Hide the children. Wal-Mart is coming.

Oh, mama. Can it get any worse than this? The buzz in the community where I live is that a Super Wal-Mart is coming. Super.

The Akron Beacon Journal mentioned this last week — although admitting it is still in the rumor stage. But it is likely. I live in a suburb of Akron, Copley. And Copley is adjacent to Montrose — which is basically these days a parking lot of cars inching toward either Akron or Medina. When we moved here 15 some years ago, this was a scenic rural community. So it goes. Long gone are the small businesses that add character to a community.

But the public relations point is this. Why does Wal-Mart have such a bad reputation? Very few of us really embrace change. Yet in my ethics class at Kent State, I ask students early in the semester what company they consider to be unethical. Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart. Not even a close second. And this “reputation” makes it very difficult for the locals to get enthusiastic about a Super Wal-Mart down the street, in what was previously a pristine environment. Better we would get a Super Starbucks. Just kidding.

So who knows what will happen. A Wal-Mart spokesman says the company has not bought any property as yet. But the Beacon Journal indicated that property could be acquired by third parties.

Alert the poets.

PR, the war and Country Joe

Today is the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq. And I’m somewhat hesitant even to write this. This war has touched the lives of thousands of people directly and indirectly. We owe them our gratitude — and realistically, they are the only ones who have any credibility on this mess at this point. The rest of us are just sitting on the sidelines hoping for the best.

But there are some continuing lessons here in public relations and media. Last week in my ethics class at Kent State we looked at the video Toxic Sludge is Good for You. For those of you who haven’t seen it or read the book by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton it’s a critical look at the public relations industry — to say the least. I’ve seen the video several times, but one section really jumped out at me last week. It’s the view that unethical and deceptive public relations practices essentially got us into the first confrontation with Iraq and the Gulf War during the administration of Bush Senior.

I really wonder if history hasn’t repeated itself. Even knowing and believing to be true what happened years ago, I trusted the Bush administration — and Colin Powell with his nifty presentation at the United Nations — again this time around. That, for me, ain’t likely to happen again. And the national news media didn’t from what I recall raise any red flags. So we are where we are five years later.

When I am thinking about these things while running I always manage to recall that scene from Animal House. You know, the one where the guy in the fraternity grabs the baton and leads the marching band down the one-way alley smack into the wall. I guess we can only hope that whoever grabs the baton in November can figure a way out. Doesn’t it seem like it is starting to get a little crowded in the alley?

And I am totally opposed to a military draft. Yet at some point someone is going to run that up the flagpole to see who salutes it. Particularly if John McCain is correct and we are going to be in Iraq for the next 100 years, give or take a decade or two. And maybe, ironically, a military draft would be a way out. Something tells me that would get a lot of us off the sidelines and back into the game. For those of you too young (or in my case sometimes too old) to remember, here’s a reminder that there was a time in this country when wars weren’t accepted quite as easily as they are today.

PR and why management matters

Bill Sledzik suggested to me several weeks ago that I take a look at Jim Horton’s blog Online Public Relations Thoughts. I’m glad I did. Jim has excellent insights about public relations, and he provides good links to other blogs and information. He also apparently posts a lot around 4:30 a.m. or so. Good. I view 7:30 or 8 a.m. as midday.

I was going to add a comment to Jim’s posting yesterday about Bear Stearns “The Cost of Incredulity.” But either he doesn’t allow comments or I couldn’t figure out how to do it. Doesn’t matter.

He focused on themes that I believe get right to the heart of public relations: trust, character and credibility.

And in the context of other remarks about the Bear Stearns situation, he writes:

“How much could public relations have done to save Bear Stearns? Little, it turns out. The bank tried to calm investors, but fear and greed ruled. The bank did not have enough friends to stand by it in the end.”

I’ll take that a step further. I don’t believe there was anything public relations could have done. Bear Stearns went belly up because of pathetically inept and arrogant management that apparently made one bad decision after another. If the management group had stepped aside last week, maybe effective public relations could have helped. If the bank had any credibility left at that point — which I doubt. And as I mentioned in my post yesterday, I still think that something smells about the announcements Bear Stearns made last week. But I’ll let that go. Clearly there are bigger fish to be fried at this point.

