Monthly Archives: December 2009

Here's why the media's investigative reports make me angry

Certainly a lot of investigative reports are valuable, perform an important service. But far too often they are far more harmful than helpful. The harmful part is driven by the media’s need to entertain, which they do by creating a … Continue reading

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Top PR Blunders Involve Social Media and the Internet

Fineman PR out of San Francisco has published its top ten list of PR blunders for 2009. I did some analysis of some of the items on the list at emergencymgmt.com, but I just read this interview with Fineman PR … Continue reading

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Is Toyota going the way of GM?

I was intrigued by a couple of major media stories about Toyota. Today there is this story from US Today saying that Toyota’s reputation may need an overhaul following the latest hit–a major safety recall. It identifies a string of … Continue reading

Posted in Crisis Case Studies, Crisis Communications, Crisis Communicator, crisis management, Reputation Crisis, reputation management | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Leave it to a pastor to write one of the best crisis response messages I've seen

My son-in-law who lives in Ballard (neighborhood of Seattle) sent me this link. It contains one of the best crisis response letters I’ve ever seen. The situation: a church operated homeless shelter was the scene of a violent crime, one … Continue reading

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How can someone else's crisis become yours? Ask Accenture.

One intriguing aspect of today’s crisis management is that when something bad happens to someone else, it normally causes some very big ripples. For example, after Virginia Tech the problem of notifying students of a shooter on campus became a … Continue reading

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How can you know when somethings going viral? Bitly is helping

For Twitter users and other social media types, bitly is the well-known tool that helps you shorten big long urls or webpage addresses into something much shorter that will fit on a tweet. Now bitly is offering another invaluable service … Continue reading

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Dominos is one company that learned its lesson

Dominos Pizza is one company that has appeared in the presentations of many of us so-called experts in social media and crisis communication. But in a bad way. It was one of the most vivid examples of how companies can … Continue reading

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Why Tiger's sponsors have a problem

Billboard at Orange Co airport

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Zhu Zhu Hamsters and GoodGuides–when accuser becomes accused

In many if not most reputation crises there is an accuser and an accused. The media thrives on this because of the melodrama implied with the public good being the “maiden in distress” that the guys wearing the white hats … Continue reading

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Ron Livingstone's social media war

Crisis communicators know that social media has opened up a whole new area of risk or vulnerability. Major organizations have been waging war on the internet for several years now, but each new step forward in social media seems to … Continue reading

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