So what lessons does the New York Times vs. John McCain battle have for us corporate crisis folks?
Lesson #1 -- Preparation. Obviously the McCain camp knew this was coming, and they made use of that time to prepare -- creating key messages, developing proof points, lining up third party advocates, etc. Companies facing a crisis typically have some advance warning -- sometimes just a few days, but often weeks if not months. The McCain camp couldn't control when -- or even if -- the story would break, but they were prepared to move on a moment's notice, and they did.
Lesson #2 -- Regain Control of the Agenda. The McCain camp was brilliant in its execution of a strategy to reframe this story and thus capture the high ground and controlling the agenda around it. The story rapidly moved from one about questions over the Senator's judgement to questions about the newspaper's judgement. When media are more interested in what Bill Keller has to say in defense of the story than in what John McCain has to say in defense of his character and his actions, that says something about who is the winner in this battle.
Lesson #3 -- The Goodwill game. Senator McCain had built a reserve of goodwill amonst key audiences that could make or break him. So when he had to call on that reserve, it was there for him. By and large, he enjoyed the benefit of the doubt.
Lesson #4 -- The Trust Factor. Perhaps the public don't hold politicians (or corporate America) in very high regard. But what this exercise taught us is that they have even less regard for the media. People were generally disinclined to trust the New York Times, and thus were prepared to discount the story, regardless of the merit of the assertions the story made.
Lesson #5 -- The Impact of Unrelated Events. Often, unrelated events can either worsen a crisis situation or at least affect the manner which that crisis is viewed. In this case, in the weeks prior to the McCain story being published, there were a number of instances where the media's conduct relative to the Presidential campaign was called into question. That recent criticism of the media gave greater legitimacy to the "The Times stepped over the line" theme.
Lesson #6 -- The Blogosphere makes noise. And lots of it. This story immediately became the beauty queen of blog topics; everyone's favorite. And today's blog noise can become tomorrow's main headlines in the traditional press. Again, the McCain camp was ready to exploit this.
All of these lessons have practical application for corporate crisis planning.
So who's the winner? No brainer. McCain on a TKO. But he better watch out, the media need to publish something new every day, and this story line is sure to return.