Forgetting The Basics

Why is it that politicians and business people forget the basics of the electronic world? By basics, I mean never writing anything in an e-mail or text message that you would not want to see in headlines.  Here is another case of “Duh.”  A governor’s aide writes to another person that e-mails would show the governor “flat out lied” about his involvement in a scandal.  Apparently she never expected her message to be found in discovery, but it was and she put her boss in a bad light as the case goes to court.  But then again, maybe she did want her message to surface.  She might have given up on her boss and wanted to sink him and his reputation for bullying the media.  It is hard to say what her motivation was but the result is the same.  I hammer the point with my business school students.  Always check your email and text messages for how they are going to play in public.  Change them if necessary and never write in anger.  The basics.  Maybe the aide will remember the next time, if there is one.