happens when you do that last step.  People will forgive you.  Voters actually admire public officials who have the enormous courage to admit their shortcomings because everyone knows how difficult it is. So instead of earning everyone’s disdain, you wind up earning their respect. 

No, it’s not easy.  Yes, you’ll feel humiliated for a few days or a few weeks.  But you’ve ended the ordeal.  It’s over. And you and everyone else can and will move on. 

The public loves stories of redemption.  You just have to find the courage to give them the chance.

A war is brewing between the National Football League and American journalists.  And it’s a good example of how even the most successful businesses sometimes shoot themselves in the foot with overly zealous marketing.

 

The NFL is the most successful professional sports organization in history. Much of the credit goes to former commissioner Pete Rozelle, who understood the nature of the product he was selling to consumers.  Under his leadership, the NFL surpassed Major League Baseball as America’s most-watched sports league.  Part of Rozelle’s formula was to make the NFL as accessible as your parents.  I remember going to games in Minneapolis and Green Bay early in my career.  I had to have a press pass, of course.  But no one spent much time, effort or money policing the sidelines or the press box.  It was understood that any news coverage of the game was good news coverage. 

 

But all that’s changed.  In recent years, the NFL has sought to bar local news photographers from shooting video of the games.  When press organizations raised a stink about that policy, the NFL had to give in.  But now they’ve found a new way to drive away local photographers.  Beginning in September, the NFL is requiring news photographers from local papers and TV stations to wear a special vest that includes advertising for the league’s marketing partners.

 

 

 

The NFL’s Greg Aiello says the league has to “carefully manage our media assets that generate revenue and makes the league run and pays the players”.

But sports photojournalist Michael Zagaris of San Francisco thinks there’s a different, more sinister motive.  He believes it’s another effort to get rid of any photographer whose paycheck is not signed by the NFL.

 

Journalists object to a rule that forces them to be walking billboards for the NFL’s marketing partners, like Reebok and Canon.  How does an objective journalist wear these company logos on Sunday, in full view of thousands of football fans, and then cover the misdeeds of those companies on Monday?  Journalists rightly believe that news consumers—who already hold the media in low regard—will lose even more faith in their local reporters and photographers.

 

The NFL has correctly concluded that this ridiculous policy will cause them no harm among 99% of fans.  But they have miscalculated the harm it will do to their relationships with the press. When journalists feel they are at odds with the organizations they are covering, it can sometimes have a subtle influence on the coverage itself. Suddenly, reporters who are embarrassed about being forced into these vests may start looking for negative stories to cover within the NFL. 

 

With the bad press Michael Vick has already given the NFL this year, the league certainly doesn’t need another black eye.  Yet that’s exactly what they are risking in this misguided effort to “manage… media assets”.

 

Can anyone at the NFL demonstrate a single instance where the old press pass policy led to problems on the field?  Of course not.  There was never a problem. The NFL is antagonizing local reporters, photographers, editors and anchors for the sole purpose of forcing them to leave the stadiums.  And why?  So that fans never again see pictures or video of their beloved multi-million-dollar quarterback giving them the finger.  Because without independent press coverage, there will be nothing to stop the league from “sanitizing” all the images we see.

 

If the NFL is successful, what’s to stop Major League Baseball, the NBA and the NHL from doing the same thing? And if that happens, ordinary citizens will be the real losers.

 

NFL officials might want to ask themselves if the cure is worse than the disease.

Minnesota Tragedy: Lessons Learned

 

The collapse of an I-35W bridge into the Mississippi River in Minneapolis Wednesday night struck close to home for my family.

 

Two of my children attended the University of Minnesota, very close to that bridge. Another one lives in a nearby suburb. They and I drove over it countless times in the 1990s.  And I sometimes used it to get to and from my job at the now-defunct All News Channel.  Like everyone else, we never gave a thought to the safety of the structure.  It was just one of the dozens of highway bridges and overpasses we all use daily, assuming they (and we) are safe.

 

That’s why this story struck a chord with so many people.  Like the stories about airline disasters, we know that it could just as easily have happened to us.

 

Stories like these raise a little alarm bell inside us, making us a little less certain about things we had previously taken for granted:  “If that bridge can collapse with no warning, why not the one I drive over (or under) every day?”  We need reassurance.

 

That’s why it’s so important for public officials to offer as much factual information as quickly as possible after a disaster.  In the Minnesota bridge collapse, Homeland Security and local police dismissed the possibility of a terrorist attack almost immediately.  And for good reason.  Mass panic and fear would only make the disaster worse.

 

And transportation officials were quick to release the results of recent bridge inspections, noting that the design of this particular span was unusual.  The underlying message: this probably won’t happen elsewhere.

