Ever think you need a crisis management plan or team assembled ahead of time? I’m sure various companies accused of discrimination, defrauding stockholders or ruining the environment wished they did when their accusers got some media attention. Even with trumped-up charges, the press feeding frenzy is too much fun for reporters not to pile on.
And it’s not relatively new or unsophisticated companies that get caught in the trap. Take a look at CBS and its Don Imus scandal to see how not to manage a crisis, even if you’re one of the big boys.
What Imus said about the Rutgers women’s basketball team was mean-spirited and not remotely funny. But Imus said lots of things that are mean-spirited and unfunny. It was practically his job description. Remember when he called PBS anchor Gwen Ifill a “cleaning lady” and referred to publisher Simon and Schuster as “thieving Jews?”
Should CBS have been shocked by its own shock jock? Hardly. Its own contract with Imus called on him to be controversial and irreverent.
It doesn’t take a genius to know that if your business model is putting a cranky guy in a cowboy hat on the air every day to spew invective, you might want to have a plan of action for when he says something over the line during a slow news cycle. If Anna Nicole Smith had died two months later than she did, Imus could have done worse and no one would have noticed.
But anyone watching the Imus “I’m so sorry” parade could see that the crisis was managing CBS, and not the other way around.
Despite their understanding of media cycles and having the megaphones of their own news stations, Imus’s employers mostly stood by while the public’s outrage mounted. A week later, executives at CBS and MSNBC were doing a mea culpa and an “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” dance on Imus’ head.
They could have done better than to simultaneously ax a huge revenue source and suffer a similarly huge lawsuit in return, if they had tried.
Crisis management is more art than science. There aren’t any hard and fast rules about how to protect your racially slurring on-air talent from a public pummeling. However, there are some basic strategies for keeping a fire from becoming a firestorm.
First, apologize at the business level only if absolutely necessary. An apology is an admission of guilt, and guilty people are easy to beat up. You can be sorry that an employee hurt someone, but an apology is a nuance that often conveys guilt.
If you do apologize, do it immediately. Don’t wait until calls for an apology reach a fevered pitch. No one will believe your mea culpa is sincere if you’re browbeaten into doing it. Also, apologize once and only once. If people continue to call for your head, refer back to your original apology in a “what more can we do” kind of way. But do not, under any circumstances, go on an apology tour. It prolongs the news cycle of humiliation.
Second, change the debate.
Imus and his description of the Rutgers women is symptomatic of a larger problem in this country. Whether it is rap lyrics, Ann Coulter using a gay slur to describe John Edwards, or Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump trading insults, name-calling has become a national pastime. Imus is a product of this culture, not its creator. This idea should have been promoted early and often by CBS. If the network had been able to shift the focus from what Imus said and employ third parties to talk more broadly about the mud-slinging that passes for conversation, they might have saved Imus, avoided a major lawsuit, and done some real good.
Did someone get sick from your food or drink? How many meals or drinks have you served flawlessly in the past year? Quantify what you do well, and you put the incident in perspective. It helps to broaden the conversation and change the debate.
Finally, if available, shoot the messenger.
The only thing more revolting than what Imus said was the naked opportunism of people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. CBS should have put Jackson’s reference to New York City as “Hymietown” on a loop. The story of Al Sharpton’s nonapology in the Tawana Brawley case should have been told over and over again. Sharpton and Jackson have the combined moral credibility of a sweat sock, and someone ought to have told people so. Are food cops like Michael Jacobson at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, PETA or Greenpeace without baggage? If they are attacking you, there is a unique game plan to be employed that is too often left on the table.
It’s a whole new ball game out there for PR professionals. The Internet, increasing activism by self-appointed culture cops, and the advent of 24/7 news networks had CBS up to its ears in controversy before the execs could google the word “nappy.”
High-profile players must recognize this shifting informational landscape is as arbitrary as it is deadly. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s how we handle them that defines us. And while it may be convenient to implement short-term solutions in a crisis, my experience has taught me that the easier course of action is usually the wrong one.
Richard Berman is president of Berman & Co., a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm specializing in research, communications and advertising.
