Mr. Media Training

It’s that time again…for the five worst video media disasters of the month!

April’s victims include a sleepy Vice President, a clueless politician, and one two three ridiculous CEO’s.

One favor before we begin: if you enjoy these cringeworthy moments as much as I do, would you please share them on Facebook and Twitter? Thank you. Okay, on with the list!

Number 5: Joe Biden Falls Asleep

During arguably the most important speech President Obama has ever given on entitlement reform, Vice President Joe Biden appeared to fall asleep. As a result, many headlines about Obama’s speech included mention of Biden’s ill-timed snooze, once again robbing the president of his ideal headline.

It’s not the first time Biden has done that – it happened during the signing ceremony for health care reform, as well (see number seven here).

#4: Senator Jon Kyl’s Lame Excuse

Anyone can get a statistic wrong. So when Arizona Senator Jon Kyl mistakenly said that 90% of Planned Parenthood’s services were abortion-related (it’s actually 3%), all he had to do is apologize. Instead, his office claimed that the Senator’s remark was “not meant as a factual statement” – and that’s the moment this became a much, much bigger story. (Click here to see the full story, with a great clip from Stephen Colbert.)

#3: Mike Lazaridis, Founder, Research In Motion

As Sam Donaldson once said, “The questions don’t do the damage, only the answers do.”

During a BBC interview, RIM’s founder – the maker of the BlackBerry – abruptly cut off an interview when he didn’t like a question. His whining and complaining looked more like that of a cranky grade schooler than a corporate CEO. He should have been able to answer these questions with ease, but instead made the story bigger with his peeved responses. 

#2: Dick Fleming, St. Louis Chamber of Commerce Head

As media avoidance strategies go, this one’s a beaut. Instead of speaking with the reporter about his salary, Dick Fleming, President and CEO of the St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association (RCGA), decided to seek refuge in the back hallway of a hotel near a stack of milk crates. The full story is here.

#1: Bob Parsons, CEO, GoDaddy.com

The founder of GoDaddy.com released a video of himself killing an elephant during a recent trip to Africa. He posed over the dead elephant’s carcass with a self-satisfied grin, set the video’s soundtrack to AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells,” and blamed PETA for the fall-out.

Wait, there’s more. He threatened to sue bloggers who showed the video – even though he originally released the video himself. And he never did apologize, instead insisting he would murder elephants again. As a result of his bad behavior, Mr. Parsons lost thousands of customers, self included (see story here).

The original video is no longer available due to Parsons’ copyright claim; although this news clip will give you a good summary, the original was much, much more graphic.

BONUS VIDEO: I’m Going To Announce Your Secret Pregnancy on National Television

When MSNBC’s Martin Bashir sat down with his network colleague Contessa Brewer, she had no idea what was about to happen. Let’s just say it’s bad form to announce a co-worker’s pregnancy to the world on live, national television.

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When a crisis strikes, the first reaction for most individuals and organizations is to become defensive.

That often leads to two media statements: the wrong one, followed days later (after the fallout has intensified) by the right one.

In this video, I’ll offer you the right way to apologize when a crisis strikes your organization.

Below are some recent case studies of good and bad apologies:

Case Study One: When a vegan magazine pretended that pictures of meat were actually vegetarian dishes, many readers felt betrayed. They released a bad statement, followed days later by a good one.

Case Study Two: When an Orange County politician sent out a racist email showing President Obama as an ape, she released an inflammatory apology before backing down days later and issuing a more direct apology.

Case Study Three: When MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell used racial language to describe an African American leader, he skipped the defensiveness and issued a tone-perfect apology instead. A role model for spokespersons everywhere.

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In an effort to squelch growing doubts about his nation of birth, President Obama released his long-form birth certificate this morning.

Here’s my question: What took so long?

I don’t say that from the perspective of those in the “birther” movement. I’ve never questioned the President’s American citizenship, and I find questions about his citizenship distasteful, at best.

Rather, I question the White House’s media strategy that allowed this controversy to last so long and take such deep root. How deep? A recent New York Times/CBS poll found that a plurality of Republican voters do not believe President Obama was born in the United States (45 percent believe he was not; only 33 percent do).

In his press conference today, the President blamed the media for fueling this controversy, and he’s right that they did. But the signs have long been there, and the White House should have seen that the political winds most recently exploited by Donald Trump have been blowing in that direction for months.

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I suspect that the White House viewed the birther movement as a helpful ally, one that could help it paint Republicans as extreme. I also suspect that when their overly-clever media strategy got away from them, they realized they needed a new strategy.

I’m sympathetic to those who ask why President Obama should have to release his birth certificate at all, and share their frustration. But Mr. Obama lost more than he gained by waiting, and a more sound media strategy could have prevented the unfounded doubts from growing so broadly.

