Why Your Company Needs a News Room
American Airlines’ recent inspection fiasco grounded hundreds of planes, caused thousands of flight cancellations, and will, according to the Dallas Morning News, cost American Airlines tens of millions of dollars. But, in the heat of the event, Amercan’s website was virtually silent about the crisis. What could American have done differently? At the very least, it should have given the public a “context” for the situation and drawn upon the substantial resources naturally evolving on the internet for help. And it could haved started a dialogue with its disgruntled customers.
For example, if you go to How Stuff Works, you'll find a clear, well referenced, and brief explanation on happened with the MD-80s. Why didn’t American Airlines do this -- or at least point to it? American could have created a resource for its customers and reporters alike on where they could find status, discover additional information, dig into stories pro and con. American could have tried to set the context of the overall story. Context is the best form of spin control.
Media cynics routinely note that “if it bleeds, it leads." Yellow journalism and sensationalism are as much a part of media as fact and objective reporting. Yet there is still a thirst for “the rest of the story” as Paul Harvey used to call it, and the spirit of deeper news coverage is migrating to the web, where both professional and citizen reporters can create more researched coverage for the interested audience.
What this means for companies is that they need to respond and tap into the context from other reasonable voices. Further, they should give these discussions context on the company’s website. Companies should point any and all communications with customers and the media to this ongoing dialogue on the website so that it will at least become a resource for the overstrapped-infotainment-oriented reporter, and at best become the respected context for all the opinions about the event – good and bad.
Yet, few companies have the expertise to even see what is going on around them on the web, and fewer yet think of their web presence as way to get their message directly to the marketplace and to their customers. So you have to ask yourself:
* Is my company even aware of the dialog going on around us?
* Can we move fast enough to become the reputable context for any new issue that hits us?
For more on the airlines see:
The Airline Industry Whistleblowers
Assessing American's Apology
British Airways' Terminal 5 Disaster
Delta-Northwest's Interactive Public Relations
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John Sviokla is vice chairman of Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, Inc. (NASDAQ: DTPI). He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Kellogg School of Management and prior to joining Diamond, Dr. Sviokla researched and taught at the Harvard Business School for twelve years in Marketing, MIS, and Decision Sciences. His extensive writings have appeared in books and journals including the Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Fast Company, and the Wall Street Journal. He is a frequent speaker at executive forums worldwide and earned his BA from Harvard College, and his MBA and DBA with a major in management information systems from Harvard University. He can be found at 
Comments
Dear John,
Outstanding Post. You have identified a serious problem and offer a thoughtful solution. I would add the following observations:
1. Business leaders talk about the value of innovation. When is innovation going to be applied to meet the challenge you identify, i.e. a company controlling its news and the impact on its reputation?
2. Maybe the wrong people are in charge of the company's PR and reputation. There must be an understanding of how social media and the internet diseminates information. It spreads quickly and can rage out of control. Would you fight a California forrest fire with an old hose and bucket of water? Traditional styles of PR are no longer effective. Bring in people with modern equipment and "know how" to address the issue you raise. Every citizen with access to a computer is potentially "armed and dangerous". This is a good thing, but creates a significant challenge to a company in crisis.
For example, look at the job done by G.E. and Jeff Immelt to conteract the bad publicity associated with G.E.'s innacurate 1st quarter earnings forecast. It was a masterful job. Immelt apologized, accepted responsibility, put a face to the problem, and used all media options to address and control the issue. Jack Welch even apologized in his Business Week column for some comments he made about Mr. Immelt during the crisis.
Compare G.E. to A.I.G. in crisis management.
- Posted by lawrence berezin
May 23, 2008 12:38 PM