According to the Dana Millbank column in Washington Post, Gina Gray got the boot for trying to increase media access to military funerals held at Arlington National Cemetery.

My first reaction is outrage–in this case against Robert Gates for, as the article suggests, acting just like Donald Rumsfeld. If all that there was to this story is that a PR person was not following a highly questionable procedure of restricting access to military funerals even when families allowed it, the outrage would maybe be appropriate. And outrage is clearly what the writer of this story wanted.

However, hold on, not so fast. Why do I think there is more to the story than this? Maybe it is because having personal experience with someone in high government circles who got the boot because of supposed PR bad judgment and seeing how poorly and inaccurately the real story was presented by none other than the same publication running this story. Maybe it is because the intention to grab attention and create outrage is so patently obvious. And maybe it is because reading about the interchange between Ms. Gray and her supervisor(s) leads me to believe there is a lot more to the story than is being told here.

The fact is, we know nothing about the facts based on this story. So intelligent readers should not come to any judgments relating to either Ms. Gray nor Robert Gates nor the evil supervisors involved. But that is not what the reporter intends. He has made a judgment and wants us to make one too. I suspect he judgment was made before he even found out about this whistleblower–the judment being that this administration is evil, wants to hide the dark side of the war and now this proves that Rumsfeld’s replacement is no better than he is. And Ms. Milbank’s dismissal proves his pre-judgment right.

This kind of reporting fits exactly into the “white hats” and “black hats” melodrama-styled reporting that I think is so damaging to reputations and above all the reputation of journalism itself. Is there any question who the white hats and black hats are? The reality is that reality is not so simple. Simplifying reality in this way makes for good story telling and good entertainment–which is exactly why it is done. But it does little to help inform the reader about what is really happening and why so we can make intelligent judgments.

I found this article by David Carr of the New York Times about Fox News entertaining. I read it a couple of times and although there are some begrudging indications of some kind of respect the basic messages seem to be: 1) I hate Fox News and am pee-ohd that they are still rated number one 2) They alter pictures of New York Times reporters and don’t tell people they altered them 3) They are far too aggressive in dealing with negative reporting.

The article would make a good study in someone trying to be somewhat fair and balanced in covering someone or something that he/she clearly can’t stand. It doesn’t work very well. Mostly I find the attack by what has been considered by many to be the bastion of unbalanced, liberal reporting against the new bastion of conservative reporting to be quite funny. Here’s a sample: Fox News found a huge runway and enormous success by setting aside the conventions of bloodless objectivity, but along the way, it altered the rules of engagement between reporters and the media organizations they cover. The conventions of bloodless objectivity? Why didn’t he just say, OK, we were never unbiased either but at least we were more polite about it. This is just silliness. Not sure what is bothering him more–the “enormous success” or the fact that the bias fell on the other side of the political spectrum.

But of more interest is the discussion within this article about the changing nature of media. It is no accident that Fox News apparently has taken a political approach to protecting its reputation. This approach–the war room strategy I call it in my book–was perfected by President Clinton in his first campaign and detailed in George Stephanapoulis’s (spelling?) book. It was the strategy of continual monitoring for attacks and then very rapid response to anything emerging that even smelled like an attack. It was very effective for the Clintons and has been adopted by all campaigns since then so that it has become part and parcel of our political discourse. I advocated in Now Is Too Late that corporations with reputations at risk should adopt this. Roger Ailes, the CEO of Fox News, saw this strategy work first hand and to his detriment in the campaign to re-elect the First Bush. He took its lessons to heart and put it in practice at Fox News–that’s the gist of Carr’s bitterness.

The PR head of Fox News commented: “Yes, we are an aggressive department in a passive industry, and believe me, the executives and talent appreciate it,” Mr. Lewis said, adding that with the 24-hour news cycle and the proliferation of blogs, a new kind of engagement and activism was required.

That is the important lesson. While I don’t consider the news business to be a “passive industry,” the kind of aggressiveness in maintaining its reputation and taking on its critics is symptomatic of the era of instant news where reputations are at higher risk largely because of the vicious competition for public attention. It’s this kind of aggressiveness–if not the same tactics suggested by Carr–that are essential for reputation protection for all organizations. And if Mr. Carr is practicing these principles and doesn’t like that I am criticizing him for faulting Fox for employing them, then he will get on my case and soon.

