The PR Trap of July: Scandals, Silence, and the Setup for September

Before we dive into this episode about competing PR campaigns, I want to give you an update on what happened over the weekend in my home state of Minnesota and why it makes this episode's topic more urgent than ever. Vance bolter, the 57 year old man who terrorized Minnesota lawmakers, appeared in federal court this week. We now know he had a hit list of dozens of elected officials, went to four different homes that night and was armed like he was going to war. He killed Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, shot Senator John Hoffman and his wife 17 times combined. Yvette Hoffman threw herself on top of her daughter to shield her from the bullets. Those words are so hard to say.

Just as they were so hard to.

Read on Saturday when I happened to open up the New York Times just as an article was posting that had Governor Tim Walz on the COVID And I looked at my phone early on Saturday and thought, what is Tim Walz.

Doing on the COVID of New York Times?

Then I saw the headline and as I mentioned, this struck home because it literally struck home. Not only am I from Minnesota, but I'm from the northern suburbs. And Melissa Hortman, she was born in the town next to mine, grew up in another adjacent town next to mine. We're similar ages and this tragedy happened in the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities. I also read today, which was so strange, that Vance Bolter, who over the weekend, you know, when I was tracking this story, and my mother who was calling me about this story, she said, which actually made me chuckle, oh my gosh, he's from Green Isle, Minnesota. And then she wrote, well, thank goodness.

He'S not Irish because Green Isle, Minnesota.

In southern Minnesota is where a lot of the Irish settled. But then today when I was reading the updates about his arrest, I found out that he was actually from Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, which is where my grandmother grew up. So it's a story that just keeps hitting so close to home and it just rattles me. So my heart today at this recording, as it was on Saturday, just pours open. For the Hortman and the Hoffman families, this was one guy's completely twisted movement about protecting democracy into justification for political assassination. That's the power and the danger of messaging. When we use war metaphors in public, when we dehumanize our opponents, when we treat democracy like a zero sum battle, someone out there might be listening and thinking violence is the solution. Words matter. Rhetoric has consequences. And that's exactly what I'm exploring in this episode. So let's now look at two Massive PR campaigns and how they're fighting for America's soul. At the time of the recording, the army parade celebrating 250 years of the army. Also Trump's birthday and the no Kings.

Protests had yet to happen. But I predicted that the protest would.

Be be quite successful around the country.

And the army parade would probably struggle with numbers.

So when you're listening to this episode, listen for the techniques that I discuss and those developed by the father of propaganda himself, Edward Bernays. Because understanding how these campaigns work isn't just academic, it's literally a matter of life and death. So let's get into it. If you work in public relations, strategic.

Communication or crisis management, perhaps you own your own firm and you're working with clients who are dealing with issues. I have something I want to share with you. Not only did this topic come up numerous times last week, it came up twice today with two clients dealing with viral PR crises. And here's the tip.

July is not the month to look away.

It might feel quiet, but it's not. It's loaded. Case in point, Sean Diddy Combs. As of this recording, jurors are deep in deliberation over these explosive federal charges.

I know what you're thinking, Molly. That happened two weeks ago.

Yes, I'm recording this on Tuesday, July 1st. I'm trying to squeeze it in before the July 4th holiday. I have to take a, I think, well deserved vacation. So I wanted to record this ahead of time. But it gives me time to make a prediction about Sean Combs. Now, it's interesting if you remember two weeks ago when this happened, I saw a notification that the jury only reached a partial verdict, only four out of five counts. And there was a holdup because there was one person on the jury who they could not convince. And I was thinking my conspiracy brain was working overtime. I thought maybe Sean Combs or someone close to him got to one of the jurors and their job was to muck it up. H. I don't know. But at this point, they've been in deliberation for a little over 12 hours. Personally, I think Diddy will be found guilty on all counts. I think this trial, with all of the abuse allegations and, and this high profile defendant is a perfect reminder of why public relations is so important in how you manage it, because PR is managing your reputation as well. Now, this trial didn't just happen to land in July, but the announcement of the charges landed in September. And that is what this episode is about. Welcome to the PR Breakdown podcast. I'm your host, Molly McPherson. And this is your midsummer check in. And it's for anyone who manages reputations when stakes are high. Now, newsrooms, they feel calm right now. If you happen to work in one, you know, this is a time when people are out. If you work in a younger newsroom, maybe a lot of people are going on maternity leave or they're going to have babies in late summer because you know what, sometimes we can plan these things.

But June, a lot of the top.

