Online Public Relations Thoughts

There is a he-said he-said argument over Trump's recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery.  The Defense department says Trump's campaign operatives had no right to film Trump visiting a section of the cemetery.  Photographs are not permitted.  Trump's people say they had permission to shoot and the DOD is wrong.  The standoff apparently resulted in a physical altercation.  It doesn't matter who was right.  It presents a poor image of the Trump campaign that has already riled veterans.  So positive PR turned negative in an instant. Reminder to communicators.  Always check before conducting a campaign on government property.  

If this fellow can run for president, anyone can.  Sawing off and transporting the head of a whale is weird.  Add to that dumping a dead bear cub in Central Park.  There is something awry in his brain, as his own family attests.  

Political campaigns cost money -- lots of it -- and volunteers to do ground-pounding voter contact. It is interesting that the Harris-Walz ticket is ahead on both.  That doesn't guarantee an election but it is a good sign.  Trump must be concerned or anyway, his strategists.  Political campaigns are communications on steroids for a one-day sale. 

With stories like this, it is hard for Israel to maintain its reputation among nations.  The baby had done no harm nor had his mother who was killed nor his brothers who also died.  The photo of the toddler inflames passions and revolts viewers. One asks how the IDF can justify harming innocent civilians and the answer is stark.  It can't. Israel comes off as a heartless bully, a perception that will take decades to live down.  

Even the best reporters can make glaring errors.  The key is to admit them when they occur and to work hard to avoid them in the future.  Such happened to PBS' Judy Woodruff when she was discussing Israeli and Hamas peace talks.  She repeated a story from another news source about President Trump and the slow-moving talks without realizing that the story had already been denied by Trump and Israel. She apologized on-air for the error, which was proper, and she preserved her reputation for accuracy.  Bad mistake. Good recovery.  

What can be more dumb than this?  Or, does Trump know something we don't.  

House Republicans in an effort to embarrass and unseat President Biden have issued a 300-page report alleging impeachable offenses by the President.  It's too late now that Biden is out of the race for reelection and it will sink from sight along with other-such documents.  They wanted to get even with Democrats for impeaching former President Trump twice.  Whatever Biden did or did not do is nowhere near Trump's actions, so they wouldn't have succeeded anyway.  It is one more example of useless investigations on the Hill and lousy PR.  

Trump is smoothing the path for Harris by rambling off-message in his campaign speeches.  Is it PR suicide? 

Trump said he would go to Venezuela should he lose the election because it would be safer there. He added that the country sent all of its criminals to the US border.  How stupid is that?  One wonders how he maintains an adoring body of supporters with such outrageous remarks.  He has an attraction that is not explainable but is dangerous to democracy.  

Unlike 2016 when the media mishandled leaks about Hillary Clinton's campaign, the present leak of confidential data from the Trump campaign is not being published. The claim is that a foreign power, possibly Iran, was behind the hacked information.  This time, however, the media are circumspect about revealing inside secrets.  Have they gone too far in protecting the candidate?  Some observers think so.  The data is a PR bomb that might explode at any minute should an editor change his mind.  It's an uncomfortable position for Trump to be in.  

The Navy is woefully behind in building warships.  Some of that is a workforce crisis.  The service can't get enough laborers in shipyards.  A good part of that, however, is due to the Navy's fiddling with plans even as ships are built.  It can't seem to keep its hands off new vessels long enough to get them done on time and on budget.  Cost overruns and time loss are endemic.  The service needs a shakeup with emphasis on getting construction done.  That is not likely to happen without a war igniting urgency in the ranks.  It will continue to have an image of a bungler until then.

What does it say about a presidential candidate that a sitting president states he is not confident what the candidate will do if he loses the election?  The candidate is a dangerous man.  

A Nobel prize for economics might help in running Bangladesh, but it won't go far.  The country's new prime minister is heading an interim government that won't have much chance of making changes.  Bangladesh has a  massive PR problem with its citizens rising up against the government.   

What's worse news -- the market meltdown or a judge ruling that Google is a monopoly?   Both are hard knocks to corporate stability and to the public.  There isn't much to say that would calm the panic.  It is a moment to ride out the fear and to move forward.  If Google's appeals fail to work, Google may recede in the search world, and there is little the company can do about it.  If the markets continue to swing violently, the Fed might need to intervene with a rate cut that might be too late.  What else can happen?  Don't ask.  

The electrifying prisoner swap with Russia yesterday came too late for President Biden's bid for reelection.  In fact, according to some reports, he made a key phone call just an hour before announcing that he was stepping down.  It showed that he is anything but a doddering old man.  He is still in charge even though voters don't think so.  It will be fodder for historians to examine how and why the public turned against him.  The debate disaster was the capstone of a turn in sentiment.  Some day, voters might rue their decision but not now.