Crisis Musings

Schuyler Brown had an interesting blog posting on the HuffPost yesterday… http://www.huffingtonpost.com/schuyler-brown/enter-the-golden-age-of-p_b_260078.html.

In short, she argues that PR is essentially dishonest, and the emergence of social media will somehow spawn an increase in dishonest PR.

The evidence she uses to advance this thesis?

The current debate over healthcare reform, where both sides have distorted the facts, demonized the opposition and inflamed the emotions of people – at the expense of rational, reasoned, fact-based dialogue.

To be sure, these politicians, spurred out my political consultants —  are driving an “end justifies the means” approach. 

But to paint the entire PR profession with the broad brush of dishonesty because of the conduct of politicians and political consultants is baseless and no more productive than the behavior of the protestors at the health care town calls  accusing the Obama administration of being Nazis and socialists.

Ms. Brown’s assertion is sort of like saying that because of a single crackpot doctor peddling false hopes and bogus cures, we must conclude that all doctors are inherently bad, and indeed the practice of medicine is evil.

Now I am not going to stand up and defend the honor and behavior of everyone who has ever worked in public relations, because I know that there are the good, the bad and the in-between.  However, slamming the entire practice is wrong in both substance and spirit. 

The fact is that organizations – be they public companies, government agencies, not-for-profit enterprises, schools, hospitals, etc. all recognize the importance of building trust through effective communications – whether it be through paid media, earned media or tweets.  And they are smart enough to reach out and seek help when they need it.  That’s what we do.

Moreover, the better ones in our business understand the need for practicing our trade with a high degree of ethics, transparency and honesty.  Why?  Because if we were to do otherwise, our reputation would suffer.  And frankly our reputation is the most valuable capital we possess.  So we guard it carefully.

Now, with respect to the notion that the emergence of social media is spawning a golden age of PR, Ms. Brown may be on to something.  The emergence of the internet and social media, the tectonic changes confronting the traditional media, and the changing behaviors of consumers in the way they gather and process information all point to the need for a better understanding of how organizations can adapt and most effectively communicate with the people important to them – be they customers, shareholders, employees or others.

I spend much of my day trying to make sense of these trends and helping clients to navigate these new paths.

If this means a golden age  for PR, it is because the market is driving it, not PR people.

The concept of trust – the confidence that the public holds in private and public institutions – has finally succumbed after a long struggle.

The final blow was perhaps the revelation last week that the performance at last week’s Presidential Inauguration by the classical musicians Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Gabriela Montero and Anthony McGill was actually pre-recorded music, and the artists were only pretending to perform for the millions of Americans who attended the historic event, and the hundreds of millions more watching on televisions around the world.

Back when I was in college, I was enrolled in a science class where the professor was fond of asking the question, “Why is it that everything you know just ain’t so?”

Of course, that rhetorical question was intended to force us to challenge the assumptions we had about science.  But it is equally relevant to the worlds of politics, the economy, business and society.

For the sake of this discussion, “everything you know” refers to the trust we have long held in public and private institutions, even in the face of evidence that said trust was improperly placed.

However, events of the past two years have so shocked our collective conscience that institutions (corporations, politicians, government agencies, etc.) will need to spend many years in the proverbial “time out” chair, and will need to demonstrate genuine remorse, sustained good behavior and carry out acts of selfless conduct in the public interest before we will again bestow up them the sacred trust which they have so completely squandered.

Consider the following episodes we have witnessed (or suffered through) in recent years…

1. The Abu Ghraib scandal, the arrogance of “Mission Accomplished” and the insensitivity of our federal government in the wake of Hurricane Katrina – events that, taken together, were nearly as damaging to the public trust in the Presidency as Watergate.
2. The baseball steroids scandal – Not only did we see athletes show utter contempt for our national pastime, we also saw headline-grabbing members of Congress creating a spectacle to serve their own purposes with little regard for the right of due process.  And at the same time causing us to wonder, “With all the problems our country is facing, should this be a priority for our Congress?“
3. The subprime debacle – where we saw in spades the unchecked greed of people who cared more about their own wealth accumulation than the plight of duped borrowers and the fragility of our economy.
4. The related collapse of commercial and investment banks, where it seemed executives were worried as much or more about their bonuses and corporate perquisites (i.e., corporate jets) than they were about the downward spiral of the economy.
5. The breathtaking fraud that seems to be pervasive in investment community, as exemplified by such scoundrels as Bernard Madoff and Marc Dreier, among others.
6. The demise of the auto companies, and their crawling to Congress, where both Congress and the media took far greater interest in the triviality of the CEOs travel arrangements than in the serious and substantive challenges facing the auto industry and our economy.  Considering that the Congress willingly gave the Treasury Secretary carte blanche to squander $350 billion of taxpayer money in the TARP program, only to then force the auto CEOs to carry out a humiliating kabuki dance in order to receive a fraction of that in order to save millions of American jobs is even more shameful.
7. The cheating by coaching staffs in the NFL, where we have come to learn that everyone does it, but only Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots got caught.
8. “Made in China” – A term which is now as synonymous with “dangerous” as it is with “low cost,” as we have seen with the reports of lead-laced toys and food products laced with melamine, which has been linked to cancer and other serious health conditions.
9. The Satyam scandal in India – where it now seems that when American industry outsourced much of its business to India, it also outsourced the concept of accounting fraud.
10. The funny-if-it-wasn’t-so-sad comedy from last summer, when the FDA insisted that rotten tomatoes were at the heart of a salmonella outbreak, only to later admit they weren’t and, instead, maybe it was peppers, but they couldn’t be certain.  While in the course of causing hundreds of millions of dollars of losses for farmers, food processors, retailers and restaurants (and causing immeasurable anxiety for consumers), this episode exposed how broken our food safety system is, and how the FDA’s actions seem more motivated by political fear than by science.
11. The never-ending litany of exposes of politicians accused (or convicted) of having their hands in the cookie jar – Ted Stevens, Sharpe James, Rod Blagojevich, Charlie Rangel – or politicians who’s conduct is guided not by their brains, but by certain organs found south of their waistbands – Elliot Spitzer, John Edwards, Kwame Kilpatrick, etc.  Now I know that political corruption is the second oldest profession, but nevertheless such revelations are profoundly damaging to the public trust, particularly when the politicians in question claimed to be such protectors of the public trust (Spitzer, Edwards).

