Islanders on Thin Ice in Restricting Speech

Even as they faltered on the ice, the New York Islanders professional hockey team on Long Island has been standing tall in recent years for its bold embrace of social media.  They were one of the first teams in professional sports to provide press credentials and locker room access for bloggers, a practice in place since the 2007-2008 season, and have earned praise from marketing strategist and best-selling author David Meerman Scott as an organization that “gets it.”

This week, in the midst of a losing streak that now stands at 11 games, team management revoked the credentials of one such blogger, Chris Botta, who operates the popular site, Islanders Point Blank (www.islanderspointblank.com).  The action took Botta by surprise. While his writing has been critical of team management at times – any struggling organization should expect that – it was never vulgar or inflammatory. If anything, Botta is the team’s most avid cheerleader, a habit ingrained from the years he worked as the Islanders’ vice president of media relations.

As Botta now watches games from his couch instead of the press box, the episode raises significant questions about a professional sports team’s power to freeze out journalists who run afoul of management, whether bloggers, TV reporters or sportswriters from the daily newspaper:  If the Islanders can do it to Botta, who’s to say they can’t do it to Katie Strang of Newsday, the only traditional media outlet still interested enough to cover the team on a daily basis?

Sports journalists who lose access appear to have little recourse.  The National Professional Hockey Writers Association and its New York chapter have appealed to the National Hockey League to intervene, but the league’s stance has been that teams have final say on credentials.

Reasons for Botta’s exclusion remain unclear. The team so far has said nothing publicly about it. Speaking on the New York sports talk radio station WFAN, Botta said the team’s public relations director told him it was a management decision made because Botta had gone from “reporting the news to becoming the news.”

Botta took this as a reference to a recent article about the team’s losing streak, which pointedly noted that Islanders’ General Manager Garth Snow had declined to be interviewed for the story.

Making note of these things is fair game in journalism, as it informs readers why an article doesn’t have quotes or reflect “the side” of a particular newsmaker.

Perhaps to the general manager it appeared petty.

Certainly it is the Islanders who appear petty now.

Tags: Chris Botta, David Meerman Scott, free speech, Hockey, Islanders, journalism, Katie Strang, Long Island, Newsday, NHL, public relations, social media, sports, WFAN

Tone-Deaf BP CEO Says: "I Want My Life Back"

(Click here for video.)

BP CEO Tony Hayward’s complaint that he “wants his life back” is the most tone-deaf comment I’ve ever heard uttered by a CEO doing crisis communications.

This is what he said to Fox News yesterday: “There’s no one who wants this thing over more than I do.  You know, I’d like my life back, so there’s no one who wants this thing done more than I do. And we’re doing everything we can to contain the oil off shore, defend the shoreline and return peoples lives to normal as fast as we can.”

Crisis communications is all about staying focused on the main messages you want to convey.  One of the key messages to convey in any crisis is one of empathy and concern.   When people are upset, they need to know you care.  That demonstration of empathy is critical for building trust and credibility.

Hayward’s comment shows an astonishing lack of awareness for the situation and what it requires.

This event began as a tragic industrial accident that claimed 11 lives, then mushroomed into the largest environmental disaster in the nation’s history. The damage to the Gulf and to those who depend upon it for their livelihoods is beyond calculation and the crisis continues with no end in sight.

Someone at BP needs to grab Hayward and tell him: “It’s not about you!”

Having the CEO act as spokesman usually lends credibility to crisis communications, so long as the CEO has some skill and comfort in communicating with the media.  Is Hayward up to this?

Tags: BP, crisis communications, Gulf, oil spill, public relations, spokesman, Tony Hayward

When a Reporter Says, "Don't Touch Me," Then Don't Touch Him

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This confrontation between a hospital public relations person and an investigative TV reporter unfolds like a slow motion car crash.

The setting: A sleepy public meeting hosted by a Northern California hospital.  A local TV news crew arrives in pursuit of a story about alleged abuse of a patient gift fund.  The investigative reporter pounces for an ambush interview.  The PR guy steps in and decides to throw gasoline on the fire.

