The Donald Trump Problem That PR Pros Can’t Control
Years ago, presumably when many of you were still public relations wannabes, I was considered an outlier when advising clients after they were tinged with negative media coverage. The norm then was that a negative article must be immediately contested. My advice, depending on the situation, often was for the client to say nothing for a few days because history shows that most negative stories have a shelve life of one or two days. I still feel that my approach is the proper one today.
Thankfully, negative stories about my clients either vanished after a news cycle or two, or were easily refuted with a targeted media campaign that never referred to the negative articles. I also was fortunate to have clients who agreed with my strategies.
But that is not always the case and some clients think that they can change the media coverage by speaking out, when a better strategy would be to keep mum or let their attorneys do the talking.
Former President Donald Trump, no surprise, tops the list (other examples later) of such individuals.
After E. Jean Carroll was award $5-million in damages in her defamation and sexual abuse law suit against Mr. Trump, on May 10 he said during a CNN Town Hall program that her accusation was “fake” and a “made-up story, and also said Ms. Carroll was a “wack job.”
The result of Mr. Trump’s comments was reported in a May 22 New York Times article which said, “E. Jean Carroll, who this month won $5 million in damages from former President Donald J. Trump, is now seeking a very substantial additional amount in response to his insults on a CNN program just a day after she won her sexual abuse and defamation case.”
Over the years, the former president has made countless remarks that have resulted in negative media coverage. But during the CNN Town Hall on May 10 he also made one regarding the classified documents uncovered during a lawful court-sanctioned FBI search that undercut his lawyers’ defense that the documents were mistakenly taken when Mr. Trump left the White House.
“I was there and I took what I took and it gets declassified,” said Mr. Trump to an audience of more than three million viewers, which probably included law enforcement personnel who are currently investigating the former president’s claims. “I have the right to do whatever I want with them.”
(Another president, Richard Nixon, also said whatever he did was legal, when he said, “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal." The verdict of Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents has still not been determined.)
Mr. Trump is the epitome of a PR person’s nightmare during a crisis: The individual they can’t control who thinks that by speaking out whatever they do will be justified by their comments, and that they can shift the blame of the crisis to others by making statements saying that the crisis has no foundation or by bullying people that do not support them and by playing the victim.
Even though Mr. Trump’s continued comments resulted in additional continual negative press coverage, he kept on repeating them because, like most chief executives, he believes that what he says will produce the results he wants. That might be true in the daily give-and-take in the insular corporate boardrooms. But it has no affect on the larger non-cloistered public arena and with the media, which doesn’t care how rich and powerful a person in crisis may be.
CEO’s often live in the same world as actors – a fantasy world that amplifies their importance, the difference being that even the most egocentric actors know they are playing a role that ends when the curtain falls at the end of a performance. The egocentric chief executives, on the other hand, actually believe that they are powerful enough to change the public perception of a crisis because of their importance. (The statements
made by the ceo’s of Boeing, BP and Wells Fargo in the early days of their crises are examples.) Thus, like Mr. Trump, they made statements that only added to their problems. Usually, when the public agrees with the comments made by a person in crisis, he/she is speaking to the choir.
During my long career in the public relations business, I’ve been fortunate to only have had less than a handful of clients that have been involved in a PR crisis. In each case the client’s main concern was the negative media converge. “How do we stop or prevent drip-by-drip coverage?” was the most frequent question I was asked.
I usually advised six things:
Wait a couple of days to see if the coverage continues because often what a client or a PR account supervisor thinks is a PR crisis isn’t. And often negative media coverage will last only one or two news cycles until a more important story emerges.
I also said that responding too early to most negative news stories can turn what would have been a one day report into a “he said, she said” saga.
In addition, I counseled against having the chief executives be the lead spokesperson for a reason that seems obvious – the higher a corporate executive, the more reporters will report on what he/she says. Reporters might call a PR person who does not arrange interviews with the highest corporate executive a “gatekeeper,” but your job during a crisis is to protect your client from headline-seeking reporters.
