Online Public Relations Thoughts

Tensions with China are high enough without resorting to dumb conspiracy theories about the origin of COVID.  Yet the Department of Energy's Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence has decided at this late date to endorse the lab leak theory although it acknowledges its confidence is low.  The disclosure has set off a political uproar and the Chinese government can't be happy about it.  Nor, for that matter, can the Biden administration welcome the conclusion.  It is trying resolve a fraying diplomacy with China as it is.  The DOE's statement flies in the face of general scientific opinion and conclusions from other agencies which have examined the same set of facts.  It is only making the job harder to get along with China.  Sometimes it is best to bite one's tongue and to go along with prevailing views in the absence of evidence.  

 Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip Dilbert. has committed professional and career suicide.  He tore into the issue of race and called for "whites" to get away from "blacks."  Newspapers around the country dropped his strip and left him high and dry.  Why did he do it?  That will be a question for time and observers to research and speculate about.  Adams knows what he did was dumb.  He said, "Most of my income will be gone by next week ... My reputation for the rest of my life is destroyed. You can't come back from this, am I right? "   Yes, he is right about that.

Fox News is invoking the First Amendment in a lawsuit brought against it for defamation. Its news anchors privately admitted that Trump had lost the election while they publicly peddled the "Big Lie" on the air that he had won.  Fox claims protected speech.  The lawsuit alleges transmission of knowing falsehoods.  Legal experts say Dominion Voting Systems has uncovered a smoking gun.  If Fox loses the case, it will be historic because the law protects news organizations thoroughly.  And, it should.  There is no excuse for reporters to knowingly write or speak lies. In Fox's case, it was apparently a business decision to hang on to its millions of conservative viewers.  It had nothing to do with facts.  That is a distortion of the meaning and intent of the First Amendment and deserving of punishment.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is going today to East Palestine, Ohio to view the aftermath of the train derailment and fire there.  The derailment happened Feb. 3.  It's kind of late to be showing the flag now that the disaster is largely over, and Republicans are letting him know it.  They are calling for him to resign.  Buttigieg's excuse is that he didn't want to interfere with emergency responders as they cleaned up the accident.  That might have made sense a week ago.  As mayors know, there is only a short time before one should show up at a tragedy.  People want to see authority taking immediate interest and charge of bad situations.  It's a comfort to the afflicted and notice to those on the ground that the boss is watching.  Sadly, Buttigieg looked like he didn't care.

Biden has attracted a number of critics for his visit to Ukraine.  He is experiencing what every leader goes through -- negativity.  Lincoln had Radical Republicans on his left and Copperhead Democrats on his right throughout the Civil War.  Few thought he was doing the right thing until the end.  Biden is in a similar circumstance.  There are those who believe Ukraine can't survive and negotiations with the Russians are essential.  There are those who are prodding the administration to send more weapons quickly to the Donbas front.  Somehow Biden must find a way through both positions.  Communications are essential and he must talk to the American people regularly about what he is doing.  Otherwise, all will fail.  

When you are a dictator, you can start a war then blame the other guy for initiating it.  That's the perverse logic, Putin is using in Russia.   And his citizens are buying it.  They admire a strong man as long as his actions don't impinge too strongly on their everyday lives.  So far, they haven't.  Putin has mobilized a massive country to put down Ukraine and he just might do it in spite of strong support from the allies.  Ukraine is holding out but it isn't making progress on expelling the Russians from the Donbas.  Putin's communications are wrapped in propaganda similar to that of the Soviet era.  He has stifled dissent and there is but one voice speaking.  Shades of Orwell.  

Microsoft made a big deal out of its recent release of Bing Chat, its ChatGPT-AI-powered conversational system.  The problem is that Bing Chat might not be ready for the marketplace.  It can make silly mistakes and produce misinformation. Users might not trust its answers because they never know when the bot is being accurate and when it is derailed.  Microsoft has been locked into a competition with Google for years for the search market and hasn't made much progress.  Bing Chat is supposed to be its breakthrough, but it isn't looking like that -- yet.  Tech companies have long been too anxious to introduce their software to the public.  One would think Microsoft would know better by now. 

Tesla is agreeing with the White House to open its charging network to all makes of EVs.  This is a smart move on the company's part and good PR.  The sooner that charging is standardized throughout the nation, the faster the rollout of EVs will be.  It is no different than the standardized nozzle of the gas station and fixed opening of the fuel tank.  Some things in life should be the same for the convenience of citizens.  Europe learned that long ago when it allowed each country to have its own electrical plug.  It was and is a pain for everyone. Good standards are good PR.

 Google has taken a major PR step using an oddly named technique called prebunking,  This is a series of video ads teaching people how to spot misinformation.  Google has tested the ads in Eastern Europe and is about to launch a campaign in Germany.  So far, they seem to be successful.  The idea is that a well-prepared mind is able to spot false narratives more easily and reject them.  Google isn't focused on any one or a series of errors but on the techniques of propagating them.  So far, so good.  There needs to be more solutions like this from social media companies.  

