245: Crisis Control: Unraveling Breaking News Stories for Tips on Mastering Public Relations Blowback

Last week was a big week for breaking news. We have news now to report involving our own network. News to us here at CNN and you at home. CNN's chairman and CEO Chris Licht is leaving the network. Licht took over the network a little over a year ago. David Zaslav, the chairman of CNN's parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, he just made the announcement at the network editorial meeting. What it sounds like to me is that the powers that be in golf, obviously men's golf, PGA Tour, Liv golf, et cetera, were sick and tired of all the squabbling, the drama, the soap opera of the complaining, the arguing, the fighting. As millions are waking up to smoky cityscapes for a third day in a row. The White House stepping in. Breaking news stories now move at an unprecedented pace due to the rapid spread of information on social media platforms, information that is spread globally in a matter of seconds. However, there is a spillover effect that reveals threats to brands and organizations when it comes to managing their reputation in the event of a PR crisis. Welcome to the Indestructible PR Podcast where we use current events and tested media and PR strategies to help prevent or manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. In this episode, breaking news makes on social media very important, which can make it a lose lose for organizations and companies trying to come out clean. I know that was a tortured intro, but I love my rhymes. But as difficult as it is to cobble together the words to connect news and reputation, it's a lot easier to spot it, at least as someone who works in IT daily. You know, in this ever evolving digital landscape, companies and organizations and brands are facing an array of challenges when it comes to managing reputation and mitigating, you know, PR blowback. This year, man, it is bringing a set of threats that demand careful attention but also strategic preparation for when you have to have a plan in action. So in this episode, let's just talk about the three threats that I see in that brands and companies and organizations are likely to encounter in 2023 and the role that social media and all that comes with it plays in these problems. Now, last week I spoke at two events which would normally make for a busy week, but you're going to add into that that one of the events I needed to travel to and this was all happening during the week that my kids were graduating and my family was coming into town. And my family doesn't come into town lightly. They come in like a Canadian wildfire. It just happens and you're unprepared for it. You can't see anything. Sometimes you can't even breathe. It gets hot, it gets challenging. It's okay. They don't listen to the podcast anyway. But it's the similarity there. To show that last week was a bit of a week, but I was watching and the reason why I was watching is because I was rolling out a new presentation about some of the things that I'm seeing in communications. I wasn't even planning on doing it. As a matter of fact, I had these talks kind of in the can, ready to go and why I scheduled it the week of my kids graduation. I kind of knew it was going to be tight, but you know, when they call, you always want to help people, you want to serve. But I ended up changing the presentation. Like I kept the title the same, but I had to introduce new information. So the basis was the same. But I see these threats there and based on how it was received and when I say received, the looks on everyone's face as I was telling this information, I felt like it was necessary. The feedback that I got was tremendous. The questions that I got was tremendous. It made people think and it worried them. But in the end I told them there is light. Well, I should say this. The smoke will clear, the fire in the heat will clear, and then something will be revealed. And that is a way to effectively manage in 2023 when it comes to the reputations. So I want to mention three threats that I think is crucial for all businesses, companies, organizations to understand to effectively navigate this complex realm of PR and safeguarding their reputation. Because that's the bottom line. If you're not prepared, it's like you're dead. You're absolutely going to be struggling to recover. Now the reason why I opened up with three breaking news stories is because when they happen, I happen to be tracking them. Because not only do I follow news, you know, I follow it by reading, I follow it by notifications, you know, that pop up on my phone. But certainly because I'm social media, because I tend to post more now to Instagram, not as much on Twitter. I gotta get my Twitter game back on. But I just have nothing to say on Twitter anymore. But I'm noticing a news story and then I'm watching the public opinion and the spillover effect from these news stories and what happens on social media. And when it comes to social media, what's said on social media cycles right back along around and goes back to news. So these are the three things that I do talk about in this presentation. This keynote that I'm giving, but something I want you all to think about. The first one is, of course, just social media platforms. One of the events that I spoke at, I told them, I gave them a timestamp. I said, you know, in 2016, when I started, you know, working within this industry and presenting to this industry, this association, I told them, I remember asking people in the room, you know, how many of you are, you know, are your organizations using Facebook? And not even a third of