I advised that having the corporate executive most closely associated with the crises be the company spokesperson and that during the crisis the ceo only should meet the press twice – once at the beginning of a crisis, the other time at its end.
In all cases, I advised the client of the necessity of having all statements cleared by the corporate attorney, and delegate the attorney to work hand-in-hand with the account team and be able to veto the account team’s suggestions, because limiting a client’s damages should be the prime consideration in a crisis situation; getting favorable “good feel” press will not accomplish that. Luckily, none of my client crises reached that level.
If the negative coverage continues for more than a few days, a statement from the entity or individual that is the subject of the coverage is required. I suggested that after initially meeting the press in person other requests for information should be conducted via emails. Doing so would accomplish two things: It would give a corporate spokesperson time to consider a reply and importantly prevent shooting from the hip comments that lead to additional major negative coverage, as the statements by Mr. Trump and others below did.
Among the most self-serving statements that have produced negative media coverage during crises were made by two “formers” –Tony Hayward, former chief executive of the oil and energy company BP, and Donald Trump, the former American president.
“I want my life back,” Mr. Hayward said to several news organizations after the April 20, 2010, oil drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank, killing 11 workers. After much criticidsm, Mr. Hayward apologized saying, “I made a hurtful and thoughtless comment….” But nevertheless his statement, challenges Trump for making history’s most insensitive remark(s). (More on Trump later.)
(A more recent insensitive remark was reported in a Wall Street Journal May 22 article headlined, ‘Doctors, Hospitals Ending Mask Mandates.’ The article included reasons that the mask mandate was being discontinued at health care facilities. But it also said that, “The changes faced some pushback from infectious-disease specialists,” with one specialist Dr .James Lawler at the Global Center for Health Security at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, saying, that by loosening mask requirements, “We are putting patients at risk.”
“Lawler said he objected when Nebraska Medicine, a two-hospital system affiliated with the university, loosened its mask requirements last month.”
While we all know that the practice of medicine is a business, rarely have providers said so publicly, because doing so would seem insensitive to many ill patients. “Patients were pressuring the system to loosen its mask policy after other hospitals and clinics stopped requiring them, said Suzanne
Nuss, chief nursing officer at Nebraska Medicine, which also includes more than 70 clinics across the state. “That’s not good for business,” she said. in what I consider an ill-advised and insensitive remark.)
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg apologized to relatives of the 346 people killed in two crashes of its 737 Max planes remarked: “We feel terrible about these accidents. We apologize for what happened. We are sorry for the loss of lives in both accidents,” he said during an intgerview with CBS News. But, in previous interviews, the former ceo would not admit that Boeing’s flawed safety evaluation process might have been responsible for the crashes and also suggested that pilot error might have been the problem.
Both Mr. Hayward and Mr. Muilenburg originally attempted to blame others for their company’s problems, as does Mr. Trump, who claims people and judges are out to get him, even though he’s done nothing wrong, because “They hate Trump.”
Another chief executive who blamed others for his company’s trouble was Wells Fargo’s John Stump, who like Mr. Muilenburg didn’t survive their company’s PR crises. (Mr. Stump was barred by the government from ever again working in the banking business.) The problem, Mr. Stump said, was an ethical lapse limited to the 5,300 employees who had been fired for unethical sales practices that included opening around 3.5 million fake accounts without customer authorization. But Wells Fargo employees said that pressure from management forced the unethical behavior. Another former Well’s executive, John Shrewsbury, who was the bank’s chief financial officer, blamed the media for continually running negative articles about Wells Fargo, saying they do so because it is an “ad seller.” (Thus far, there has been no evidence that the media forced the unethical practices on Wells.)
But not all high-ranking executives have been made to walk the plank because of their faulty remarks or their company’s misdeeds. In fact, at least one individual has been richly rewarded for defending what many people think is the indefensible. That person is the National Football League’s Commissioner Roger Goodell for downplaying two long on-going problems – criminal activities by NFL players and the concussions problem.
