Online Public Relations Thoughts

Apple is suffering from labor riots at its Chinese supplier, Foxconn. Workers at a large factory with tens of thousands of employees erupted in protest over pay and being forced to live with those who have caught COVID.  Foxconn apologized for causing a pay mistake, but it was too late to reach production goals for the month. Meanwhile, Apple has a PR problem with critics of its Chinese presence gaining attention.  There isn't much Apple can do.  The Foxconn operation is much too large to move somewhere else quickly outside of China.  Apple over a period of years will need to reduce gradually its exposure to the country and supplier while navigating tensions between the US and the country.  It is and will be a hard job with multiple threats to the company's reputation.

The Associated Press fired the reporter who got the story wrong about the errant missile that landed in Poland. The journalist violated AP's anonymous sourcing standards in his article that blamed Russia for the missile strike that most likely came from Ukraine.  The AP places an iron value on accuracy as well it should.  Would that all media follow the same rules of getting stories right.  But, they don't have to do so, and many misinform the public regularly.  In the internet age, lack of accuracy is an international problem and not just a correction in a local newspaper.  Stories fly around the earth in minutes.  Errors compound public confusion over issues and can prompt unwanted action.  The AP rightly understands the need to get the facts right each and every time.  

I had written previously about the importance of concession when losing a political race.  Here is an Arizona candidate who is refusing to concede.  We expected it, and it has come to pass.  The state's governorship will be in turmoil for a while, but there is little likelihood that Kari Lake will overturn the results.  She is a divisive figure and it was smart for Arizona voters to turn her down.  Lake is destroying her reputation daily and insuring that she doesn't have a political future.

This video sequence of the Artemis 1 Orion capsule with earth in the background is yet another PR triumph for NASA.  It almost makes one forget the over-budget, troubled rocket program that was years overdue.  NASA is trying hard to focus the public on the near future when astronauts will return to the moon and set up a base there.  It will be a return after more than 50 years but with technologies unheard of at the time of the first moon landings.  NASA is counting on the public -- and Congress -- forgetting the cost, and chances are, both will in a spirit of high adventure and science.  There is competition as well.  The Chinese have successfully sent a spacecraft to the dark side of the moon and have geared up a significant space program.  The Russians can never be counted out.  Other nations as well are eagerly entering space exploration.  NASA, of course, wants to remain a leader.