Force For Good Communications

Crisis watch: What were they thinking? Low-flying jet over Manhattan a scary reminder of Sept. 11

It had to be the least cost-effective photo-op in history.

The incredibly ill-advised repeated fly-bys at low altitude just south of lower Manhattan by one of the Air Force One jets and an accompanying F-16 fighter jet carrying a photographer was perhaps the worst use of tax-payer dollars this year -- and that's saying something!

Let's review the math: Cost of Air Force One in fuel and crew hours + cost of F-16 in fuel and crew hours + cost incurred in lost productivity by thousands of Wall Streeters who evacuated their workplaces thinking another terrorist attack was coming + cost of stress, anxiety and the reawakening of painful memories of New Yorkers reliving their darkest day + cost of litigation sure to result from those claiming injury during the unnecessary evacuations ... am I missing any costs?

(How about the inestimable cost of lost reputation for the new Adminstration? While clearly not the direct fault of the President, it will be easy for detractors to use this misstep as evidence of inexperience.)

And what did we taxpayers get out of it? Some real snazzy, no doubt, photos of Air Force One flying over the Statue of Liberty ... that will never be used because they would be a painful reminder of a stupid exercise that embarrassed the Obama Administration.  

Crisis Communications Lessons Learned: Think through carefully the downsides of any photo-op, publicity stunt or other attention-getting exercise. Notify local law enforcement, community associations, etc. to help avoid surprising people in the area of your event. (I have yet to hear a good reason why the Air Force One fly-by couldn't have been widely pre-announced, making it clear that the President would not be aboard.)   

And if things do go awry ... step in quickly to fix things, take responsibility and offer a heart-felt apology. Unfortunately the White House gets poor grades for its response. According to the NY Times:

The White House did not issue a statement, or a formal apology, for more than six hours. At first, the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, dismissed questions, saying: “You might be surprised to know I don’t know of every movement of Air Force One or what happens to it.”

You have to do better than that. And as I wrote here back in Feb. 2007, if you sincerely offer an apology, it means you're still sorry even after you have long grown sick of people reminding you about it.

-- Jon Harmon

Future of journalism? With newsrooms shedding jobs, where are j-school grads going to work?

The lasting effects of the credit crisis-fueled recession are widely over-stated. Too often pundits and others with a microphone (or mouse-pad) extrapolate conditions from the past quarter or two into the infinite future. In most cases, they will be proven wrong when they say that changes in behavior are permanent.

Time magazine's cover story, "the New Frugality," argues that tough times are changing forever the way Americans spend and save. We'll see. It's a little too early to say just yet. Remember in early March when we were told by every financial authority that stock-market dynamics had changed for good and that we should get used to lower annual returns when the bull market returns -- and don't expect to recover losses for 10-12 years? Six weeks later the S&P 500 is up 25% from the March 9 low. (But don't take that as a sign that big returns are back for good, either. This morning, a big selloff is sweeping the market. That could change by this afternoon ... or signal the Bear is back, maybe even for a whole week or more.)

The change you CAN believe in are fundamental shifts that were already underway Before the Fall of Lehman Brothers (BFLB). The auto industry, for example, was dealing with over-capacity, high commodity prices and other increasing costs including massive legacy health care obligations. The twin blows of very sharp spikes in fuel prices last summer followed by the liquidity crisis knocked the wheels off the auto companies -- and then the recession spread and sales really dried up. The result is a tremendous acceleration of change throughout the industry. And, this we can be certain of, the auto industry ISN"T going back to BFLB.

Another trend that the recession has accelerated is the demise of the newspaper. Craig's List and similar sites had already taken away the lion's share of a newspaper's most dependable revenue -- classified advertising. Circulation numbers were already in free-fall. But then the recession led to wide-spread cuts in corporate advertising dollars that have devastated display ad revenues, along with further reductions in subscriptions brought on by consumer's "new frugality."

In 2008 alone, 15% of newspaper newsroom jobs were eliminated, according to the NY Times in "J-Schools Play Catch-Up." The article details how journalism schools have added courses on the future of journalism in the Internet age including how-to courses such as "Multi-Media Story-telling." (Not sure what took so long. Force for Good readers will recall "Next Practices: Story-telling Wins Out," from March 2007).

The J-school's new-found emphasis on the future is long-overdue. Enrollment numbers continue to be strong at most university j-schools; many show increased enrollment since the economic clouds rolled in. Where are all those j-school grads going to work?

The next generation of grads are going to have to help find new solutions -- both in monetizing on-line news sites of major news organizations and in creating new outlets for professional journalists. And time is running short.

The future of news media is uncertain, to say the least. But, safe to say, it is never going back to the old way.

- Jon Harmon

Rhetoric of pompous certitude: "You don't get it."

As promised in my last post, some thoughts on the concept of "getting it" ...

Several jobs ago I worked for a corporate vice president who would sometimes suddenly end a discussion with subordinates by disdainfully declaring: "You don't get it!"

It was the ultimate put-down and one you couldn't argue against. If you didn't get it, what use were you?

Of course, there is no official arbiter of what it is exactly that we are to "get." So it is by the very act of shouting out the fact that we "get it" and others "don't get it" that demonstrates our moral or intellectual superiority.

Not a great system to determine right from wrong, if you ask me.

There appears to have been a dramatic uptick in the use of the various forms of "getting it." People from both ends of the political spectrum are quick to declare that they "get it" and those who oppose them don't. Four examples come quickly to mind:

• Populist appeal, political variety -- While campaigning for President, Barack Obama would often declare that John McCain "doesn't get it." More recently, in his speech to Congress Feb. 24, Obama stated: "So I know how unpopular it is to be seen as helping banks right now, especially when everyone is suffering in part from their bad decisions. I promise you -- I get it."
  
• Populist appeal, commercial variety -- Saturn, the car brand, began running ads a couple of months ago with the tag line "At Saturn, we get it." A few weeks later, the Obama Administration sacked GM Chairman Rick Waggoner, because Waggoner wasn't acting with enough urgency to restructure the mammoth auto company that has been on the life support of billions in loans from us taxpayers. Wagonner's successor immediately announced an accelerated and more aggressive shake-up of GM, including the termination of the Saturn brand, proving that the only thing that Saturn (and Wagonner) got was the ax.
• There is only one side of the argument that counts -- A coalition of evangelical Christians and conservative influentials have banded together to launch "WeGetIt.org" dedicated to subservience to God and a deeply skeptical attitude toward claims of global warming. Obviously, this rhetoric is directed at Al Gore who famously dismisses criticism of global warming claims by saying: "The debate is over."
  
• Your side is wrong because you don't get it -- Fox TV's military analyst David Hunt's book They Just Don't Get It promises "The truth about what we can and must do to protect ourselves." The book's title takes clear aim at liberal media elites everywhere.

There are no shortage of other examples. All this self-righteous certitiude has gotten rather tedious. Get it?

- Jon Harmon