the room would raise their hands. But now social media, I mean, it's omnipresent. Everyone use it. These platforms have become powerful catalysts for public opinion and can significantly impact a company's reputation. And when these news stories happen, they almost are always negative because there will be some negative blowback on social media. So while these platforms do offer unprecedented opportunities for these brands to promote whatever it is that they have to promote, and this is what I was discussing, it also presents these substantial risks that come in the form of negative feedback and complaints and these controversial incidents that can rapidly spread on social media. And what makes it more difficult to contain is when opinion is mixed with fact to create misinformation and spread. When that spreads out, that's what gets picked up in the news. Case in point, last week's breaking news about Chris Licht. He's the CEO and the chairman of CNN now, the former CEO and chairman of cnn. There was a piece in the Atlantic that. That was designed to be a profile to position Licht as a stronger leader. He succeeded Jeff Zucker and Jeff Zucker. I did a podcast about him. I'll add it into the show notes. He was well regarded at cnn. He was someone who earned his stripes at NBC. He was at NBC. He was an executive producer for the Today show during 9 11. And he has a strong following of respect, I should say, in cnn. But he was let go for having an inapprop relationship with one of his lieutenants, Allison Gullist, and both of them had to leave. They needed to fill his shoes. And it appears that they filled it with someone who had the same path as Zucker. Chris Lick started out at NBC, or at least that's when we first heard about him. I know he clearly had experience prior to that, but he was one of the architects behind Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough and the team around him that came out in 2007. He moved on to CBS and he was an EP there. He worked for Stephen Colbert as his EP and then came into CNN. He's not known for being a Very strong leader. I mean, he is an executive producer. But whereas Zucker was able to kind of make that leap from producer behind the scenes to fill more of a management role, Licht, it appears, was still in a executive producer role. And it's kind of difficult to just jump into a CEO position. He wasn't known for being, you know, very strong. And he also got caught up in a lot of corporate mishigas because of what is happening behind the scenes, you know, with cnn, but also the ownership coming in with Warner Brothers. So part of the problem for him is he just was likely never going to succeed anyway. But as this relates to social media, how you knew this was going to happen to Licht and why he was going to be out soon is because of the chatter. It's how people comment on social media about cnn. You know, CNN typically was the middle road for cable news networks. We had MSNBC that was more liberal in their programming compared to Fox, which was clearly more conservative. CNN always found a place in the middle breaking news. And they seemed to be, you know, very strong. But as social media started to grow, news that spread on social media, it created some issues and challenges for cable news. People just do not watch cable news anymore. They watch social media. Younger people watch cable news. It is a dying medium. Without a doubt, cable network news is going to be challenging. I discussed this in a TikTok I recorded. I don't know if I posted yet. Maybe or maybe not. We'll see. About. The cable news industry is changing so much because what became very successful at a time when Chris Lick, for instance, was at Morning Joe, when promoting on air talent and turning them into brands became an important catalyst for driving viewers to these network shows. Like you look at a Rachel Maddow, for instance, on msnbc, people went to watch her. One would argue, you know, Chris Cuomo, he had strong numbers before he left cnn. Cable news networks were built around brands and names. Now with more people becoming known on social media, parasocial relationships, people don't care as much about on air talent. I don't think the same applies to local news because local on air talent is going to have local followers and fans. They speak to a different audience, a more necessary one. It's a more contained audience when it gets into local news. But national news, you're fighting for the attention and for the fandom from people who are more drawn to facts and to content. I mean, look @ Don Lemon, CNN, gone. Look at Tucker Carlson, gone. Look at Chuck Todd, moderator of Meet the Press on NBC, gone. I think a lot of the reasons why they were is they created problems online because there's so much negative feedback about them and they just weren't worth the effort anymore. So that's why social media can be a double edged sword. If there's a lot of public opinion against you and it's not really verified, but let's say there's a lot of public chatter about you, but then the press picks it up and then the press starts speaking negatively about you and now the stories are starting to come out. That's why you knew Kris Alick was going to be gone. As soon as that Atlantic piece aired or was published, then people started chatting about it on social media. Then the news picked it up and everybody was, was waiting for the sword to fall. It was reported that the PR team behind the two people behind that piece, they were immediately let go. And that's how you knew it was the end for Chris L. But I think that's an example. So what can brands learn from this? If there is an issue that