Breaking News - Wikileaks releases DNC Emails - Bonus

In breaking news, WikiLeaks has released tens of thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee. The immediate result is Deborah Wasserman Schultz, the head of the party, is resigning. So what's the impact here from a communications standpoint? Now, regardless of your politics, Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal. I do think this is an extraordinarily significant event because it's not just government emails being released. That's the tradition of WikiLeaks. This is now getting into non state actors is the expression. I think that the real media training lesson here and the crisis communications lesson here is unfortunately, you simply cannot send anything in an email in the future that you wouldn't want to see blown up as a quote quoted out of the context of the whole email on the front page of the New York Times or the Washington Post or Wall Street Journal. This is, or at least should profoundly affect how people are going to communicate through email. I don't know any human being who has any personality who, if you didn't go through all of their personal emails, you wouldn't find something that would shock or horrify somebody. Certainly my own emails, jokes that I make with certain close friends or laugh at from certain close friends might be considered wildly appalling to others. And I don't think I have anything particularly unusual. But for those of you in sensitive positions, let's face it, I am a small player in a very small company of my own and I don't work for government. I'm not running for office, so nobody really cares about my emails. I can say what I want. Chances are that might apply to you too. But for those who work with higher profile organizations, large banks, for example, I think we're going to have to get to the point where you simply cannot send an email with a candid assessment that's harshly negative of anyone, any player, any competitor, for fear that if it's released you will look like a complete vicious, mean spirited idiot and have to resign. So I'm not saying this is necessarily a good development, but we are increasingly getting to the time where the only sense of true confidentiality is going to be when you're face to face with someone in the same room talking and the cell phones have been checked at the door and you're sure there are no recordings. Even then someone can have a secret recorder. But we do live in a digital age where anything can be captured and then anything can be edited down to one inflammatory comment. My recommendation to clients, those of you in governments, those of you in high profile organizations in the private or public sector. You cannot write anything in an email anymore that you wouldn't want the whole world to see. Otherwise your career could go down in flames. I'm T.J. walker.