The lessons here for PR are obvious enough: Don’t antagonize a reporter.   Don’t escalate a tense situation.  Don’t become the story. DON’T BE CRAZY!

But I also want to add a word of caution against the “siege mentality” a negative story can breed in PR , in which the press is viewed as the enemy.   Negative stories happen, but the press is not your enemy.   There might be people in your company who feel that way, but the PR person does  not have that luxury.  Your job is to fix things.

The PR person in this little passion play — who I’m not going to name. He’s having a bad enough week as it is — has an “us” against “them” mindset that makes him think it’s OK to treat this reporter with disrespect.

Another takeaway is that this was a PR “FAIL” before the PR person said his first word. The real work of PR needed to begin much earlier – tracking down answers to the reporter’s questions, coordinating the response, setting up interviews, and generally doing whatever it took to avoid having the “I-Team”  show up at your public meeting.

My thanks to Mark Bernheimer of MediaWorks Resource Group for calling attention to this little gem.

Tags: hospital, investigative reporter, journalism, Mark Bernheimer, MediaWorks Resource Group, public relations

Is that Charity Worth Supporting? Here's an Easy Test.

Want to know if that charity helping Haiti, or some other cause important to you or your company, is worth supporting?

Here is a very simple formula that removes all the guesswork.

First, obtain a copy of the charity’s most recent IRS Form 990.  These are freely available through Guidestar.com.

Add Line 14 (management expenses) to Line 15 (fundraising expenses).  Now, take that sum as a percentage of the charity’s total revenue as reported in Line 12.  So the formula is: Line 14 + Line 15 divided by Line 12 x 100.

This gives you the organization’s combined management and fundraising expenses as a percent of revenue.

If that number is higher than 30 percent, i.e., if a non-profit is spending more than 30 percent of its revenue on management and fundraising expenses (as opposed to services), that’s a problem.

Some might argue that the threshold should be a bit higher, say, 35 percent, but stick with 30 – unless the non-profit has some compelling reasons why it is higher.

The 30 percent test is used by grants’ administrators at many major corporations to evaluate requests for charitable support. These programs are often – or should be – closely tied to a company’s community and public relations efforts.

In the wake of a tragedy like the earthquake in Haiti, companies are likely hearing about and receiving solicitations from a number of organizations promoting their work in the disaster relief effort.

Give, by all means.  But give wisely.

Tags: community relations, earthquake, Haiti, philanthropy, public relations

Royal Caribbean Adds Haiti Relief News to Updated Home Page

Royal Caribbean’s updated home page now spotlights the humanitarian relief the company is providing to Haiti.

A few days ago in this space, we faulted Royal Caribbean’s silence on Haiti on its homepage – even as the company was actively supporting the relief efforts.

As anyone who has cruised the Caribbean with RC knows, the company operates a private beach for its passengers in Haiti, giving it a special association with that country. The lack of any reference to Haiti’s plight on the company’s homepage was an omission that, in our view, seemed not only cold but left people with the false impression that RC was not responding to the crisis

Royal Caribbean has since remedied this, and has placed a prominent link to information about its relief efforts in its opening photo carousel.

The larger lesson for communicators is this: If your organization is doing something to help Haiti, you should make it easy for your customers and stakeholders to find out – not because you’re a publicity hound, but because people might think you’re doing nothing if they don’t quickly see evidence to the contrary.

Tags: Cruise, earthquake, Haiti, public relations, Royal Caribbean, Web site

A Tree Fell in the Forest: Royal Caribbean's Communications on Haiti

Royal Caribbean has a port-of-call in Haiti and is doing a number of things to help in the earthquake relief effort. But you’d never know that from the company’s homepage.  As of Friday afternoon it was still all blue skies and good times as far as the eye could see.

To people who know the company’s connection to Haiti, the absence of any acknowledgment of the catastrophe on the home page – the company’s doorstep to the world – sends a chill.