comes up, it doesn't even have to be a crisis or something negative. It could just be an issue where your brand is in the news, your company is in the news for whatever reason. It brings in the chatter, it brings in the conversation. If that conversation goes negative, the press could pick it up. It's likely to pick it up because now they're going to have their, if it leads, it bleeds headlines, which is going to create, you know, more clicks and shares, which is what local news needs, which is what national newspaper needs as well. That's what everybody needs. It's driven by that. So that's why it's really important that your operations are sound, that the decisions that you make are sound and that they're clear. So it can mitigate a lot of that chatter. So you can put out the truth and make it go away, snuff it out like a wildfire. Now number two, another issue that's coming up is this idea of the amplification of echo chambers. Now echo chambers, when I say that that's straight out of the classroom. It's straight out of the college classroom. It's not common speak for social media, but I can't think of anything else to say because that's what I taught. But echo chambers are what kind of creates. It's where polarized audiences go. And a challenge for companies right now is trying to navigate that. Because what an echo chamber is, it's a space where all the like minded people get together and they reinforce Their beliefs and their opinions, and it just results in this spread of information, but spread of polarized information. Companies are going to find themselves not only caught in the middle of these two audiences, they're going to be caught in the crossfire, particularly if their actions or statements are misinterpreted or if they're intentionally misinterpreted and misrepresented and spread as misinformation. And then they filter into these echo chambers. So it's important that your message is stronger than that. Like an example, you know, from my podcast last week about Target, even though the CEO of Target wrote a message about the safety of his employees, it came out as a polarizing message. The people who are against trans lgbtq, they're the ones that are going to go into the echo chamber and talk about and spread stories and information about the billions of dollars that Target is losing, where the other side of it is going to talk about the importance of, you know, the message that was said about LGBTQ and trans. And it could even go down another area where now they're fighting against conservatives. Again, these echo chambers. It's important that your message is a strong one. Now, the example that I pulled from the Open, Live Golf, that's a story that broke last week. It's not just a story about live golf, you know, backed by Saudi Arabia, you know, forming a deal between another golfing organization, the PGA Tour. That story did not end there. What it did is created a whole new round of stories. You know, a big one is talking about the human rights activists and members of people who support the families of 9 11. They're going to blast the PGA Tour for joining forces with live golf. It's backed by Saudi Arabia. It created a spillover effect. Then the lawmakers get involved, and then all the people online start chatting about it as well. A term that many people likely haven't heard before. Hashtag sportswash. Go ahead and Google it. Once you Google it, you're going to see all the stories about Liv Golf and PGA and this transaction that the two of them made together. So even with the deals that you have or the decisions that you make or the policies or perhaps something with pricing, expect there to be a blowback and prepare for the blowback. Who's going to say something now? The PGA would have to know right away that with this decision, there was going to be blowback from families of 9 11. It's almost a given. Were they ready for it? One of the stakeholders that PGA clearly did not bring into the fold when it came to these negotiations or even delivering the news were their marquee golfers. There were news stories that Tiger woods, you know, was caught unaware of what was happening, completely shocked by. And a lot of marquee golfers there were unfamiliar with what was going to happen. Now they become part of the news story. If they have a negative reaction, that's going to create more negativity which is going to fall right into that echo chamber. If you have an event, if you have a merger, if you have a decision that's going to impact stakeholders, it's important that you are prepared to speak to all stakeholders. And now the third one, and this is key, I'm beating this drum, beating it, beating it, beating it. And that's the impact of the algorithms. The algorithm is another double edged sword. It's something that can create and build your brand and as quickly as it builds it, you can absolutely lose it because of it. Now the example that I gave in the Open was the story about the wildfires. It was a national news story, definitely. But if you lived in the Midwest or if you lived down south, it wasn't going to be as prominent in your social media feeds because just by location, this was definitely a geo targeted story. It was a New York story. It was partially a New England story, but it was a New York Mid Atlantic story. It was national definitely, but it was a big local news story for the mid Atlantic state and around New York and particularly New York City as well. And you saw a lot of the photos in the video and just the time capture of the smoke coming in and just that eerie orange glow. And where did you see all of it? A lot of it was in the news coverage. But where did the