As President Obama said, the release of the birth certificate won’t satisfy skeptics. His main target appears to be the mainstream media, which he hopes will reduce the airtime on this issue to focus on more serious issues. It will be interesting to see whether the press lavishes attention onto a high-profile book called “Where’s The Birth Certificate” being released next month, or whether Mr. Obama’s strategy encourages them to exercise more restraint.

Given that the White House waited this long, they did the right thing by releasing the birth certificate today. But I wish the Obama campaign had authorized the release of the long-form birth certificate long ago. Instead of rising to the presidential level, his press secretary could have dealt with this issue months – or years – ago.

I was recently quoted in The Hill newspaper regarding the role that humor plays in politics. The writer of the piece, Christian Heinze (also a terrific blogger at GOP12), asked me to comment on the advantages (and disadvantages) of humor in a political campaign.

Inspired by Christian’s question, I’m going to go into more detail on that topic today and break down five different types of humor (each with a video example). 

Candidates who have a natural humor often have an easier time relating with voters. But humor is not a prerequisite for winning (Mike Huckabee had a better sense of humor than John McCain), and humorless candidates shouldn’t try to force it. Candidates who do force it risk looking like they’re trying too hard, which usually plays badly with voters.

#1: Self-Effacing Humor

Few types of humor are as appealing as gently self-effacing humor. A little goes a long way here – no candidate should lapse into “shtick.” But self-effacing humor that acknowledges a widely-lampooned trait demonstrates a candidate’s willingness to laugh at him or herself, something the public tends to appreciate. Al Gore offered a nice demonstration of self-effacing humor in 1996, playing off his “stiff” reputation.

#2: Gently Ribbing Opponent

“Mean” humor doesn’t play well, but gentle jabs at one’s opponent often do. Ronald Reagan was a master of this, delivering a killer line with a mile-wide smile. In this famous clip from 1980, Mr. Reagan counters President Carter’s attack with a killer one-liner that’s still often quoted today.

#3: Definitional Wit

Humor is at its best when it serves a specific purpose. One such purpose is to help define yourself – or your opponents – as something specific, using humor as the delivery vehicle. In 2008, Sarah Palin got off a terrific one-liner days after her selection as John McCain’s running mate. Sure, it was lampooned, but it also helped establish the relative unknown as a tough and credible player in the election.

#4: Inappropriate Humor

The political hall of shame is filled with candidates who, in being “humorous,” only demonstrated their cluelessness. John McCain gleefully singing “Bomb Iran” to the tune of The Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann” is one such example. But my favorite cringe-worthy example is when Mitt Romney tried to show his cultural “hipness” with a group of African-American school students.

#5: Sarcasm

Sarcasm rarely plays well, as candidate Barack Obama learned in the days following his 2008 Iowa primary win. Within days of the next primary in New Hampshire in which he was heavily favored, Mr. Obama made a bitter and unpleasant crack about Hillary Clinton’s lack of popularity. Voters resented it, and rewarded Ms. Clinton with an unexpected win in New Hampshire.

Come on, people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together and follow my Twitter feed right now. I’m at @MrMediaTraining.

Related: Whatever. I Was Just Being Sarcastic, Okay?

Related: Can You Stop An On-Air Laughing Fit?

Just twelve days ago, Simon Murray became the chairman of Glencore, one of the world’s largest commodities trading firms. In what must be one of the quickest scandals ever to threaten a new top executive, Mr. Murray gave an interview that showed contempt for professional women.

According to Britain’s The Telegraph, he said that women:

“…have a tendency not to be so involved quite often and they’re not so ambitious in business as men because they’ve got better things to do. Quite often they like bringing up their children and all sorts of other things. All these things have unintended consequences. Pregnant ladies have nine months off. Do you think that means when I rush out, what I’m absolutely desperate to have is young women who are about to get married in my company, and that I really need them on board because I know they’re going to get pregnant and they’re going to go off for nine months?"

Simon Murray

Mr. Murray was hired to lead Glencore through an already-controversial $60 billion initial public offering (IPO), in which investors and public institutions would buy shares in the Swiss-based company. But some British journalists are already speculating he may have to step down as a result of his misguided comments. 

In response, Mr. Murray issued one of those lame half-apologies, in which the offender apologizes less for his offensive language than other people’s reactions to his words:

“I apologise for any offence caused by my comments regarding the role of women in business reported in the Sunday Telegraph.”

Mr. Murray should have learned from the gender landmines that have already been set off by other chief executives, including former Harvard President Larry Summers (who said women have less aptitude for science and engineering) and former Maryland comptroller William Donald Schaefer (who asked a woman 60 years his junior to walk past him again so he could check out her behind).