Anyway, this is why management and leadership matter. I get so tired of hearing people (and reporters) say that (fill in the blank here with the name of any organization) has a public relations problem. Ah, no. Once you hear or read that you can be assured that the organization has a management problem.

And ask the 14,000 Bear Stearns employees what they think today. Here’s from an article written by Associated Press reporters Dan Seymour and Eileen Aj Connelly:

“Employees own about a third of Bear Stearns, which means the company’s plight has bled its roughly 14,000 workers’ portfolios by $3 billion this month alone and more than $5 billion this year.”

I’ll bet that if you asked those employees most would still think highly of Bear Stearns — but not the management team that caused this debacle.

Trust. Character. Credibility. Jim, you’re right. And in every organization it has to start at the top.

Bear Stearns and the stench test

Well, I guess we’re all long-term investors again. Isn’t that the advice we receive from financial planners and others every time the stock market tanks? Well wahoo. We’re in for a wild ride.

I learned while running on the treadmill this morning that the Federal Reserve took drastic action yesterday to help calm jittery financial markets and that JP Morgan is going to acquire Bear Stearns for the fire sale price of $2 a share. Better that I ran outside and took my chances with the garbage trucks at 5 a.m. Running is becoming less stressful these days than the news reports.

But I’ll admit that this is another example of why I am delighted that I am no longer working in corporate public relations. Some poor smuck in the PR organization at Bear Stearns will have to try to explain all this to investors, employees, reporters and others. As far as I can tell it looks like the explanation could be fairly simple: mismanagement and greed. Want to bet you won’t see that in any news release that Bear Stearns distributes any time soon.

Yet here’s what you did see in a press release the bank issued March 10.

The announcement said in part:

New York — New York — March 10, 2008 — The Bear Stearns Companies Inc. today denied market rumors regarding the firm’s liquidity. The company stated that there is absolutely no truth to the rumors of liquidity problems that circulated today in the market.

Alan Schwartz, President and CEO of The Bear Stearns Companies Inc., said, “Bear Stearns’ balance sheet, liquidity and capital remain strong.”

OK. Good. Let’s get back to seeing what Britney is doing today.

But then on March 14, Bear Stearns had another announcement:

Bear Stearns Agrees To Secured Loan Facility With JPMorgan Chase

New York - New York - March 14, 2008 — The Bear Stearns Companies Inc. announced today it reached an agreement with JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPMC) to provide a secured loan facility for an initial period of up to 28 days allowing Bear Stearns to access liquidity as needed. Bear Stearns also announced that it is talking with JPMorgan Chase & Co., regarding permanent financing or other alternatives. (Note press release as more info if you are interested.)

Ouch. I’m no banking expert. And maybe there was enough of a run on the bank during those four days to change the situation to the point where Bear Stearns had to arrange a loan agreement with JPMorgan. Still, call me skeptical — but something here doesn’t meet the stench test.

In my ethics class at Kent State we use Rushworth Kidder’s How Good People Make Tough Choices. He writes:

The stench test, relying on moral intuition, is a gut-level determination. Does this course of action have about it an indefinable odor of corruption that makes you (and perhaps others) recoil and look askance?

Something about what happened at Bear Stearns during the past few days just doesn’t smell right to me. Maybe the government will pursue this with as much enthusiasm as it had for exposing Eliot Spitzer and “Kristen” last week. Probably not. But we’ll see.

In the meantime, I’m on spring break. And I know that somewhere in New York today the public relations staff at Bear Stearns is noodling over the magical words that will make this debacle go away.

Good luck to them. And all of us.

Jarvik and Clemens head to the bench

I’ve written previously about Robert Jarvik and Roger Clemens. Both were back in the news this week – for the wrong reasons.

Pfizer, the maker of Lipitor, the world’s best-selling drug according to The New York Times, had been featuring Dr. Jarvik in its print and TV commercials. The problem. The ads were deceptive. Here’s what The Times said in an editorial Wednesday: Lipitor’s Pitchman Gets the Boot.

The trouble was, its very first TV commercial with Dr. Jarvik was downright deceptive. It suggested that he was rowing a racing shell across a mountain lake when he was not, in fact, rowing. A stunt double was at the oars. And while the commercials have Dr. Jarvik enthusing over Lipitor “as a doctor and a dad,” he is actually an inventor and researcher. He has a medical degree, but did not go through residency training and is not licensed to practice medicine or prescribe drugs.

