PR Resource

If one is going to make a dumb spelling mistake, it is probably better to do it where all can see. That way, it can be laughed off. Still, it is an embarrassment for Cathay Pacific, and it raises questions about the day-to-day management of the airline. Someone should have seen the error before the plane took to the air and landed in Hong Kong. The company handled the incident as well as could be done. It publicly acknowledged the error and fixed the spelling on the aircraft right away. Meanwhile, the internet had a field day spinning jokes from the mistake.

The current Administration is trashing two of the most powerful symbols of America. Those, of course, are the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, which are beacons of hope for immigrants, the oppressed and refugees. Lady Liberty and Ellis communicated freedom, a chance to start again, an open invitation to make of oneself what one wanted to be. Trump is making a mockery of that by reducing the intake of foreigners just to one-third of its historical average. He has often stated he wants to keep people out of America. He wants a wall on the southern border. He sees outsiders as a threat to the United States and not added ingredients to a cultural stew. All this has come as a shock to those who want to emigrate here. It is a mordant surprise to Americans who believe this land is the terrain of immigrants. There is little to be done until the next Presidential election. Then,voters can decide whether to stand by Trump or toss him out.

Amazon has an internal crisis on its hands. It appears some of its employees have been selling confidential inside information to companies seeking to improve their sales and making offers to delete bad reviews of products. The company has launched an investigation and stated that what might be happening is strictly against its rules. If so, the errant employees have hurt credibility and fairness and deserve to be dismissed and/or prosecuted. Amazon is too big and important a retailer to have its trustworthiness impugned. If the issue is pay — employees acting out of bounds because their compensation is too small — part of the problem lies with Amazon itself. The company ought to be paying more to deter illegal freelancing. It is well known that it drives its warehouse employees hard and pays them relatively poorly. Amazon should mete out punishment, but it also should take a look at itself and its procedures.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is in a bind. A woman has come forward who claims in high school he had tried to rape her but was too drunk to do it. Kavanaugh has unequivocally denied that it happened and another man who was supposed to be with him has also said it isn’t true. Who to believe? It is a classic case of she said he said. In the #metoo environment, the woman is being given more credence than the man, and one prominent figure after another has disappeared from public life. Kavanaugh might be next. If so, it will be a blow to the Trump administration and perhaps, to the Court. Kavanaugh is widely recognized as an able scholar of the law, a gentleman with the numerous female clerks he has engaged and an all-around good person. If he did attempt to rape a woman while in high school, that should exclude him from the Supreme Court, but who is to say? It is two against one now — two men against one woman. How do you prove what happened?

This is one ironic measure of the importance of PR — a lawsuit against a PR executive for disparaging remarks. The essence of the tort is allegations from a former Uber executive that she vilified him to the media. If she did, perhaps she deserves to lose the case  If not, she is still going to spend money to defend herself. In any event, if media relations were not important, this suit would be without merit.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase, has engaged in conduct unbecoming for a leading business person.  He boasted publicly that he could beat President Trump in an election because he is “smarter” and he is as “tough” as Trump. Such self-promotion is out of order for a leader, and to Dimon’s credit, he realized it right away and backed off of his comments.  It is too much already to listen to Trump’s ego-filled speech. The country doesn’t need another leader who is so high on self regard.  It takes overwhelming ambition to run for President because the road is long, difficult and thankless. But,voters don’t want to hear from a candidate that he is smarter than other candidates.  IQ alone doesn’t make a leader and the public knows it.  Maybe Dimon will run, maybe not, but he will need to live down his gaffe.

PR practitioners should read this article in its entirety. It discusses search engines and what they are. The author makes the point that they are no longer indices of the internet but much more, which makes them complex to operate and to understand. Anyone engaged in Search Engine Optimization will recognize caveats the writer raises. Why should we care? Because for most organizations and individuals today, information about them comes through Google rankings or a similar result from other search engines, such as Bing or Firefox. What the world knows about you is directly dependent on them. Hence, it is best to understand how they work and what they can and cannot do. The author explains the transformations underway and the future of the software. It is worth the time to read.

Google committed an unforced error in failing to show before Congress to explain how it is protecting social media and search from outside influences. Congress took note. There was an empty chair in both hearings with the nameplate of Google before it. The embarrassment was heightened by the presence of the CEO of Twitter and the COO of Facebook. If they could come, why not Google? To be fair, the company offered to send an attorney to testify, but that is not what the Congressmen and Senators wanted. They demanded top executives. To say that it was political theater is understatement, and Google certainly knew that, but in a spirit of public relations, it should have complied. The next time the company needs a favor from Congress, it will have explaining to do.

In PR, we tell companies to speak out in a crisis and to be transparent, but sometimes silence might be better as events unfold because there is little one can say credibly. This might be the tactic the pope is following in the face of allegations that he tolerated sexual abuse by one of his cardinals. If so, it isn’t working. Even his allies in the Church are urging him to talk. So far, he has not done so. While it might be Christian to remain silent in the face of calumny, the pope is carrying the credibility of the church in his person. As the leader of Roman Catholics, he has a duty to represent the faith in the best light possible. There may be no good stance to take if the allegations against him are true. Should he resign or weather the accusations and try to do the best he can? There is no good answer. Conservatives in the church want him gone and have for some time. The charges against him were brought by a high-ranking conservative bishop who is avowedly the pope’s enemy. Perhaps the pope has chosen to ignore the source because the bishop is a partisan. Even so, abuse victims are waiting for him to address their pain.

At a funeral one is supposed to deliver a eulogy, not a diatribe based on one’s personal obsessions. That is why Aretha Franklin’s family is miffed about this pastor’s 50-minute speech. The fellow should have known better. He had presided at numerous funerals before this one. But, apparently he saw a chance to air his views, and he took it. As any PR practitioner could have told him, that is a no-no. There are conventions in many aspects of life, and a funeral is for celebrating and mourning the death of a loved one, not for discussion of grievances with society. Maybe the pastor has learned his lesson but his faux pas was on an international stage before millions of bereft. He might not get another chance to do better.