Monday, May 17, 2010
Leaving It To The Professionals
It is never clearer to me the value of skilled public relations professionals than when a controversy has erupted. When their is a controversy or a crisis, it is important NOT to speak to the media unless you know how to speak to the media. A couple of cases--one national/international and one local gone national brings this truth home.
The first involves the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico with the blown up oil rig owned by British Petroleum that continues to spew oil. This is clearly a crisis that should be handled by the PR folks working for BP. Yet the CEO for BP continues to feel the need to get his side of the story to the media, only making the problem worse and himself sound callous. Here is what Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP, had to say to the Guardian:
That is true. But the daily pictures of dead fish, oil covered water fowl, and the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people placed in peril, not to mention the frame that has been established demonstrating BP's negligence in dealing with this problem pre and post-disaster drowns out this obvious--and stupid--fact.
The second controversy--and one hitting closer to home--involves the idiotic and depraved behavior demonstrated by two sororities on my campus at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The first, Pi Beta Phi had a totally out of control formal where they trashed a recital hall, were caught fornicating inside and outside the hall, and costing untold damages to a facility owned by a Miami grad who has informed Miami that their business in any form is no longer welcome. The second sorority--and more shocking--involved the Alpha Xi Delta sorority, who held a formal at the National Underground Railroad Museum in Cincinnati--a museum that honors Cincinnati's special place as the gateway to freedom for slaves fleeing the South. This formal was held in March, and yet somehow Miami kept the lid on it until last week, when the President of Miami University released a public letter of apology(.pdf) to the Freedom Center (I am sure a very generous financial contribution was also made to insure the Museum's cooperation in keeping the episode hush until such time as MU decided to go public with it--my speculation only). Just to give you a feel for the level of debauchery on display is this description (.pdf) of a student who was attempting to pee on a slave artifact on display at the Museum:
But that is the dates. What about (.pdf) the sorority women?
6:40 p.m. And apparently this particular sorority has already been banned from holding their parties at other locations.
So totally inexcusable behavior, and for Miami's part, there has been no offer to defend or qualify the incident as something that shouldn't cast a pall on the whole campus, as was my example above of the BP CEO: "Sure this is two sororities, but there are hundreds of student groups on the campus--it is a big campus." Nothing like that. No, instead the defense has come from one alumnus who was a member of one of the sororities. She would have done better in keeping her mouth shut. Here is what Katey Clark, a "2006 Miami graduate and Alpha Xi Delta member" (the group who held the formal at the Freedom Center). Because her defense was so tone deaf, the reporter was generous in quoting her. And here are the things she said:
"I don't think their actions were responsible at all (good). But they're (the media) making it sound like they burned the place down...with the hype it's getting. This has been going on for years now. I just didn't appreciate how these two sororities were targeted. They acted like these students were criminals." To this the reporter adds: "Someone left a pile of human feces outside Lake Lyndsay Lodge at the Pi Beta Phi formal and a male was stopped short of urinating on the historic slave pen at the National Underground Railroad Museum during Alpha Xi Delta's event."
Katey: "They do wonderful things all the time" regarding to their time and money they donate to charity. Then Katey blows it when the reporter adds that she "read the letters from the businesses and was surprised they did not anticipate the behavior with so many college students coming to the events." Translated: It's the businesses fault that students shit on the floor and fornicated in the bathrooms.
But it doesn't end there. No, Katey is allowed to make matters worst by attempting to defend indefensible actions:
"Clearly lessons are to be learned here from everyone involved, but I truly hope it doesn't affect the way that [MU] Greek system is looked at...My colleagues (you have to love that) and I who participated in Greek life at Miami acted very similar to to the actions in the letter and are now lawyers, doctors, business owners, work for the U.S. government...I am confident most all of them who will spend their college years combining hard work and too many $1 drafts on a Tuesday night will be successful individuals in the real world. They will join the thousands and thousands before them who got too drunk at a formal."
So truly some things are better left unsaid, or left to people who know how to speak to the media. I can understand the frustration of someone involved in a controversy or close to the controversy feeling the need to temper the media's love for scandal and controversy, but these are battles you will never win. There is no way to make the controversy less than what it is if you are not skilled in speaking to the press.
These two controversies are case studies in just how true that is.