news coverage pick it up? In many cases it was social media because everybody in New York, tri state area, mid Atlantic, they were posting photos of the smoke and what it looked like, where they were. And you know, subtext of a lot of these stories was about, you know, masks and who's prepared and the air quality, quality and the environment and climate control and all of it, you know, it kind of spun off, you know, all these other secondary stories there. How does the algorithm come in? Well, the fact that this was happening somewhat locally in a part of the region of the country, it was national, but it spiked in the region. It was a huge story locally. A lot of that had to do with the algorithm. The algorithm for a story like this, one of the ways that you could use it proactively is if your company or business has something to do with the wildfires, you know, have something to do with smoke or air quality. You could absolutely newsjack this story and work within the algorithm. Hashtag wildfires, hashtag smoke, hashtag whatever it is. You know, wherever you are, you could newsjack if it was something that was helping. We don't want to newsjack for a wildfire story where it's causing clearly a lot of damage. Not a lot of injuries, but damage. You don't want to do something that doesn't strike the same tone. But if it's something that can help someone, perhaps it's a specific type of mask or something that seals a house or something from the damage from the smoke. You know, whatever it is, it's this idea of the algorithm behind it is how quickly it works. Now, what it also does is has a spillover effect because the wildfires did not originate in the US they originate in Canada. So this is a Canadian story. So a lot of the stories that you saw were about blame Canada and the relationship between Canada and the U.S. there are also a lot of stories about crisis preparedness, wildfire preparedness. That was one of the jobs that I had to do at FEMA's work, a wildfire. And there are a lot of considerations when it comes to wildfires, because you need to know where it started, who started it, why isn't it being contained? What are the factors that are allowing this wildfire to spread and create damage and wreak havoc? Many cases when you hear wildfires, they're contained within a country, but this one, which is overtaking these parts of Canada, but of course, because it's in the US now, it's a US story and aided in large part because of the algorithm. So they play a vital role in shaping the content that users see on social media platforms. It can help influence brands positively, but it can also inadvertently amplify negative PR blowback for companies and organizations. So algorithms tend to prioritize the engagement and user preferences. So what people are looking for. So in other words, it's reinforced, forcing not just what they want, but perhaps what they already believe. And if there's existing beliefs around it. For example, let's say someone just hates Canada, blame Canada. I think that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to add a South park in the open. That's what I need to do. Okay, I'm doing a real time edit right here for all of you to see. I have to find south park in there. We could be adding to the blame in Canada. We could be talking about Politics with Trudeau. We could talk about Trudeau, Biden relationships. We could talk about the lack of funds to respond to this crisis. It could even be, you know, like local, like maybe local emergency management. This is their time, you know, to highlight that we don't have the funds. Or it could highlight that they aren't adequately prepared to handle it, and then that creates another one. So you can see the algorithms. It's fed on beliefs and ideas. What do brands do about this is you have to adapt your communication strategies accordingly. You have to recognize that the algorithm is in play with any issue that you are dealing with. So, for example, this is wildfire. Oh, my goodness. You have got to get into that wildfire algorithm as quickly as possible. Yes, with a hashtag. But it also means sharing, liking, talking, engaging, putting your information in there. You almost have to shoehorn it in there and thrust it in there so you're part of that conversation so it doesn't get away from you. You need to engage with your target audience, your key stakeholders, to ensure that there aren't any misleading narratives that are gaining undue prominence because you've let it go. So as you forge ahead in 2023, you have to be prepared to navigate the very intricate world of PR social media algorithms by proactively addressing these challenges. So managing PR blowback, it requires a deep understanding of social media platforms, the ability to effectively engage with these audiences, and a keen awareness of the impact of these algorithms. You want to stay vigilant, you want to adapt to strategies, and you want to foster this open and transparent communication. Now, in every episode, I leave you with one easy to remember takeaway to help you build that indestructible reputation. And here it is, your next public relations issue. Your next public relations crisis is going to be a social media issue and a social media crisis, full stop. Plan for it. And one of the ways that you can plan for it is you can invite me to speak to your organization, to your company about these issues. You can head on over to my website, Molly mcpherson.com on the front page, you're going to see a tab about speaking. You can fill out that information and I will get back to you. That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks so much for listening. Bye for.