Editors, executives, they're on vacation, likely in Europe. And oh my goodness, what if they were invited to the Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sanchez spectacular wedding. I don't think I remember seeing a lot of newsy people on the invite list next to Tom Brady, Leonardo DiCaprio and all the Kardashians. But July, heading towards the July 4th weekend in the U.S. canada Day in Canada, we have looser oversight, more open ended reporting time. This is the time when reporters start pitching deeper stories. You're going to see stories about back to schools take shape. There's still going to be primary stories out there. Case in point, Andrew Cuomo, who was whopped in the New York City mayoral primary. Now that was a big story in he wasn't expecting it to be a big story. He thought he was going to march right through it. So there's still some political stories, but summer, you're going to see a lot of evergreen stories out there as well. But it's the time when reporters kind of take their foot off the pedal a bit because not a lot of people are consuming news. Now a lot of people are on social media, but newspapers, news outlet, local national television, they're not expecting a lot of people, at least in the US during the summer and in Europe and Canada and North America, you know, sitting at home watching television, this is a time where a lot of people are out. So you're not going to get big, high rating television or these really deep, compelling stories. And August, well, that time is a news desert because that's when everybody, the hoi polloi, everyone is on vacation. Then social media is still percolating. It is a news desert, but it can be very hot, not just in weather and the temperature, but also in scandal, because August is the time that reporters who are on duty, many times it's those young reporters, they're looking for stories. Now in my career, I had a number of August stories like pop up. And all of a sudden, you know, I got very busy. 1 Lizzo, do you remember that story? Former dancers filed this explosive lawsuit that happened in August and accusations of sexual harassment, body shaming, religious discrimination. It simmered online and then erupted in traditional and legacy media by the fall. I was doing a lot of media interviews then. And the reason why there weren't any other news stories to break that cycle. But there are plenty of other stories that dropped in that August, September timeframe. Right when the news consumption surges again. More stories. Drew Barrymore and the Writers Guild of America strike, backlash. Do you remember that? It flared up in September 2023. That writer strike was a huge story, if you remember. And it's funny, when the Drew Barrymore story hit, when she crossed the picket line. I happened to be in New York City because my daughter Rory had a college soccer game in New Jersey and ABC asked me to do an interview. And in New York City on September 11th. That's right. I was there the evening of September 11th. So I went there for ABC. I was blocks away from CBS, which is where Drew Barrymore was going to record her program, her talk show the next morning. And then a producer from Access Hollywood, which is NBC, reached out to me and said, I saw you post about. Here's another story, Ashton Kutcher, when he and the Mrs. Do you remember they posted a video where they were defending Danny Masterson on the charges while he eventually went to prison. But all of that happened at the same time. It was like the first, second week of September. Jimmy Fallon was in the story as well. Do you remember that? The toxic workplace story that Rolling Stone published post Labor Day. That was another hit piece that took months to work on. You know, the. The reporters started calling former staffers, you know, over the summer. So by that September 2024, NBC was dealing with a major crisis on their hands. And. And then, of course, who could ever forget, last August, the It Ends with Us movie premiere starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. Justin Baldoni was also the director. That premiere was happening at the same time as Deadpool, starring Blake's husband Ryan Reynolds, and his buddy Hugh Jackman. All of it happened to fall together because of the Writers Guild strike. The production was delayed on both of them. So the premieres ended up happening in August, when you don't often have premieres. But they probably thought, again, news desert. We can capture a lot of news here. Well, at that time I was writing for Forbes and I was watching that story and I thought, this has sus written all over it. You all know about the reputational firestorm that happened, the lawsuits, the counter lawsuits, the allegations of onset misconduct, all of that started Percolating big in August. It blew up in September. By December is when Blake Lively, I believe at the behest of her husband, Ryan Reynolds, filed that civil complaint in California. Also working in sync with the New York Times, who was working on a hit piece. Now that one dropped at Christmas because it was strategically timed to work with Blake Lively. Also, that's another dead zone for news. So they wanted that story to actually sit over the holidays because they wanted it to hurt Justin Baldoni. Still not convinced. Here are some other exposes that broke in 2024. Of course I mentioned Sean Diddy Combs. The indictment happened in September. Also another indictment, New York City Mayor Eric Adams. It was a federal indictment. Five charges. Bribery, wire fraud, foreign influence. All of these charges came down in September. Now the district attorney, that's not a news outlet, but a DA knows that the news outlets will follow these stories. There was also Dave Grohl, his Instagram confession to his affair and secret love child that came out in September. And that was a story that certainly wasn't planned. It wasn't a long form scandal. But because it broke in September, it was a huge story. I remember doing a post on that for my UK listeners. You may remember the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing investigation and bullying complaints that tainted the network brand and that was also in September. So these aren't random hits. These are built over the summer. So what does this mean? Communicators, PR people, publicists, crisis managers. It's July. What are you doing? You are paying attention. Let everybody else go on vacation. And you can go on vacation too if you want. Of course you have to relax. We all have to relax. But you have to keep your senses about you. Pay attention to the reporters. Pay attention to your beat reporters. Are you hearing things from them? Are reporters like, this is the case of one of my clients. All of a sudden reporters started asking questions about this one issue. I said they're probably sniffing around because they want to work on a deeper story. And if your story has anything to do or your issue has anything to do with social media, that is a danger zone because people stay on social media over the summer. So pay attention. Own your story. If there's a narrative coming, you can either draft it or you can be drafted into it the way you want to manage it. Particularly if there is a long standing media inquiry there. Speak out before you're spoken about. And don't forget the one tactic that reporters respect the most. That's transparency. Say something now, even if it's not everything at least it's something. This isn't about playing defense, it's about preparing your offense. You know, journalists are always working their angles, so you need to shape your arc as well. All right, everyone, that's all for this week on the podcast. Now I'd like to add I found all of these stories using Muckrack. They're now a support supporter of the podcast. I'm excited to partner with them. If you're not familiar with Muckrack, it's an AI powered platform that supports your entire PR workflow. It's an essential tool in my work because I use it to find my stories, to find reporters, but also I love it for monitoring sentiment. And in these stories a lot of them came up negative. So if you want to find out more about Muckrack, you can check out a link in the show Notes. I hope, like me, you all have a chance to have a little bit of quiet and calm in July. But if you're holding on to something sensitive, now is the time to act. Start putting your comms out there, maybe some FAQs, maybe start putting it out on the website. Get the information out there so there isn't a September surprise waiting for you. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.