A recent crikey contribution was edited quite heavily, without consultation with me, so I thought it might be useful to post the full article. It is as follows:
Tony Abbott, the US Republicans, industry associations, PR people, political advisers and many others have sadly lost a man who did much to lay the foundations for, and explain, reactionary rhetoric.
It has been axiomatic in public relations that timely and appropriate apologies are a critical part of issues and crisis management. But, what if the apologies get out of hand, end up doing even more damage and are just inappropriate?
Tony Jaques regular Managing Outcomes e-newsletter (http://managingoutcomes.wordpress.com/ ) asked earlier this month if “bad apologies damage issues and damage reputations” ; and, Lance Armstrong’s Oprah appearance has seemingly raised almost as many questions about the apology strategy as it has about what Armstrong did wrong.
To add to the topical items posted from time to time – particularly new speeches, articles and lectures – I’ve now opened a blog page on the site.
Not that I’m becoming an ardent daily blogger, it’s just that I come across things from time to time which I suspect might interest people in the PR industry, people interested in the industry, students, academics and that generic category – others.
There has been a quiet debate among some Australian corporate communications people about what company executives (especially corporate communicators with political connections) do outside office hours which might reflect on their employer.
How will Cardinal George Pell be regarded in 50 years’ time, what will be his legacy to the Church and Australia, how will it compare to the legacy of that other controversial cleric, Archbishop Daniel Mannix and what does it say about Tony Abbott?
Today, in an era of gotcha journalism and Google, recycling anecdotes is harder.
The hottest thing in the social sciences – the replicability debate – is bad news for economic forecasters and worse news for the pundits who peddle their analyses through the media.
For many journalists, recent Federal voting intention polls will be an opportunity to demonstrate a quality they share with many other Australians – innumeracy.
Reflective politicians and managers often struggle with when to use the perpendicular personal pronoun and when to use collective ones.
PR people have discovered the power of the apology. The problem, as Alan Jones has shown, is the nature and timing of the apology.