Valley PR Blog

Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger

By Len Gutman on August 28th, 2007 In Hype!

Yesterday we witnessed both the best and worst of how to handle a crisis PR situation. First, the bad.

Idaho Senator Larry Craig was arrested in June for sexual misconduct in an airport bathroom and only when the report became public yesterday did the senator address the situation. Despite pleading guilty at the time, he now says it was all just a big mistake. His excuse: he inadvertently spread his legs too far apart in the stall. And you didn’t inhale either, right senator? I can’t stress this enough — PR rule number one is DON’T LIE, you almost always get caught and the cover up is worse than the crime.

Now to a Virginia courthouse where we witnessed superb public relations on the part of former Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Vick. Remove yourself from the heinous nature of this crime for a second and read the text from Vick’s heartfelt and quite eloquent mea culpa.

Or watch it for yourself here.

Don’t get me wrong — what Michael Vick did was despicable and he deserves to do time. Truth is though, this apology goes a long way toward folks seeing Michael Vick as a human being — fallible, yes. But sincerely sorry for his actions. Notice too that Vick’s words yesterday were unscripted. This is how you handle a crisis — now if only he made this speech a few weeks ago before lying to his coach, the commissioner, his teammates and us.

Comments

Vick’s apology was so sincere and unexpected that it’s a sad commentary on how few times we see public figures acknowledge their mistakes properly. The contrast between Vick and Craig was astounding. To me, contrition will always leave a better lasting impression than arrogance.

Maybe I’m cynical, but PR-wise, this was the eqivalent of draining a 50-foot putt for triple bogey.

Vick has had three weeks to live with this and work through every possible angle in his head and commit his rationalizations (playbook) to memory. All he did was put a new twist on the now trite act of the public figure’s public apology: he showed heart and was unscripted.

My biggest issue with this whole thing: Where was this press conference when the story broke? Couldn’t something like this have saved his credibility?

It certainly would have been very tricky to navigate the legal investigation but he could have gotten ahead of the story: “Listen, some news is coming out about me that isn’t pleasant to hear. But I want to put some rumors to rest and assure my family, friends, teammates, employer and especially the fans that I am cooperating fully with federal authorities and trying to get to the bottom of things…blah blah blah. In the meantime, I am as heartsick as you are about some of the reports being attributed to associates of mine. As such I will be donating $250,000 to area humane societies and animal rescue organizations. blah blah blah.” Something like that.

Part of crisis communication is mitigation. Saving face starts the moment the crisis happens. Vick did a very poor job of this. As a result, he will have precious little credibility when he returns from his rehabilitation. Sincere apology or no.

I think maybe lawyers played a part in some of the things Dan mentions. Yes, he should have made a statement long ago. I think he was getting bad advice from somebody. Finally yesterday he did the right thing. Too late? I wrote about on my blog too, Len.

FYI … here’s the link to Kathy’s post:

Michael Vick Finally Does Something Right

For those that don’t know her, Kathy is one of the Valley’s (if not, country’s) top media trainers.

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