 

As usual with such incidents, there was a lot of incorrect information released in the early going. Officials had to revise the death toll, correct estimates about the number of vehicles involved and clarify statements about the construction work going on.  That’s okay.  No one expects them to get everything absolutely correct in the first few hours.  Unfortunately, too many public officials in these kinds of situations refuse to say anything until they’ve got it all checked and double-checked.  That can be counterproductive because it leads the public and the media to rumors and speculation that can be very damaging.

 

Obviously the first and most important job for public officials in a disaster is to rescue victims and make sure no one else gets hurt.  But after that, calming fear and reassuring citizens should be high on the priority list. 

 

Almost all government agencies have a disaster plan that includes procedures for releasing information to the public.  Businesses and non-profit agencies should also consider having a formal plan so that they are prepared if something like this happens. The plan should spell out exactly who is responsible for releasing information and specify when and how. And while it should require verification of facts, it should also include some flexibility so that you can release partial information if necessary.

 

Because it’s vital that people know you’re in control and everything will be okay. It’s an important lesson we all learned from 9/11 and will never forget.

Let’s face it: the news media is never going to please everyone, all the time.  In fact, these days they seem to have a hard time pleasing anyone, ever!

That’s why it’s more important than ever to nurture good working relationships with journalists.  Two recent examples illustrate how anyone can make themselves look good even when bad news strikes…and the reverse.

 

When botulism recently turned up at a Georgia food plant, supermarket giant Kroger reacted very quickly and got some great publicity that could have easily gone the other way.

 

The case involves Castleberry Foods of Augusta, Georgia.  But it had a major impact on the Kroger supermarket chain.  That’s because Castleberry makes some of the store brands that have the Kroger name on the label.

 

As you would expect, local reporters began calling Kroger for comment and, even more important, pictures.  And Kroger did a very smart thing.  Instead refusing to allow cameras inside their stores (a strategy used against me and my reporters hundreds of times by retailers afraid of bad publicity), Kroger did exactly the opposite.  They invited reporters in to photograph the empty shelves where the cans of potentially contaminated food used to be.  And – even better: they demonstrated for the reporter how their automated bar code scanners at the checkouts would have prevented any consumer from ever walking out of the store with a product that has been recalled.  One reporter even recreated this demo on camera.  It was the most memorable part of the story and left Kroger with a very favorable impression in the eyes of thousands of consumers on the very day bad news hit.  Without saying it, that reporter’s standup told viewers that Kroger cares so much about safety, they did more than what was required by the recall.

 

I’m guessing that Kroger is not the only supermarket chain that uses bar code scanners to flag recalled food items.  But they’re the first ones I’ve ever seen get credit for it on the local evening news. 

 

I have no idea if Kroger media relations people maintain an ongoing relationship with local reporters and editors.  But this is exactly what can happen when you do.  It’s a perfect example of getting out in front of the story and turning lemons into lemonade.

 

On the other hand, there’s the story of Erie County, New York vs. WGRZ-TV. Earlier this month, County Executive Joel Giambra informed the station’s managers that their news crews were no longer welcome at county news conferences.  Why? Because WGRZ reporters had dared to ask Giambra about issues other than the “good news” story he was pushing that day. 

  

A spokesperson says county leaders were mad that the TV station on two occasions had chosen to give little coverage to the story the county was pushing, instead focusing on “negative” stories involving county government.

 

I’ve been on the receiving end of these things more times than I can count.  A city official in Waco, Texas once called to tell me he would no longer talk to one of my reporters because she asked questions about a city drainage pipe that had claimed the lives of two boys.  I have no doubt that everyone at city hall was afraid of being sued by the boys’ family.  But refusing to talk to the media because you’re mad about something they did in the past is self-defeating.  It makes you look like a spoiled child accustomed to getting everything you want.  This is particularly bad for a local government agency whose employees are paid from public tax dollars.  Those taxpayers deserve answers. And seeking those answers is what good journalists do.

 

I’ll admit that, in their zeal to one-up the competition, some reporters and editors get carried away.  Many make mistakes.  Some just aren’t very bright and can’t figure out how to do the story the right way.  That is exactly why it’s so important for local government leaders to maintain relationships with the people who are calling the shots at the local newspapers and TV stations.  As a manager of reporters, it’s much harder for me to give them the green light to roast you if you and I have a relationship. And I’m more inclined to listen to criticism from someone I know and respect.

 

That does not mean you can bribe a local News Director or Editor with a cheap lunch (or even an expensive dinner).  And you should not even think of trying.  But it does mean that taking the time to visit these people a couple of times a year and calling them once a month is the best investment you can make on behalf of your organization. 

 

And, as in the Kroger case above, it pays to bend your organization’s rules once in a while if you have a chance to make the company look good.  It’s not “spin”.   It’s just telling the truth about the good things you do in a way that gets you noticed.