We at PIER Systems were pleased to be able to respond to a request from the US Forest Service and CalFire to assist with public information management for the numerous wildfires ravaging northern California. One report from our senior vice president who was on-scene with the response team told about the incredible implementation of the Incident Command System (ICS). He said it was no wonder that the fire service created the ICS system and their skill in making full use of its processes was truly impressive. It is a little surprising however that with the number of ICS-based incident management technology solutions available that their use of it still is completely paper-bound. Hey, paper works–it has for years.

It is terrific to have the opportunity to work with these seasoned professionals and to have them explore the communication technology that is a direct result of the management processes that they themselves designed and put in place.

For more information about the wildfires (and to see PIER in action www.jointinformation.com.

To view the press release: http://www.piersystems.com/go/doc/1533/214529/

It is so clear right now–based on recent drills and a very large scale incident we are involved in responding to right now–that the number one issue facing those in crisis or emergency communication is convoluted approvals. A comment I just received from someone in the field: “Spending thousands on porta potties is an instant decision, getting approval to do anything with public communication takes an act of the highest elected official.”

Of course, the importance is different, the long term impacts can be immense, the effect on reputations is significant. But all this cannot mean that those responsible for communicating in a large event should be so hampered in their ability to communicate clear simple facts about the event details and the response.

The real issue, as I mentioned here before, lies with Incident Commanders and even more with the executive leadership responsible for the response. It starts with policy. Do they want their PIOs and JIC to be the voice of the response? Then there is only one answer today: be fast, complete, transparent. Anything less than that–particularly on speed–will result in others speaking for the response. There is no middle ground here. Speak now or forever hold your peace.

One of the great benefits we have in working with the companies we do is the opportunity to participate in many different major crisis drills. From this perspective we can see how different companies and cultures approach these situations–even when the process is pretty well spelled out as it is with NIMS/ICS/JIC etc.

Having completed a couple of major drills with two of the largest oil companies exercising oil spill drills with multiple government agencies, I have a couple of observations. These relate specifically to the ability of these companies and the combined communication team of the Joint Information Center (JIC) to meet today’s incredibly high demands for information.

1) things have improved dramatically in the eight years I have been actively involved in this–in all respects. Understanding, training, technology, prioritization.

2) That being said, I believe that in a real event communication will be deemed a failure. The following explain my reasons.

3) The world has changed faster than those responsible for keeping up with it–particularly as it relates to instant news, social media, etc. While they are adapting, it is too little too late.

4) The two biggest practical problems with meeting the demand for speed are:

– the outdated notion of the physical JIC

–Incident Commanders end up making the critical decisions about strategy and speed of communication and they are woefully ill-prepared to make these decisions given their current understanding of the public information environment.

I do see that many communication managers and even a few emergency management executives understand this gap. But the biggest problem to me appears to be with the people who are training incident commanders. I have yet to see a single ICS training that does a good job of training regarding the JIC or the current information environment. JIC training itself is held completely apart from the incident commander training which leaves the PIO the responsibility of trying to convince incident commanders of what should be obvious to them.

5) There is no JIC Performance standard–most JICs do their “hot wash” or debrief and go through the lessons learned but there is no objective measurement by which they can really assess how they stack up. As a result, the lessons learned are really lost. Imagine going through school without an exam or some way of measuring learnings. Yet, this is what happens all the time and as result, improvement is much slower than it could be.

6) JICs are never really pushed. In this recent drill, the JIC sim cell member (one of our staff so he was someone who knew what he was doing) was injecting inquiries through the incident website which includes an interactive inquiry management function. In every real event, members of the media and public will use websites, email and every possible internet-based method to try to get information. But one of the JIC staff asked if he would stop sending inquiries through the web system because they didn’t want to have to deal with those–just the phone ones. And that was with just three sim cell members injecting into a JIC staff of probably 25! Imagine when that JIC has 12,000 reporters inquiring as would happen if the event they were drilling were a real one. This is a critical need and our company is investigating how we can provide an efficient way of simulating more effectively the kind of overwhelming burden a real JIC would face. Without this, everyone will continue to leave a 2-3 day exercise feeling they are in good shape to deal with the real thing.

