The Good, The Bad, The Spin

This story about racial tensions in Jena, Louisiana, as told by National Public Radio, illustrates three critical public relations points when tensions are high.

• Saying “no comment,” apparently en masse, is a choice way to ensure others will frame the story in place of your silence. Chances are also high their version of events will be one-sided.
• Dodging the press helps to ensure that the story will develop legs. In this case the story broke locally, then regionally and now nationally.

• Denying the dynamic at hand—that Jena is a community defined by racial tension and violence—helps the issues both percolate and escalate. In contrast, naming the dynamic helps to heal. When only one side sees the issue for what it is, there will be no resounding reconciliation.

There’s more to be said that, strategically, each of the above may legitimate approaches (e.g., not commenting to the press for certain legal reasons may prove beneficial in the long term when the choice is between a poor reputation or jail time).

The appearance, though, is that these general crisis communications creeds needlessly hold true for Jena.

A while back I touted the virtues of Gmail for public relations uses. To recap, Gmail offers the ability to tag (label) messages with multiple tags. This, as opposed to MS Outlook which uses folders, allows PR pros to apply multiple labels to their emails. In short, the ability to store and retrieve messages by keywords allows us to better manage our online conversations. Also, other email accounts can be forwarded to Gmail without others knowing you’re using Gmail as your primary email interface.

Google offers far more than just Gmail. There are four other important features Google offers that give us increased potential to enhance our effectiveness for public relations. (more…)

A performance artists’ group stages a fake, funny protest at a New York City Wendy’s.  Their claim: Wendy’s is falsely portraying redheads with its use of the Wendy’s logo. More than 50 redheads enact the sidewalk protest.

What would you do if you were doing public relations for Wendy’s? Hopefully laugh. And consider some pigment.