The first involves the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico with the blown up oil rig owned by British Petroleum that continues to spew oil. This is clearly a crisis that should be handled by the PR folks working for BP. Yet the CEO for BP continues to feel the need to get his side of the story to the media, only making the problem worse and himself sound callous. Here is what Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP, had to say to the Guardian:
The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.
That is true. But the daily pictures of dead fish, oil covered water fowl, and the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people placed in peril, not to mention the frame that has been established demonstrating BP's negligence in dealing with this problem pre and post-disaster drowns out this obvious--and stupid--fact.
The second controversy--and one hitting closer to home--involves the idiotic and depraved behavior demonstrated by two sororities on my campus at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The first, Pi Beta Phi had a totally out of control formal where they trashed a recital hall, were caught fornicating inside and outside the hall, and costing untold damages to a facility owned by a Miami grad who has informed Miami that their business in any form is no longer welcome. The second sorority--and more shocking--involved the Alpha Xi Delta sorority, who held a formal at the National Underground Railroad Museum in Cincinnati--a museum that honors Cincinnati's special place as the gateway to freedom for slaves fleeing the South. This formal was held in March, and yet somehow Miami kept the lid on it until last week, when the President of Miami University released a public letter of apology(.pdf) to the Freedom Center (I am sure a very generous financial contribution was also made to insure the Museum's cooperation in keeping the episode hush until such time as MU decided to go public with it--my speculation only). Just to give you a feel for the level of debauchery on display is this description (.pdf) of a student who was attempting to pee on a slave artifact on display at the Museum:
I observed one young man duck under the stanchions around the slave pen. In catching up with him, I found him about to relieve himself on the corner of this priceless and sanctified artifact.
But that is the dates. What about (.pdf) the sorority women?
The buses arrived at 6:40 p.m., at which point everyone unloaded to come into the Freedom Center. There was one young woman who was so inebriated that she was unable to stand up and even hold herself in a sitting position. Friends of hers held her up as she vomited into a trash bag...
6:40 p.m. And apparently this particular sorority has already been banned from holding their parties at other locations.
So totally inexcusable behavior, and for Miami's part, there has been no offer to defend or qualify the incident as something that shouldn't cast a pall on the whole campus, as was my example above of the BP CEO: "Sure this is two sororities, but there are hundreds of student groups on the campus--it is a big campus." Nothing like that. No, instead the defense has come from one alumnus who was a member of one of the sororities. She would have done better in keeping her mouth shut. Here is what Katey Clark, a "2006 Miami graduate and Alpha Xi Delta member" (the group who held the formal at the Freedom Center). Because her defense was so tone deaf, the reporter was generous in quoting her. And here are the things she said:
"I don't think their actions were responsible at all (good). But they're (the media) making it sound like they burned the place down...with the hype it's getting. This has been going on for years now. I just didn't appreciate how these two sororities were targeted. They acted like these students were criminals." To this the reporter adds: "Someone left a pile of human feces outside Lake Lyndsay Lodge at the Pi Beta Phi formal and a male was stopped short of urinating on the historic slave pen at the National Underground Railroad Museum during Alpha Xi Delta's event."
Katey: "They do wonderful things all the time" regarding to their time and money they donate to charity. Then Katey blows it when the reporter adds that she "read the letters from the businesses and was surprised they did not anticipate the behavior with so many college students coming to the events." Translated: It's the businesses fault that students shit on the floor and fornicated in the bathrooms.
But it doesn't end there. No, Katey is allowed to make matters worst by attempting to defend indefensible actions:
"Clearly lessons are to be learned here from everyone involved, but I truly hope it doesn't affect the way that [MU] Greek system is looked at...My colleagues (you have to love that) and I who participated in Greek life at Miami acted very similar to to the actions in the letter and are now lawyers, doctors, business owners, work for the U.S. government...I am confident most all of them who will spend their college years combining hard work and too many $1 drafts on a Tuesday night will be successful individuals in the real world. They will join the thousands and thousands before them who got too drunk at a formal."
So truly some things are better left unsaid, or left to people who know how to speak to the media. I can understand the frustration of someone involved in a controversy or close to the controversy feeling the need to temper the media's love for scandal and controversy, but these are battles you will never win. There is no way to make the controversy less than what it is if you are not skilled in speaking to the press.
These two controversies are case studies in just how true that is.