Most importantly, this isn’t just about Mr. Murray’s sexism. It’s about his judgment. Executives are fairly expected to exercise good judgment as leaders – and any executive who commits such an offensive unforced error should be regarded as unfit to lead.

Thank you to reader @etahpilac for sending me this story idea.

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Related: Caught With an Open Mic: They Never Learn

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I often joke with colleagues that we’ll never go out of business; as long as there are humans, there will be spokespersons who fail to learn from a litany of past mistakes.

This article is an effort to collect the most extensive list anywhere of high-profile spokespersons forgetting they’re speaking into an open microphone.

Please help! If I’ve missed a high-profile “open mic” gaffe, please leave a tip (and a link, if possible) in the comments section below; I’ll update this story with your suggestions along the way.

OPEN MIC GAFFES

Carly Fiorina, June 9, 2010: The morning after winning the California Republican Senate Primary, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO ripped into her opponent’s hairdo in the moments before a television interview began. She never recovered, and her opponent, incumbent Senator Barbara Boxer, cruised to victory.

Gordon Brown, April 28, 2010: British Gordon Brown was locked in a tight re-election bid when, just one week before May’s election, he spoke with one of his constituents on the street. He politely ended the conversation with the woman, got in his car, and was driven away. But he forgot that his microphone was still attached. As he was driven away, he called the woman a bigot. He lost the election.

Joe Biden, March 23, 2010: At the beginning of President Obama’s historic signing ceremony for his signature health care legislation, Vice President Joe Biden leaned in – near a hot microphone – and told the President the passage was a “big fucking deal.” Biden’s comments earned front page coverage and stole the headlines.

Michael Duvall, September 29, 2009: The married California assemblyman was caught on camera bragging to a colleague about his sexual exploits with a much younger woman, who he apparently liked to “spank.” He resigned within hours.

Jesse Jackson, July 6, 2008: Before appearing on the Fox News Channel to discuss Barack Obama’s historic candidacy, Mr. Jackson expressed displeasure with Mr. Obama’s views on values, saying, “I want to cut his nuts off.” He whispered, seemingly aware of the microphone, but his words were clearly audible anyway.

Kyra Phillips, August 29, 2006: CNN anchor Kyra Phillips took a bathroom break during an address by President George W. Bush. She forgot her microphone was on, and told a colleague her sister-in-law was a “control freak.” Must have made for an uncomfortable Thanksgiving dinner.

George W. Bush, July 17, 2006: When speaking to British Prime Minister Tony Blair at a luncheon, President Bush told Mr. Blair that Syria should tell Hezbollah to “stop doing this shit.”

Prince Charles, March 31, 2005: One week before his wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles, Prince Charles told his sons what he really thought of BBC royal reporter Nicholas Witchell.

George W. Bush, September 4, 2000: At a speech during the 2000 presidential campaign, Mr. Bush spotted New York Times writer Adam Clymer in the crowd. He turned to VP nominee Dick Cheney and said, “There’s Adam Clymer, major league asshole from the New York Times." Cheney agreed, saying, “Yeah, big time.”

Ronald Reagan, August 11, 1984: When testing a microphone before a national address, President Reagan jokingly said that he “signed legislation to outlaw Russia forever; we begin bombing in five minutes.”

Note: This list only includes clips of people who should have known they had a microphone on, and doesn’t include hidden camera investigations, video from private meetings, etc. Please leave any examples I’ve missed in the comment section below.

Note to reporters: You are welcome to use this article as a resource in your reporting. Please credit the “Mr. Media Training Blog” and include a link to this article.

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Editor’s note: Today’s article is a guest post from Steve Bauer, a communications pro from Pennsylvania. He wrote a terrific story about Taco Bell’s great crisis response – a rare of example of a company getting it exactly right. Steve graciously agreed to allow me to run his story here.

Your company is hit with a scandalous accusation. The case makes national headlines. Consumers assume your product is "tainted." And in the end, there’s nothing to the story. All that bad publicity had to have an impact. And you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Who’s going to pay?

That’s apparently the scenario that Taco Bell is dealing with right now. As SteveBauerMedia reported last January, the fast food giant was sued for allegedly using less than 50% beef in its Taco filling. Back then SBM advised:

"In a case like this Taco Bell needs to do more than issue a statement on its web site, threaten legal action, and hunker down to see if it will all blow over."

Apparently Taco Bell took our advice because the company came out swinging – with full-page ads in major newspapers. CEO Greg Creed angrily denounced the lawsuit, stating that Taco Bell’s tacos contain 88% beef and 12% spices and other ingredients. Taco Bell vowed to fight.

This week, the original lawsuit was suddenly dropped.  According to the Associated Press, the law firm Beasley Allen, based in Montgomery, Alabama, says it dropped the lawsuit because Taco Bell changed its marketing and product disclosure information.  Taco Bell says it did no such thing.  Whatever.  The big question for Taco Bell now: how does the company rescue its reputation?