So under pressure from the House Energy and Commerce Committee Pfizer has stopped the ads. If I were reporting – instead of blogging – here are three questions I would ask a Pfizer spokesperson.

Did you know the ads were deceptive? If so, why did you decide to use the ads? If not, did you fire the advertising agency that apparently had a large role in this debacle?

One of the reasons I’m interested in this situation is because we talk about advertising in my ethics class at Kent State. The view of most of the advertising students is this. The primary goal is to produce compelling advertising. If an ad steps over the line and becomes deceptive – well there is always the government ready to come and take action? Wouldn’t it be easier just to do the ethically right thing and not be deceptive in the first place? I guess I don’t understand advertising.

So here’s where we get to with all this. Again from the editorial in The Times.

Pfizer has been relying on the reputation of Dr. Robert Jarvik, one of the pioneers in designing artificial hearts, to bolster sales of Lipitor, its cholesterol-lowering drug. Now that a Congressional committee is investigating the credibility of those ads, the company has dropped Dr. Jarvik as its pitchman. It was a telling reminder that consumers, besieged by drug promotion ads on television and in print media, need to take what they see, hear and read with a very large grain of skepticism.

Ouch.

And then there’s Roger Clemens.

When confronted with a “crisis,” the common public relations advice is to gain control of the story and get your position out quickly and aggressively. That’s the position Clemens took when he was linked by the Mitchell Report to the apparently widespread use of steroids in major league baseball.

Better add this to the public relations crisis management strategy: Make sure you are telling the truth.

I don’t know whether Clemens is telling the truth or not. But based on his testimony before a House committee a few weeks ago I guess we’ll find out. The matter has now been turned over to the Department of Justice to take a look at whether Clemens lied under oath. Might need to send in a relief pitcher here. Or at least another attorney.

In the meantime, others are having plenty to say about Clemens. Here’s Murray Chass, Chipping at Clemens’s Credibility, Piece by Piece:

Call this the crumbling case of Roger Clemens.

Piece by piece, item by item, his defense, his alibis, his excuses are crumbling, and soon he will be left with only his bare, unbelievable denials. He will be Pete Rose redux.

Gee. Truth. Deception. Credibility. Trust. Sounds a lot like what we talk about in our ethics classes.

John McCain and The New York Times

No point rehashing the John McCain/New York Times story here. There have been plenty of excellent commentaries, including one by Jay Rosen and another by Jeff Jarvis.

But I am going to look at this story this week in my ethics class at Kent State. It provides a timely example of at least two issues: the use of anonymous sources and fairness.

It also provides an example of crisis management. McCain obviously knew the story was in the works. He attacked it quickly and aggressively. And in the absence of facts that would point to an improper relationship between the senator and a female lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, McCain’s position appears to be credible. I guess we’ll see.

Here’s my quick take:

As I read the story, it appeared to me that the Times had a decent story that focused on McCain’s character and ethics, although most of it was old news. But that story came packaged in a wrapper that shouted sex, lies and maybe videotape.

The article in the second paragraph says:

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

OK. McCain and Iseman deny in the story having a romantic relationship. So we’ll just have to take the word of The Times on this one. I’m not so sure the public is that trusting these days. I’m not. Couldn’t have been that many advisers in McCain’s campaign eight years ago. Any chance there may be some axe grinding this time around? Or any chance that The Times hyped the story with the wrong lead? If so, fair to McCain? Hardly.

Clark Hoyt, the public editor at The Times, has some reservations as well.

But in the absence of a smoking gun, I asked Keller [Executive Editor Bill Keller] why he decided to run what he had.

“If the point of the story was to allege that McCain had an affair with a lobbyist, we’d have owed readers more compelling evidence than the conviction of senior staff members,” he replied. “But that was not the point of the story. The point of the story was that he behaved in such a way that his close aides felt the relationship constituted reckless behavior and feared it would ruin his career.”

I think that ignores the scarlet elephant in the room. A newspaper cannot begin a story about the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee with the suggestion of an extramarital affair with an attractive lobbyist 31 years his junior and expect readers to focus on anything other than what most of them did. And if a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair, whether editors think that is the central point or not, it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide.