The Chiefs beat the Eagles in a Super Bowl that lived up to the hype for once.  The NFL over produces the game.  Everything is at a fever pitch designed to drive the fans to mania.  But, after all, it's a football game.  The difference this year was a clash of two no. 1 seeds with two hall-of-fame quarterbacks and two winning coaches.  The first half was all Philadelphia.  The second was Kansas City.  Overall, Philadelphia played better but Kansas City pulled out the win in the last 11 seconds of the game.  The contest lived up to its name.  It was a Super Bowl.  Kudos to both teams.  

Along with Disney's downsizing, it will be starting over with a new governmental oversight of its self-governing district in Florida.  This is a corporate blow to the company, which has managed its own affairs in Orlando for 55 years.  But, it comes from a public relations decision by Disney to resist the governor's "Don't Say Gay" law.  Governor DeSantis, a headline-grabbing conservative, brought Disney to heel for opposing him, and since he has a supermajority in the statehouse, he will get his way.  Disney is one of the biggest employers and political donors in the state and its lobbying helped not at all.  There are times when taking a stand on principle means losing control and this is a prime example of that.   

President Biden's ad lib in his State of the Union address about needing oil and gas for another 10 years has sparked a backlash from both sides of the energy issue. Republicans jeered him because they say -- rightly-- that we will need oil and gas for far longer than that.  Democrats and climate activists lashed him because they say -- rightly -- that we need to wean ourselves from oil and gas quickly.  In other words, it was an ad lib that stepped into a minefield.  Some issues are like that.  They are no-win and the best thing a communicator can do is to avoid them if possible.  But, that is not always a solution.  Biden should have acknowledged our dependency on petroleum and gas for decades to come while emphasizing the need to reduce it.  Activists would have slammed him but at least he would have been right.  

Zoom's CEO is setting an example by sharing the pain of layoffs.  He is cutting his pay by 98% and foregoing his corporate bonus.  The layoffs are severe -- 15% of the company.  He takes the blame for staffing up too much during COVID when everyone took to remote meetings.  Now that COVID is largely past and people are returning to offices, they don't need Zoom as much. His words announcing the cut are worth quoting.

“As the CEO and founder of Zoom, I am accountable for these mistakes and the actions we take today– and I want to show accountability not just in words but in my own actions,”

More CEOs should operate in the same way.

The US secretary of state has deferred a meeting with China's President because of a Chinese "spy balloon" entering US airspace.  The Chinese say it was a weather balloon that went astray.  The US shot it down and is retrieving the wreckage.  A question is, what if the Chinese are right and the US is using propaganda to tar the Chinese?  A proper response to the incident would be to withhold judgement until the wreckage has been thoroughly examined. Instead, US authorities rushed to conclusions.  That has already escalated tensions with the Chinese and it could set up a future of bad PR for the US government if scientists and engineers conclude the Chinese were accurate.  The follow-on question, then, is why the Chinese neglected to inform the US that its balloon was on the way?  There are grounds for suspicion, which opens a door to propaganda. Still, the US jumped too soon and that is an error.

This is an example of positive public relations.   LeBron James isn't just talking about himself and how good he is at basketball.  He is giving back and seeing to it that those who need a leg up get it.  It is a reminder that PR is what you do more than what you say.  It is what you are and not what you pretend to be.  The strongest persuasion is action and not spin.  It is based on facts and not fiction.  Too many practitioners have forgotten that and rely on words to build a phony case.  They persuade through lies and eventually they are found out.  They play for winning the moment and neglect the long term.  James is none of that.  His persona is what he is doing and has done.  He is a lesson to all.  

Wall Street investment firms are venturing into a space where there is ample opportunity for bad PR -- water rights.  A New York firm is buying land and water rights from the Colorado River and aiming to resell the liquid to needy farmers and towns.  Water is nearly everything along the river.  There is no growing and no cities without it.  The idea that absentee investors control who gets it and how much they have to pay is outrageous to those who depend on the river.  Look for state governments to step in -- soon.  As it is, the Federal government is in the middle of a fray to determine whose allotments are going to be cut with the diminished flow of the river.  It's a messy business without the investors.  Imagine what it will be with them.  

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has sparked a culture war and is conducting both a political and PR campaign against "diversity, equity and inclusion, and critical race theory."  Whether he believes his message or not, he is providing harbor to those who don't want to learn about systemic racism in American society.  Admittedly, it is a tough subject, and it requires looking at laws, regulations and business practices that excluded blacks from full participation in American life.  DeSantis' view is that such an approach is wrong and insidious. The question is whether he is too late with this campaign or whether he can carry enough voters with him in his quest for the White House.  Has the majority of citizens moved on and accepted the view that for many generations America has discriminated against African Americans and denied them their freedom?  In months to come, we will know, first in Florida and then, in other states.