I think Starbucks CEO’s Howard Schulz’s efforts to rebuild his company’s cachet and stock value is one of the most interesting examples out there of crisis management (the other really interesting one being the campaign of course). While we don’t normally consider marketing, promotional PR, investor relations and the challenges of the marketplace to fit in the realm of crisis communications, there is no doubt the company is in for a fight of its life and Mr. Schulz’s stellar reputation as an innovative business leader and marketing genius is on the line.

A few observations then about this fight from a crisis management perspective. And I should mention I am a share holder ( a very longtime and loyal shareholder), an admirer of the marketing savvy that catapulted them to the top and created the premium coffee category, and have that local pride of having seen and visited the original Starbucks store in Pike Place Market back in the days before Howard Shulz–when it was a real hippie coffee house like Bellingham’s own Tony’s Coffee.

Crises like this aren’t singular events. The term “perfect storm” is often applied to crises these days–particularly deep, intractable ones. Several things contributed to the decline in share value that this crisis is all about: more and more competition (even from the likes of McDonalds!), a weariness with paying ever higher prices for coffee drinks, a weakening economy (more of a psychological factor re coffee than real I think) and then, of course, Howard’s very bad move of selling the Seattle Sonics to a guy who made it clear from the get-go that he was going to move the team to Oklahoma City. It turned local pride into bitter animosity.

Like most crises, it looked sudden but was far from it. The roots of the problem are many, deep and quite predictable. Competition has been building for the past years–much faster than the innovative leader was innovating. And Schulz’s move into professional sport team ownership was more than a diversion of attention–it was a clear signal that he wanted to play with the rich boys. The loss of attention to what was going on with the company along with the clear desire to cash in his chips and enjoy life contributed to what seemed an unreasonable revolt among shareholders. He clearly signaled he wasn’t into taking care of them, and when the exodus started, they signaled what they thought of that.

What is Howard doing to resolve this crisis? In crisis communication we keep saying the ultimate goal is to build trust and the way you do that is by full and open recognition of what is happening, what went wrong and why–and then crystal clear, entirely transparent communication about what you are doing to fix it and prevent it from happening again. It seems clear to me that Howard is taking his crisis very seriously and appears to have gotten serious about rescuing his once darling company. It may be too late to really rescue it. But he seems to be pulling out lots of marketing stops. My problem is that I don’t see the mea culpa of what went wrong, I don’t see or haven’t seen the shockingly honest acceptance of responsibility that it takes and I haven’t seen the crystal clear communication of what is being done about it. In other words, it seems to me that Howard is treating this as a business problem and not a reputation crisis.

I think that is a big mistake and one that a lot of companies facing huge share losses may make. And why not? Wall Street tends to think if you make your numbers things will be OK. They are not. Recent results showed increased store sales of 6% but the stock went down something like 5% - 7%. Why? Wall Street expected 7-8% growth–not a paltry 6%. I look at it and say, given the doo doo the company is in, the competition, the market, the animosity among some circles, the big disappointment among people like me, 6% looks dang good, almost miraculous. They have a whole and they are digging out, but it is not enough. And solving it with business strategies –although unquestionably effective in producing those numbers–will not solve their underlying crisis. Because it is a crisis, not a business problem. A crisis is about credibility, character, emotion, anger, risk, disappointment. It is not a cold calculation of 6% or 8%.

My advice to Howard–get visible. This is about your credibility. Say you’re sorry for taking your eye off the ball. Over and over and over until you are sick to death of it. Tell us you care about our tanked stock, about your employees, about making Starbucks shine brighter than ever. Tell us you are going to innovate your way out of this like you innovated yourself to the top. And show us something exciting and new. Take some risks–all within the core values you created and make consistent. Get on the road and talk to your customers and shareholders. Make us believe in magic again.

Here is an article from the Ottawa Business Journal by a former chief of staff Walter Robinson. He absolutely nails it I believe. Every one of his principles are right on target but I especially like his #6: “A closed corporate culture belongs in a museum.”

Paste this one on your wall.

I am amazed at some of the discussions about communication strategy–even among top communicators at top level corporations and organizations. One question frequently is do we prepare a holding statement or do we issue a release? In other words, do we wait for the media to come to us to ask us questions or do we go public with our information anticipating media interest.

