Online Public Relations Thoughts

Senator Mitch McConnell froze during a press conference yesterday for a second time.  The immediate perception of the 80-year-old was that he was temporarily out of his faculties even after an aide repeated the question to him and listened for his whispered answer.  The video was widely shared and swiftly brought questions about his fitness to serve.  There is little in the form of PR that one can do in circumstances like this.  One can say he is fine but the video clearly shows that he is not.  How might this impact his decision to run again?  Time will tell.  

 Another African country has undergone a military coup.  One question that must be asked is why.  Why are these societies so unstable that they cannot keep government in place through free and fair elections?  Why does the military get involved in civic affairs?  Why do leaders stay in power and continue a kleptocracy?  Why does democracy not work?  These are questions for experts in political science but communicators can ask what it takes to convince soldiers and government leaders that an orderly transition of power is better, that personal interest should be subordinate to the good of the state and its citizens.  Democracy has no chance until that happens and maybe democracy is not what these countries need at this stage of their development.

The Hawaiian electric power company has acknowledged that its downed wires started a grassfire on Maui but it is pointing the finger of blame at the county's firefighters who declared the blaze under control and left the scene before it flared up again.  This is suspect PR and unlikely to move the needle of public empathy.  It might help in a courtroom battle between the citizens of the island and the company, but public perception won't change much.  The company is looking like an incompetent that knew high winds were a problem but did nothing about it.  It was warned and acknowledged the problem years before the wires fell.  The utility will go bankrupt under the weight of lawsuits but that won't help the grieving citizens of Maui.  

 Another Marine tiltrotor Osprey aircraft has crashed.  It has been a troubled plane since its first construction, but the Marines want it for its melding of a helicopter's vertical lift and a conventional airplane's forward speed.  This time three Marines died and eight are in a hospital.  The Osprey is a public relations disaster, but the corps won't give it up.  They find the plane too valuable when it works, and they tend to overlook the problems when it doesn't.  It's an oddity among the military's air frames but an enduring one.  

 Trump's booking photo from the Atlanta jail...  It communicates much more than words can say.  It is a reminder that sometimes an image is enough without explanation.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group, is dead, killed in a plane crash.  In Putin's Russia, that is a suspicious circumstance.  Putin has attempted and succeeded in assassinating others. In a more democratic society, people would assume it was an accident.  Not so, in Russia.  What kind of society can tolerate such thoughts?  It must be hard for citizens to guard their remarks and look over their shoulders.  It is the return of the old Soviet system without the Marx.  The West has its deep flaws and faults but free communications is not one of them. 

There is a video of President Biden apparently falling asleep at a Maui memorial service.  The low-quality image showed him dropping his head and apparently closing his eyes.  Conservative commentators jumped on the footage and showed it widely to hundreds of thousands of viewers.  Unfortunately, there is a high-quality video that shows his eyes remained open and he hadn't fallen asleep.  What the commentators did was a cheap shot that is only too prevalent in an era of social media.  PR practitioners have to be vigilant for this sort of criticism and be ready to rebut it immediately.  

This story is a discussion of former President Trump's ugly use of language.  What it doesn't say but clearly implies is that Trump is despicable for his violent rhetoric, ad hominem attacks and innuendo.  He savages anyone who has crossed or prosecuted him.  He is going after judges and district attorneys who will try him.  He has no sense of decorum in his spewing and he is a contemporary example of the Roy Cohn and Joseph McCarthy approach to politics.  Attack. Make headlines whether truthful or not.  Ignore facts but charge opponents with dishonesty and bad behavior.  It is sad that such a person is allowed to run for President.  

Putin was highlighting Russia's deep space skills by sending a spacecraft to the moon.  It was slated to land near the moon's frozen south pole, but it crashed.  The public relations exercise ended in embarrassment.  It was Russia's first attempt since 1976 when the country was still the Soviet Union.  There isn't much Russians can say or do except try again, which they almost certainly will do.  Russia demonstrated that it can get a rocket to the moon, a first step.  Now it has to work harder to land.  

The Texas governor has justified putting up a river-spanning border fence under the pretext of an "invasion" that threatens the state.  The Federal government in a court brief says it is no such thing and asked the judges to order it removed.  An invasion, the Feds say,  "is 'armed hostility from another political entity, such as another state or foreign country that is intending to overthrow the state’s government.'"  Besides, the Feds add, security of borders is a Federal responsibility.  It is up to the court to parse the word and clarify its meaning.  The betting is on the Fed's interpretation.

It is clear from this story that loyalty goes one way for former President Trump.  One must support him but he doesn't have to support you.  Hence, Rudy Giuliani's desperation over unpaid legal bills.  It scars the already low reputation of Trump among all but his most devoted followers. Here is a politician who cares only for himself.  One wonders how he gained the attention of Americans in the first place.  Whatever he did, it worked for a time but now it is turning on him with four indictments and a cash flow that is drying up for his own legal bills. Trump will make a decades long case study for historians and communicators. What did he say, how did he speak to win millions of votes as self-absorbed as he is? 

