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It was late morning on Friday, October 16, when Elizabeth Holmes realized that she had no other choice. She finally had to address her employees at Theranos, the blood-testing start-up that she had founded as a 19-year-old Stanford dropout, which was now valued at some $9 billion. Two days earlier, a damning report published in The Wall Street Journal had alleged that the company was, in effect, a sham—that its vaunted core technology was actually faulty and that Theranos administered almost all of its blood tests using competitors’ equipment.
The article created tremors throughout Silicon Valley, where Holmes, the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire, had become a near universally praised figure. Curiosity about the veracity of the Journal story was also bubbling throughout the company’s mustard-and-green Palo Alto headquarters, which was nearing the end of a $6.7 million renovation. Everyone at Theranos, from its scientists to its marketers, wondered what to make of it all....
Investigating the gun industry, Muslim extremists, and high-stakes litigation, I’ve grown accustomed to deadline intimidation from corporate legal departments or an executive’s personal PR squad, but only this week am I getting a feel for what it’s like to be the target when a sovereign nation goes into crisis-communication mode.
Worried about revelations in Law of the Jungle, my soon-to-be-released book about the epic Chevron (CVX) oil pollution case, the Republic of Ecuador’s U.S. public relations advisers, New York-based Ketchum, has sent a six-page, single-spaced memo to Ecuador’s ambassador to the U.S., Nathalie Cely. Marked “reservado y confidencial,” the memo, prepared in Spanish throughout, outlines “difficult questions” the book raises “that negatively affect Ecuador,” and includes an ad hominem swipe. “It remains unclear when and how many times Barrett visited Ecuador or if he interviewed anyone from the Government,” the memo states. “This can be converted into a point that we can raise, but only in suitable settings and among appropriate journalists.”
I obtained a copy of the memo from a helpful noncombatant who works for neither Ketchum nor the ambassador and who requested anonymity for all the obvious and usual reasons. The damage-control document is a peculiar combination of advice on how to discredit the messenger—“this can be converted into a point …”—and admissions that the book raises issues that do not reflect well on Ecuador’s government....
WIthout more evidence, it's time for a retraction....
...The problem with the story is that it doesn't appear to be true. Dorian Nakamoto—who hasn’t gone by the name “Satoshi” in almost 40 years—made the second of two very public denials this week. “I got nothing to do with it,” Nakamoto said during his first denial, a two-hour interview with the Associated Press.
Goodman’s story looks like a scientific experiment gone bad: it can’t be replicated. It’s grounded in assumptions, topped with myths and stereotypes, and then backed up by an arrogant-sounding “trust us” defense.
The AP video shows a man who appears wholly convincing. “The main reason I’m here is to clear my name, that I have nothing to do with Bitcoin,” Nakamoto said. “Leah wrote all that?” he added with a shake of his head, incredulous. If Dorian Nakamoto is the hidden genius behind Bitcoin, he's also one of history’s most skilled liars; his impression of “unemployed suburban man” was spot-on....
Integrity is the Achilles’ heel. No doubt Goldman Sachs has previously had its fair share of battles with Bloomberg but complaining to news organizations about bias and unfairness rarely works. This time it was different. A bruised eye for a leading news organization and a PR point for Goldman Sachs for starting a news cycle debate about journalist integrity. When there is a breach of procedure any PR is on firm ground to go ahead and complain. Choose your battles wisely....
War of words with NYT continues: Data from test car's "black box" shows reporter's damaging review was lie, says CEO. While the vast majority of journalists are honest, some believe the facts shouldn’t get in the way of a salacious story,” he wrote. “In Mr. Broder’s case, he simply did not accurately capture what happened and worked very hard to force our car to stop running.” A Times spokeswoman today reiterated that its story was “fair and accurate,” adding, “We are in the process of reviewing the specific claims in Tesla’s blog post and will respond to those when that review is complete. But in a post Tuesday responding to Musk’s tweets and other accusations he made in a CNBC interview, Broder defended his account as accurate....
...The Times pretty much disagreesin every respect. They stand by their story which said that the vehicle did not meet its own promises and that the battery failed, requiring the Model S make the last part of its journey on a flatbed truck.
It is not just "he said" vs "she said" however since Tesla published data captured by their onboard computer which seemed to back up some of what they claim....