And, amazingly, the article in the long run will most likely help McCain. It certainly has given all the conservative radio and TV pundits an opportunity to jump to his defense.

So beyond the students in my ethics class, if you are interested in considering different perspectives on this story The Plain Dealer had two excellent columns Sunday. One by Ted Diadium. One by Connie Schultz.

Hey, if Steve Rubel can become a celebrity by mostly just linking to other stories why can’t I?

Indiana wins one

Indiana University bounced its basketball coach Kelvin Sampson Friday. Good. I don’t know Sampson. I’m not an IU basketball fan. Yet I give university president Michael McRobbie and others credit for doing the right thing.

As I wrote previously, I’m sure it was a tough decision. Yet it was the right one. Here’s why.

Sampson, twice the national coach of the year, has a history of violating NCAA rules. IU knew that. Hired him away from Oklahoma anyway. And then apparently Sampson violated the same recruiting rules at IU that got him into trouble at Oklahoma.

Sampson, according to The New York Times, had five years left on a contract that paid him a base salary of $500,000 a year. Wow. Wonder how many professors at IU make that?

But here’s the point. McRobbie and the IU administration took a stand to protect the reputation of the university. It’s tough for a university – or any organization for that matter – to value ethical conduct, integrity and character when the people at the top violate the rules. That happens in the business world all too often. And in reality Sampson was the CEO of a multimillion-dollar business. Same standards should apply to him. And others.

So now I expect some will say this presents Indiana University with a “public relations problem.” I’d argue just the opposite.  It presents an opportunity. All the IU administration needs to say is that it values people with ethics, integrity and character – and it won’t let anyone without those principles undercut the reputation of the university or diminish the value of the degrees that the students work so hard to obtain.

Hey. That’s not a bad ethics policy.

And by the way. Without Sampson IU beat Northwestern Saturday night 85-82. So it goes.

Well, I’m late. It’s almost 5:30 a.m. And I want to get on the road for my five-mile run.

Photos, basketball and character

Susan Kirkman Zake talked about photojournalism to my ethics class at Kent State Monday. But what see really talked about was character.

Susan is an adjunct faculty member at Kent, and she is completing her master’s degree. In another life (as the corporate suits love to say) she managed photography, multimedia and special projects at the Akron Beacon Journal.

What’s that have to do with basketball and character? C’mon. Give me a few sentences.

Susan is an example of why people turn to journalism as a career. She’s talented. She’s passionate about journalism. And she strikes me as someone with character.

Did the students respond to her? Yes. They are a lively group in most cases anyway. But her message about photojournalism resonated with them: don’t lie, don’t distort the truth and don’t intentionally harm anyone. And do it all under deadline pressure in an environment where everyone who sees your work is a potential (likely?) critic. Pass the Rolaids.

She is uncompromising in her belief that photojournalists (all journalists for that matter) have to do “the right thing.” Not just when it is convenient or easy. But all the time. Otherwise they lose the public’s trust.

Gee. Trust and character. I respect people like Susan Kirkman Zake. IMO (practicing in case Bill Sledzik talks me into using Twitter) they are fighting an uphill battle in this day of social media and entertainment journalism – but they are advocates for what journalism was and should be. And maybe somewhere the once-young Woodwards and Bernsteins of my generation who flooded the journalism schools in the early 1970s post-Watergate are smiling. It’s not all about technology, folks. Or convergence and being proficient on all platforms – or whatever. It’s still about having a passion for informing the public, being honest and telling the truth – and having character.

OK. Now we get to basketball.

I came home after that class and began reading The New York Times. I start with the business pages…then sports…then arts…then editorials and op-eds. And there on the sports page was a column by William C. Rhoden, “Not Everyone Wants a Coaching Change at Indiana.”

Long story short. Indiana University hired Kevin Sampson two years ago to restore IU to the basketball glory days of Bobby Knight. But Sampson came to Bloomington from the University of Oklahoma with some heavy NCAA baggage. He violated some NCAA rules at Oklahoma. Now even on a tight leash at Indiana, it’s possible that he has violated earlier this season some of the same rules. Ouch.

Rhoden argues that Sampson should be given a second (third?) chance because he is a winner and can take Indiana back to the top of college basketball. I’m sure many IU alumni and others agree. The ends justify the means. Wahoooo.