This media story is speculation because the interviewees don't know what Trump's attorneys will argue in the Georgia RICO indictment.  As such, it does a disservice to its readers.  It would have been far better had Reuters withheld its surmises until Trump's lawyers laid out their defense.  It is true that readers want to know what Trump will do in court but supplying guesses is not the way to go about it.  It is poor communications on the part of the wire service.  

How can an individual's reputation survive four indictments?  It seems former President Trump is made of Teflon among his followers.  When will the reality of his situation set in for the millions who support him?

Did a Norwegian climber abandon a porter who was injured on the slopes of  K2, the world's second highest peak?  The climber says no because it was impossible to help him before he died.  Critics say yes and that the climber should have organized a rescue mission rather than continuing to scale the mountain.  Who is right?  Who knows?  The outcome is a public relations problem for the climber and a ding on her reputation.  Even it she is right, it looks bad.  There are decisions taken in the moment that boomerang and this is one.  

This is an example in which clear and accurate communication was missing.  It nearly cost the lives of the pilot, copilot, 271 passengers and 10 crew members.  And, it was a simple mistake -- setting the amount of wing flap angle, a routine procedure the two pilots had done hundreds of times.  But, the copilot did what he thought the pilot had said and nearly dove the plane into the sea.  There are tasks in which absolute accuracy is essential.  There is no room for mistakes.  The copilot performed a wrong task accurately. They were in cloud cover so they could not see the orientation of the plane in relation to the water below.  It was only when they broke through the bottom of the clouds that the copilot realized something was wrong.  Perhaps they have adopted the communication tactic for accuracy in which the message recipient repeats back to the sender exactly what was said.  If so, it would not be too soon.  

Ohio citizens overwhelmingly turned down a proposed law that would limit changes to the state's constitution to a 60 percent majority vote and not through a simple majority.  It was a resounding message and defeat for the Republican-controlled legislature.  The 60-percent proposal was seen as a first step in limiting abortion rights, which will be on the ballot in November.  Whether or not one accepts abortion, the communication from the voters was loud and clear. A simple majority is enough to make the public's will known.  Republicans say they will try again in the future.  Good luck with that. 

This is a master stroke in regulating the online porn industry -- age verification requirements.  Porn is on the edge of the first amendment.  It reduces men and women to sex objects and feeds the addiction of its users.  There isn't much excuse for its existence.  To allow minors into porn sites is dangerous to their mental health and behavior.  Hence, keeping them out is an appropriate move for government to take.  Porn operators don't like it, but that's too bad for them.  The move is an attempt to keep society safer for minors who might not know better.  

In Iowa where Trump is popular, Republican presidential candidates are not mentioning him while pitching their merits to be in office.  It's a silly communications strategy.  By not attacking Trump and his indictments, they are letting stand his lead with voters.  On the other hand, if they attack Trump, they fear what voters will do.  So they are tiptoeing around the issue, which gets them no sway with voters at all.  They might as well stop campaigning because all they are doing is cementing Trump's lead.  But, they persist, perhaps hoping that Trump will implode, which is unlikely. Now is not a good time for a no-Trump Republican to be running for President.  Democrats are not happy about the state of affairs.  They are dealing with poor opinion polls for President Biden.  It seems neither side has an advantage. 

Sometimes the best way to communicate is first-hand, taking people to the site of a tragedy and letting them see for themselves what happened.  That is what this Congressional delegation did and the impact was powerful.  

After the introduction of AI-driven chatbots, the limits of the software are showing.  The problem is hallucination when a chatbot makes facts up and presents them as truth.  A communicator dare not use the systems without checking the responses.  For those who do, they are setting themselves up for embarrassment.  There already has been an example of a lawyer who submitted court papers with cites that were fraudulent from a chatbot.  What to do?  Be wary of using chatbots until developers figure out how to eliminate hallucination.  That is a blow to Microsoft, for example, which went all-in on the use of a chatbot in its search engine.  Chatbots will be a great help when they stick to facts rather than making them up.

Former President Trump's latest indictment will test the limits of persuasion.  How many of his followers will stick with him given the gravity of his legal troubles?  If the majority of MAGA Republicans remain by his side, it will once again demonstrate that speech has its limits.  There is no changing of the closed mind.  Communicators need to acknowledge that in all they do.  One can only argue to one willing to listen.  It is frustrating to deal with those who know what they know and will never change.  One must write them off and hope to reach those who are amenable to change, hoping they are the majority.  If Trump gets the nomination, as expected, it will by up to independents to decide who will be the next president.  One hopes they are not close-minded.  

Sometimes there are limits to optimism. One can trust others until they are out to kidnap or kill you.  Then it is time to leave.  That was the choice facing an American nurse and her child in Haiti but they waited too long and are now in the grip of a gang. The US has sensibly communicated to all Americans in Haiti to leave the country right away.  It is a failed state unable to protect citizens or foreigners.  Even the few well-to-do in the country live in fear.  How has the country come to this?  It has been a long time developing.  Haiti was never governed well and natural disasters tipped it over the edge. The challenge now is how to communicate and demonstrate trust in its leaders.  That will require action on the streets, shutting down the gangs and returning a sense of normal life.  It will be hard to do.