It certainly is a valid question when there is really no way for the media to be alerted to a situation. Even then, there are concerns about taking the reactive approach simply because being proactive sends such a powerful message of trust and transparency. However, I understand the reluctance. No one wants to be seen as seeking out negative coverage. But, what confounds me is when the event is highly visible and active media interest is all but assured because of what is physically visible to them. Still, there are those–most I would say–who deem it wiser to prepare a holding statement than a release.

A couple of comments and approaches. There is a difference between widespread distribution of a press release and posting the information publicly. In any situation of highly visible activity that is very certain to stimulate media interest it is almost always best in my mind to publicly communicate the information. The best way is to post it on a public newsroom site. It is not necessarily best to proactively distribute it via email. But when a reporter calls, it is valuable to be able to say, oh yes, we posted complete information about this activity on our website two hours ago. That sends a powerful message. We are not hiding, we are not hoping you won’t notice or you have a busy newsday, we just treat this kind of information as normal communication with an interested public.

Related to this decision about going public or not, being proactive vs reactive, is the subject of how much to put in the holding statement. Those reticent types who want to use holding statements are also frequently of the mind to minimize the information. Don’t give them anything but the bare minimum. Just tell them how much we care about everybody and don’t give any facts. I think that is BS. Does that contribute to trust and confidence? Whenever possible I try to anticipate any and all questions that reporters may ask and have information available in advance to answer those. Whenever possible I try to put as much as I can in a Holding Statement for the same reason–built trust and confidence. But some things simply don’t belong there. And when probing reporters do ask the sticky questions, to be able to provide a detailed Q&A, FAQ or Fact Sheet that addresses all those plus probably others they haven’t thought of is pretty powerful. It’s also a great way to minimize reporter traffic in a crisis. After all, they want the information–all the information–they don’t necessarily want to talk to you. Giving it to them in dribs and drabs and minimizing it simply encourages reporters to dig deeper and deeper, but now with the strong sense that you are hiding things and therefore have things to hide. Blood on the water to a good reporter.

Interesting discussion by Campbell Brown and another journalist on CNN the other night. They played the audio recorded by a blogger of former president Clinton lashing out against a “slimy” reporter who did an unfavorable report on the former president in Vanity Fair. The journalists were complaining about this because Clinton has refused to allow any journalist access to him recently on the campaign trail, including refusing to allow any journalists on the rope line. The blogger was on the rope line with the hidden tape recorder. Clinton assumed that she was a fan looking for a handshake, especially when she asked what he thought of the “hatchet job” in Vanity Fair. That’s when Clinton launched his tirade.

The CNN journalists were unhappy that they couldn’t get that juicy audio–because as journalists they were not allowed near. The questioned the ethics of the blogger in recording that audio and pretending to be a common citizen. Now wait just a minute here. Ethics? Would they have hidden a tape recorder and considered it ethical? I think so. Their only real complaint was that they as journalists were being treated differently than a blogger–who, by implication, they think should be treated as a journalist. Of course, most of the time those in mainstream media wouldn’t even come close to considering bloggers to be journalists. So, which way is it? Are bloggers journalists or not?

The other thing I found interesting is their comments on how this represents the new state of news coverage. They sort of sighed in a resigned way, that this is what things have come to and the likes of President Clinton will just have to get used to it. Indeed, and so will the “journalists.” The age of transparency is here. 300 million citizen journalists. If they don’t have tape recorders they certainly have cell phones with cameras. The term “off the record” is about to disappear from the lexicon. How can there be such a thing in an always visible, always recordable world?

I didn’t see the commentary from Andrew Cohen on CBS on June 1 but apparently he, a lawyer I might snidely comment, has concluded that every PR professional is a professional liar. His proof appears to be Scott McLellan.

This commentary resulted in a vigorous response by the PRSA on behalf of the profession. This video message from PRSA Chair and CEO Jeffrey Julin addresses the question head-on. The good thing about all this, and for which we must thank Mr. Cohen, is to raise the issue of honest, transparency and credibility to an important level of discussion. And while I appreciate Mr. Julin’s vigorous and respectful defense, I admire him for not falling into the strong temptation of pointing out that Mr. Cohen’s attack might be considered a case of the pot calling the kettle black.  After all, in the surveys on trust and credibility that I have seen, the public still considers attorneys one notch below PR folks–both near the bottom unfortunately.