Perception matters.

If you’re an organization that’s doing something to help Haiti, you should make it easy for your customers and stakeholders to find out – not because you’re a publicity hound, but because people might think you’re doing nothing if they don’t quickly see evidence to the contrary.

Royal Caribbean issued a press release Friday afternoon outlining its humanitarian response, and it’s substantial. It includes a pledge of at least $1 million in relief and deliveries of goods and supplies.

To get the news, however, you had to visit the Press Center, a Web site backwater for journalists and PR types.

Fail.

There was also some interesting information about the relief response in Royal Caribbean CEO’s Adam Goldstein’s blog, called WHY NOT? This blog is clearly linked from the company’s home page, but gives no indication that it’s a place for news on Haiti.

Fail.

In social media, the company’s Twitter site spouts only blurbs about the latest screamin’ deals, while its YouTube site airs commercials.

Fail.

The company’s facebook fan page carries the CEO’s blog posts. Again, some good stuff about Haiti, but nothing on the home page to indicate you’ll find it there.

My family and I, and many thousands of others, stepped on the soil of Haiti thanks to a Royal Caribbean cruise.   It wasn’t exactly a cultural immersion. Port-of-call Labadee is a self-contained, private enclave for cruise ship passengers.

Still, as someone who had that experience –  and who thinks highly of Royal Caribbean –  I went to their Web site eager to see what the company was doing in response to the earthquake.

I saw nothing.

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons.

Tags: Adam Goldstein, Caribbean, Cruise, earthquake, Haiti, Labadee, public relations, Royal Caribbean

Please go to www.redcross.org and donate

Please donate to the American Red Cross to help the people of Haiti.

Go to https://american.redcross.org/site/Donation2?4306.donation=form1&idb=1170181699&df_id=4306

That takes you right to the International Response Fund page.

A minimum $10 donation is required to make a gift online.

Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun — Pass it on

I learned of this wonderful video through Chris Brogan’s blog and wanted to share it with you.

It’s a message we all need to hear.

New e-Tablet Sports Illustrated Looks Like a "Contenduh"

Flipping through Sports Illustrated in the dentist’s office just got a whole lot more interesting.

A new electronic tablet edition now in development — a collaboration of The Wonderfactory and Time Inc. — looks to have tremendous potential.

I recently got a Kindle.  I enjoy reading books on it, and appreciate its convenience and features.   Yet, it’s also clear that the e-reader/tablet revolution is still in its infancy.

This Sports Illustrated demo shows what’s likely coming next – a slick integration of print content, video and interactivity.

Just yesterday, coincidentally, my daughters had a dental appointment and I picked up a recent copy of SI in the waiting room.  I used to subscribe to it years ago, and I was struck by how paltry and thin it seemed in comparison to the ad and feature-filled versions I remembered.

It looked like a magazine that was running out of time.

I hope it can hang on a while longer, because it just might have a future after all.

(Comments welcome. To leave a comment, click on post’s headline to be sure you are on the post page.)

Tags: journalism, Kindle, magazines, Sports Illustrated, Time Inc., Wonderfactory

Is Tiger News Really News?

I’m fascinated by the Tiger Woods story, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

Yes, from a news standpoint, there isn’t much here of global consequence: Man cheats on wife.  (Save headline for future use.)

But Tiger’s story has enough classic themes and elements to keep a graveyard full of Greek tragedians busy – avarice, lust, irony, pathos, comedy, etc.

Sometimes the job of news is more than transmitting information. News is our global commons. We go there to find out what’s going on, and figure out what it has to do with us.

Tiger’s story, though not strictly speaking “important,” gives us much to ponder that is important: What is the real meaning of success? Is anyone’s life truly to be envied? What does it mean to be a role model or hero?

In that sense, the Tiger Woods story has a lot to say, if we listen in the right way.

(To leave a comment, make sure you are on the post page, not the blog front page.)

Tags: News, Tiger Woods