So here it goes. I think Sampson should be fired, if the allegations are true. First-year IU President Michael McRobbie is expected to make a decision by the end of this week. Beyond basketball, I guess we’ll see if McRobbie has any balls.

Why? If Susan Kirkman Zake would fire a photojournalist for altering a photograph and changing the truth – shouldn’t we expect at least the same ethical standards to apply to the CEO of a multimillion-dollar basketball program. I’ll bet if an IU journalism student cheated on a test or plagiarized an article she would be out the door and fast.

Journalists have character. Otherwise they are gone. Good.

And if IU needs a basketball coach. Well, Bobby Knight may be available. He did a lot of things wrong – but apparently violating NCAA rules wasn’t one of them.

I didn’t ask Susan if she had any interest in coaching basketball.

Social media, Roger Clemens and Facebook

Granted, not the most compelling headline. But it should keep me on message – as the PR pros say.

Here’s the info about social media. Kent State and Akron PRSA are hosting a conference Friday, March 7 – You, Too! Social Media Bootcamp & Leadership Summit. Bill Sledzik on his ToughSledding blog has all the information as well as specifics about registration. The only addition to Bill’s post is the confirmation that we received last night that Jenny Camper, president of Lesic-Camper Communications, will be among the panelists for the afternoon leadership summit on “packaging the presidency online.”  She is an expert in political communications.

The daylong program will be held at Franklin Hall on the Kent campus. So this also gives us an opportunity to show off the new home for our School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Seating is limited for the program. Register soon. And I’m going to be part of the morning session. Please don’t let that stop you from attending.

Then there is Roger Clemens. I’m not sure what to make of his testimony yesterday at the congressional hearing looking at the illegal use of steroids in baseball. Clearly, either Clemens or his former personal trainer, Brian McNamee, is lying. And doing that under oath before members of Congress doesn’t seem like a winning bet. So I guess the jury is still out as to whether or not Clemens’ aggressive public relations strategy will pay off. It’s not surprising that these matters – like most – come down to truth. Ethics anyone?

But what was surprising was the article I read in The New York Times that said any members of the House committee who asked Clemens for an autograph may have violated federal law. Clemens visited with many members of the committee last week, much as representatives of a corporation would do in a similar situation. Wonder what’s happening in Iraq these days?

And now to Facebook. I wrote earlier this week that Facebook, according to The New York Times, was making it difficult if not impossible for people to delete their personal information from the social networking site. A spokesperson for Facebook was quoted in the original article. Then yesterday, The Times printed another article saying Facebook was taking steps to resolve complaints on this issue. Can’t ferret out what exactly happened here. But it appears Facebook management is at least listening and going to take some action. If so, good.

Still, I know that somehow that comment about Willie Nelson will come back to bite me.

Facebook forever

I knew that comment I made about Willie Nelson on my Facebook profile would come back to bite me. But forever seems like a really long time.

Well, maybe not. According to an article in The New York Times, what happens in Facebook stays in Facebook. Actually, those are my words. Here’s from the article written by Maria Aspan:

While the Web site offers users the option to deactivate their accounts, Facebook servers keep copies of the information in those accounts indefinitely. Indeed, many users who have contacted Facebook to request that their accounts be deleted have not succeeded in erasing their records from the network.

And c’mon, you have to love this quote from the article:

“It’s like the Hotel California” said Nipon Das, 34, a director at a biotechnology consulting firm in Manhattan, who tried unsuccessfully to delete his account this fall. “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

Ouch.

I didn’t try to contact anyone at Facebook about this. Maybe I should have just to try to make sure that the article presents a fair representation of this situation. But Aspan did and Facebook management doesn’t appear to be unresponsive or unsympathetic to this concern.

Still, this is going to remain an issue involving personal privacy as marketing organizations and advertisers  go to social networking sites to get the readily available personal information that we all voluntarily disclose these days. That troubles me more than a little. Even though I’m sure marketers and advertisers were able to develop similar profiles long before Al Gore invented the Internet.

And I know this to be true. Many employers these days go to Facebook and MySpace for a look at job applicants before they even consider a personal interview.

So don’t forget the words of Sgt. Phil Esterhaus on the hit TV show Hill Street Blues:

“Let’s be careful out there.”