You’d think in a case like this that it’s difficult if not impossible to repair all the damage. But Taco Bell is doing a great job of crisis management. In major newspapers this week, Taco Bell placed full-page ads targeting that law firm in Alabama. The ads ask, quote:

"Would it kill you to say you’re sorry?… As for the lawyers who brought this suit: You got it wrong, and you’re probably feeling pretty bad right about now. But you know what always helps? Saying to everyone, ‘I’m sorry.’ C’mon, you can do it!"

In the ads, Taco Bell crows the company is making "no changes to our products or ingredients…no changes to our advertising." The best defense is a good offense. And we think Taco Bell is in a good position to turn lemons into lemonade – or in this case, ground beef into filet mignon.

What next? Should Taco Bell file a defamation lawsuit? That would keep the issue in the public eye, giving Taco Bell more opportunities to remind the public that it sells a quality product. Taco Bell needs to stay aggressive, because this could be a golden opportunity to re-energize the brand.

You can read the complete version of this story on Steve’s blog here.

In the words of K.C. and the Sunshine Band, please don’t go. Don’t goooooo away. Not until you sign up for our monthly email chock full of tips to make you a better public speaker and media spokesperson. Sign up box is in the upper right of the blog.

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If you’re the publisher of a vegan magazine, your subscriber base is almost certainly filled with passionate vegans whose meatless lifestyle is core to their very identity.

So if you find stock photos of meat products, you should probably not buy them, pretend they’re delectable vegan products, and deceptively present them to readers as meatless.  

VegNews, a magazine with 210,000 readers, did exactly that. According to the QuarryGirl Blog, the magazine has run tens (or hundreds) of photos of meat – but presented them to readers as vegan dishes.  

This screengrab from iStockPhoto shows the original photo of real ribs.

This screengrab from the VegNews site shows the touched up version of the stock photo, with the bones removed. The QuarryGirl website added the note in pink.

If you’re wondering why I’m using a strong word like “deceptive” here, look at the caption on the second photo, which reads, “Here at the [VegNews Headquarters], we devour these savory, sauce-covered spare ribs as often as possible.”

Whoops. Those “vegan” ribs were actually from a dead animal.

When a reader commented on the VegNews website that he noticed they were using stock photos of meat, the editors deleted his comment numerous times. When the editor of QuarryGirl left a similar comment, hers too was deleted. That immediately made readers suspicious that a cover-up was afoot.

According to The New York Times, the editor of VegNews initially stood his ground:

“An earlier statement by the magazine acknowledged using stock images of meat and dairy but said it was necessary for budgetary reasons and would continue.”

The day after QuarryGirl’s original report, the magazine released a statement to readers, but the statement failed to apologize and expressed sadness only “with the dialogue that has transpired” – not for misleading readers.

But when readers started canceling their subscriptions, the editor suddenly had a change of heart, and finally released a “real” apology on Monday, that read, in part:

“We screwed up. With regard to our use of symbolic imagery in VegNews, our readers got it right. We wholeheartedly apologize. We assure you that we will never again use non-vegan photographs in VegNews.”

That’s exactly the tone they should have taken from the beginning. As I mentioned in an unrelated story on this blog yesterday, spokespersons too often give the “right” apology only after they’ve botched the first one. In so doing, they undercut the effectiveness of their second apology, which the public tends to believe was “forced” rather than genuine.

In the end, they did the right thing. But it took too long to get there – and as a result, the magazine will almost certainly suffer more than they needed to.

Note: I called VegNews media contact Colleen Holland yesterday afternoon and asked her to return my call for this story. She has not yet returned the call.

UPDATE: APRIL 21, 2011, 3:15pm: Colleen returned my call this afternoon, and we spoke for 15 minutes. She said they were in such emotional shock when this story hit, that it took a couple of days to lose any hint of defensiveness and align their response with their readers. She said that they had never had crisis communications training and didn’t reach out to an external crisis pro, which likely prolonged the crisis.

What did VegNews learn from this crisis? “You HAVE to get an outside perspective,” Colleen said. It’s clear to me that the staff of VegNews were well-intentioned and had no intent to deceive. But reality and perception are two different things in crisis, and their earlier response – aligned only with the reality – failed to satisfy critics.

Self interest aside, I advised Colleen to consult outside help for crisis planning. It’s a piece of advice that applies to all businesses, even those (like VegNews) that think this can never happen to them.

Finally, she told me they lost very few subscribers over this, something she attributes to their second response which candidly admitted, “we screwed up.” Hopefully, that statement ends this crisis for them; I suspect it will.

You can see additional “vegan” photos at the QuarryGirl site here.

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