Fox Business News reported in 2017 that Mr. Goodell downplayed concerns about player safety “after the release of a study that found an overwhelming number of former football players showed signs of the degenerative brain condition known as CTE.” CTE is a degenerative brain condition that has been linked to repeated concussions.
In a comment worthy of being included among the greatesd jokes ever told (and much funnier than the ones on Saturday Night Live in recent years), Mr. Goodell said, in part, “The average NFL player lives five years longer than you, so their lifespan is actually longer and healthier…” “I think, because of all the advancements, including the medical care that number is going to even increase for them.”
Despite Mr. Goodell’s optimism, NFL statistics show otherwise: Concussions rose significantly during the 2022 regular season. There were 149 concussions last season, an 18% jump from 2021 and 14% higher than the three-year average between 2018 and 2020.
A 2021 article in The Nation, reported that “the days of plausible deniability” (about CTE) — “by the NFL, by players, and by fans — will be coming to a screeching halt in the next several years” because advances in science will eventually make it possible to see the effect of concussions on brains in living players. (At present CTE can only be determined in the brains of dead people.)
The above statements by corporate leaders affect only their companies and the unfortunate individuals whose lives have been damaged by the entities’ actions.
But the statements of Donald Trump are in a class by themselves: They have divided our country, led to past violence and, hopefully will not foster future violence.
Mr. Trump’s comments also separate him from others who have made self-serving comments. Trump obviously doesn’t care what harm his remarks may have on other individuals or the country at large. He has only one agenda: Protect and promote himself; everyone else be damned.
The former twice-impeached and criminally indicted president’s inflammatory rhetoric has already produced death threats against New York’s (Manhattan) District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is conducting an investigation into Trump’s hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election, and for felony falsification of business records.
Reminiscent of his remarks prior to the insurrection that led to the deaths of Capitol policemen on Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Trump also called on his supporters to “protest and take back our country.”
His statements are so inflammatory that his lawyer said that Mr. Trump’s attacks on Mr. Bragg were ill advised and distanced himself from his clients' remarks. “I’m not his social media consultant," attorney Joe Tacopina said in an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” (on Sunday March 26).
Another of Mr. Trump’s attorney, Timothy Parlatore, who was representing the former president in the classified documents investigation, resigned. Although he denies it, speculation is that he resigned because of comments made by Mr. Trump regarding the documents during the televised Town Hall.
Luckily, I have never had a client who felt that they must speak out during the few PR crises I have been involved with. And even more fortunately for me, I never had a client whose conduct made him a target for Trump-like negative media coverage. But if I did, I would follow the advice in the following paragraphs.
The Five Important Lessons That PR People Should Never Forget
During a PR crisis, crisis consultants, account handlers and attorneys often have no control of their client’s behavior. In situations where clients feel they must speak out, PR people should strongly advise them not to do so. But remember, pushing too hard will not change their minds, but might cost you your job. And good jobs are difficut to find. You must know when to cease pushing back.
An individual does not climb to a top leadership corporate position by being Mr. or Ms. Nice. So while your obligation is to provide the best advice you have to a client, never forget the obligation you have to yourself and your family because when push comes to shove, you are just another employee number.
Regardless of your client’s antagonistic demeanor to the media you should always maintain a cordial relationship with reporters, even those whose reports upset your client. Clients come and go. Reporters have a longer shelve life and you never know if your future assignment will entail working with those reporters again.
The overwhelming number of reporters from major news outlets that I have come in contact with understand that you have a job to do and are not out to “get you,” as Mr. Trump has alleged about himself so many times. So always offer to help them and never flatly say “no” when a request to interview the chief executive of a company in crisis is requested. Instead, always offer the reporter an opportunity to discuss the situation (preferably by email) with the designated spokesperson.
The “medicine is a business quote” from the chief nursing officer at Nebraska Medicine provides another important lesson: Just because an individual has a high-ranking title does not mean that individual is the best person to interact with the media.