To be fair, most plaintiffs’ attorneys would never dream of capitalizing on a tragedy like the Sandy Hook massacre for publicity or financial gain. But while Irving Pinsky’s $100 million lawsuit against the state of Connecticut does not aptly represent the profession, it does highlight an increasingly essential element of every plaintiffs’ attorney's practice. Few of them chase ambulances anymore; but nearly all of them chase the cameras when one seems nearby.
The fact that Mr. Pinsky quickly withdrew his misguided lawsuit does little to substantiate his claim that he filed it to prevent a similar attack in the future. When one considers all that Sandy Hook Principal Dawn Hochsprung and other heroic teachers and administrators did to strengthen security at the school prior to the attack, it’s clear that Mr. Pinsky’s allegations are unfair and unfounded. At the same time, it’s hard to see Mr. Pinsky as financially-motivated, given the high probability that his case would be thrown out long before ever it reached settlement or trial.
No, this threatened lawsuit was about publicity, plain and simple. In that regard, Mr. Pinsky got exactly what he wanted from CNN and other national news outlets that put him front and center in recent news cycles....
The caffeine drink 5-Hour Energy is linked to 13 deaths. The company's CEO disputes that -- but a recent interview on Fox News did him no favors. ...Read the language in that article closely, and you’ll see why the company’s CEO and Founder, Manoj Bhargava, is frustrated. The company is being associated with more than a dozen deaths, but the best the FDA could do is cite the product’s “possible involvement” in those cases, in which the product “has been mentioned.” Not exactly a smoking gun.... Mr. Bhargava made some good points during the interview. Comparing the caffeine count in his product to that of a cup of Starbucks coffee, for example, provided viewers with useful information. And his analogy to a bottle of water being “linked” to deaths also demonstrated the weakness of the case against his product.
But his tone was lousy, and he violated at least two of the “seven rules of a crisis,” notably numbers five (“your response needs to be about the victims”) and six (“facts are not enough.”)...
[Brad Phillips shares an excellent media training lesson ~ Jeff]
The seven-time Tour de France winner was stripped of his titles today following a PR campaign that weathered a barrage of criticism for years. ...Without taking sides, those of us in the crisis communications field can learn from Armstrong’s PR campaign tactics, fully acknowledging that he crossed the line from offering balance to powering up a turbo-charged spin machine. Some highlights:
• Less is more: A short, strong, well-crafted statement can blunt the sharpest of attacks. • Taking responses to the masses: A strong social media following is effective in taking your message straight to your supporters, bypassing the media. • Coordination and consistency: Getting your legal team on the same page as your PR team can help win the courtroom of public opinion. • Staying on point: Steadily sticking with messaging through the years. • The big picture: A PR campaign is only as good as the evidence against it. [Lots of lessons from Lance Armstrong's PR and crisis management ~ Jeff]
...So said a Groupon exec in response to a Financial Times reporter asking about accounting irregularities that have plagued the recently IPO’ed tech startup.
I’m not sure whether to laugh or cringe in embarrassment at this bizarrely amateur statement. Worse is that it was made to The Financial Times, a newspaper read by investors and business executives. The very people Groupon can least afford to offend by its confusing messaging....
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The Republican frontrunner met with the editorial board on Monday morning. The full transcript follows at the link above: FREDERICK RYAN JR., WASHINGTON POST PUBLISHER: Mr. Trump, welcome to the Washington Post. Thank you for making time to meet with our editorial board. DONALD TRUMP: New building. Yes this is very nice. Good luck with it. RYAN: Thank you… We’ve heard you’re going to be announcing your foreign policy team shortly… Any you can share with us? TRUMP: Well, I hadn’t thought of doing it, but if you want I can give you some of the names… Walid Phares, who you probably know, PhD, adviser to the House of Representatives caucus, and counter-terrorism expert; Carter Page, PhD; George Papadopoulos, he’s an energy and oil consultant, excellent guy; the Honorable Joe Schmitz, [former] inspector general at the Department of Defense; [retired] Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg; and I have quite a few more. But that’s a group of some of the people that we are dealing with. We have many other people in different aspects of what we do, but that’s a representative group....
Last week, an audio technician for the television program Cops was killed by friendly fire while filming a robbery at a Wendy’s in Omaha, Nebraska.
The Omaha police chief, Todd Schmaderer, delivered an almost perfect press conference—one that stands in marked contrast to the shameful media interactions in Ferguson, Missouri—that should be studied by PR professionals as a terrific example of how to communicate in crisis.
PR pro Dave Statter, who writes the excellent STATter911 blog (and wrote about this story first), called this “one of the most effective and timely presentations following a police involved shooting I’ve witnessed.”
