This Can’t Be Happening

If your company is in crisis, and you think reporters are your worst nightmare, think again.  The swollen ranks of citizen journalists, aka bloggers, can leave you sleepless.

During a recent panel hosted by The Center for Ethics and Corporate Responsibility at Georgia State University, a journalism professor reminded us that the blogosphere is fundamentally grounded in the First Amendment.  How easy we forget.  Not only are bloggers protected by the First Amendment, they are encouraged to be bloggers by these words:  “Congress shall make no law…. abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble…”

The “assemble” part is, I think, the most relevant to the blogosphere, which more than anything else is akin to a town hall meeting.  In the blogosphere, people set agendas, select issues to discuss, debate and argue about them, share resources, point fingers and join hands, take sides, ask questions and offer opinions.  It’s exactly like a town hall meeting, in my view, and a little less like a newspaper reporter.  Blogs enable people to demonstrate passion and emotion, to be momentary experts, and to create camaraderie among their kindred spirits — just like at a town hall meeting.

Your company may one day be the target of bloggers.  Or it may be annointed by bloggers.  Probably, you’ll get some of both.  The question you need to ask yourself is:  Do these blogs help or hurt my business?  Try to think of bloggers as audience members at your shareholders meeting, or as homeowners at your neighborhood association meeting. You can’t please everyone, and you can’t respond to every single concern.  But, you can learn valuable information simply by listening.

So listen to the blogosphere. Just don’t lose sleep over it.

If you’re keeping a scorecard in the major league baseball steroids scandal, Andy Pettitte deserves to be the leadoff man, even though he’s a pitcher.

In a spring training news conference, the New York Yankees ace apologized, fell on the sword and took the high road as reporters lobbed questions about performance-enhancing drugs, rather than about his breaking ball.  Pettitte sounded contrite (”Was it stupid? Yes, I was stupid.”)  He told fans that he was sorry for embarrassing them and his Yankees and Astros teammates.  He also said that he regretted the strained relationship with Roger Clemens.

The strain emanates from Pettitte’s truthfulness, not from from Clemens’ recent congressional testimony.  Over time, perhaps over just the upcoming season, Pettitte will be viewed as an athlete who made some mistakes, and owned up to them.  Fans will forgive him.  Reporters will give him the benefit of the doubt.  Fellow major leaguers may even respect him and try Pettitte’s approach if they get popped.

Admissions of guilt are painful, nerve-wracking moments.  But the public scrutiny that accompanies them has a short life cycle, because the public usually has a soft spot for these kind of heroes.  They’ll forgive you.

The French bank that has been upended by a single employee now has a bigger problem: public sympathy for the employee.  A trader at the bank, he allegedly mishandled billions of dollars and compiled the biggest trading loss ever.  He was not a high-level manager or senior executive, but just an employee who apparently manipulated systems and practices, forged trading data, and then got caught.  Bank executives have said he acted alone.

And that “acted alone” assertion has people pulling for him, like a classic underdog.  This was not the case with Enron, you might remember.  That company’s executives concocted schemes to bilk investors and fabricate financial deals, leading to an unprecedented corporate collapse and fortune-ruining.  Public sympathy completely eluded the Enron executives, who were scalded in the media and blasted by employees who lost their retirement savings.  They were indicted and convicted, largely the result of employee whistle-blowing. (more…)