He’s right. Chief Schmaderer did many things right in this press conference. Below, you’ll find the five things that stood out to me most....
In one of its final reports before being pulled off the air, NBCs Rock Center committed a sin in an interview with a Rabbi.
...For us -- the larger teaching point here is no matter the explanation -- you should always protect yourself if you are going into an interview that could in any way be controversial or contentious. We teach our clients that it is kosher to tell the media that they too will be making audio -- or preferably video recordings of every interview.
Armed with that kind of backup -- if you are taken out of context or misrepresented -- you can, as Rabbi Berkowitz did -- correct the record.
It's a tough paradox. If you don't respond to a crisis, you'll look bad. If you do, you may make more people aware of it. So what should you do? If your organization is in the midst of a giant, well-publicized media crisis, you can safely assume that most people have heard about it. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about your response widening awareness of the crisis. Since the public already knows about it, you’re not going to make them aware of the incident for the first time simply by responding to it. But what happens if your organization is in the middle of a “mini crisis,” one which is only known to a specific audience or is confined to a specific news outlet or medium? A reader named Nicole recently asked the following question: “Do you (or others) have any thoughts about how to carefully refute a negative story without directing a new audience to it? For example, if you decide to communicate to your audience via social media or a company website or blog, are you inspiring those who may have not seen the original negative story to seek it out?” I reached out to a couple of my PR peers for help in answering her question....
...I’ve learned a lot about popes. I love them. So it’s fascinating to speculate about the Benedict’s resignation. Is PR crisis management under way at the Vatican? It makes sense. After all, the Roman Catholic Church has dealt with a number of crises in the past years: protected child abusers, insulted nuns, claims that condoms cause AIDS. blaming scandals on the press, and so on.
Can the Vatican do more than a resignation to bring the crisis to a faster close? Yes, Here are four more actions to move the compass further in the right direction....
Auto firm Tesla is giving a New York Times reviewer a car. The goal was to show off Tesla's "electric highway" of charging stations for its electric car between Washington and Boston. The problem was that the car didn't make it.
The newly appointed acting director-general of the BBC, Tim Davie, abruptly ends an interview with Sky News's Dermot Murnaghan... Asked by Murnaghan if George Entwistle had to leave the BBC because of incompetence, Davie defends his predecessor, calling him 'an honourable man' [This is a useful lesson in media training. Hard on the heels of intense, negative publicity and public questions about the BBC, this is no time to be walking off the set during an interview. Particularly, when it could've been easily handled. ~ Jeff]
Many chefs have found themselves on the wrong side of a restaurant critic’s pen. But I’ve never seen a review more scathing than this one. Many chefs have found themselves on the wrong side of a restaurant critic’s pen. But I’ve never seen a review more scathing than the one that appeared in today’s The New York Times.
Food critic Pete Wells took aim at celebrity chef and Food Network star Guy Fieri, who operates Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar in New York’s Times Square.
What to do? [Mr Media Training - Brad Phillips - offers several options and a fun poll on how to manage this reputation onslaught ~ Jeff]
The press is hammering the tech companies as investors head for the hills. Amid the doom and gloom, there appear to be opportunities to score some PR wins. ...This week the media reported that some of Groupon's early investors cashed in their stock as they headed for the exit. And Facebook's stock price has slid to half of what it was before the social network’s IPO, as original investors dump their shares. It's a tough job to keep notoriously fickle Wall Street investors happy, particularly with the well-established boom/bust record of Internet stocks. Everyone is looking for the next Internet boom companies, such as Google or eBay, but more often they get a Pets.com or Go.com. As with any financial story, the devil is in the details, and that’s where these companies can score some PR wins for their reputations. For instance, although some early investors sold Groupon and Facebook stock, they did so at a huge profit. And the number of early investors who sold is matched by those who stayed on board with the companies....
Though banned in China, paying for positive news coverage is so widespread that many publications and broadcasters have rate cards listing prices. SHANGHAI — China is notorious for censoring politically delicate news coverage. But it is more than willing to let flattering news about Western and Asian businesses appear in print and broadcast media — if the price is right.... And while Western companies and many Chinese journalists are loath to discuss the subject, public relations and advertising firms are sometimes surprisingly candid about their roles as brokers in buying flattering coverage, referred to here as “soft news” or “paid news.”...
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Great journalism and fascinating story from Nick Hilton in Vanity Fair