The net result of these events – and these are only the most notable of many – is that the public and the media, will look at all institutions – public, corporate, etc. – with an even greater skeptical eye than ever before.

In the court of public opinion, companies and other institutions are now guilty until proven innocent.

So executives facing a crisis or serious challenges cannot expect to receive the benefit of the doubt from the media, or the public.  Even companies whose performance and conduct have been above reproach will suffer the consequences of this loss of trust.

At least for the near-term, the public will look at even the good and honorable performers with a suspect eye.  Can they be believed?  Is their performance legitimate, or illusory?

As Sir Martin Sorrell told the Institute of Public Relations last November, in these times companies need to think about communicating more, not less.  But that communications needs to be well-grounded.

An old boss of mine used to say that share price was based on two factors – current performance and expectations of future performance.  Today, however, the emphasis is on the former, whether it be about share price or reputation.  The willingness to believe an organization’s assertions about future performance has been too seriously eroded to be given any credence.

I have been around the business world long enough to spot trends (or fads, depending upon one’s view).  For a period we were all enamored with “quality.”  Then it was “diversity.”  After that, “the power of the brand” and “innovation” were the MBA buzzwords.

Today – and I suspect for some time to come – the mantra for both the public and private sectors alike will be “transparency” and “responsibility.”

“Transparency” in the sense of how institutions convey information about themselves (and what information they convey), and “responsibility” in terms of the manner in which they conduct themselves.

In the January 24 issue of the Wall Street Journal I saw a half-page ad promoting an upcoming conference, “2009 Global Ethics Summit.”  The headline for the ad read, “Win the Battle Against Corporate Corruption – Worldwide.”  The sub-headline promoted “Effective Compliance and Anti-Corruption Strategies for 2009.”

My initial reaction to seeing this ad was, “Do people really need to attend a conference to know how to fight corruption?  Is the understanding of and adherence to values now dependent upon what we learn at a conference?”

What a sad commentary on the state of the world we live in.

Upon further thought, though, I realized it was the sub-headline that captured the disconnect that is at the root of so many problems.

Compliance is simply adherence to the letter of the law.  It is not necessarily adherence to values.

Too many companies and corporate executives – it would seem – confuse compliance with good behavior.  People (consumers, voters, investors, etc.) don’t reward companies for compliance.  This level of performance is assumed, it is not rewarded.  Rather, the public expects a higher level of performance; an adherence to a set of values that is sometimes difficult to define, and the definition of which is often shifting.

The challenge for companies and other institutions going forward is to properly define that expected level of behavior, align its performance with it, and ensure there is no delta between their actual performance and stakeholders’ expectations of performance.  That will satisfy the “responsibility” requirement.

But they will also need to communicate with transparency.

Main Entry:

apol•o•gy 

Pronunciation:

\?-’pä-l?-je\

Function:

noun

Inflected Form(s):

plural apol•o•gies

Etymology:

Middle French or Late Latin; Middle French apologie, from Late Latin apologia, from Greek, from apo- + logos speech — more at LEGEND

Date:

1533

1 a: a formal justification : DEFENSE b: EXCUSE 2a2: an admission of error or discourtesy accompanied by an expression of regret <a public apology>3: a poor substitute : MAKESHIFT

That’s the definition of “apology” from Merriam-Webster.

So what?  You ask.

The topic of corporate apologies is something I wrote about earlier in the year, but I feel compelled to revisit the matter, after reading a piece in the October 21 issue of USA Today entitled, “Why ’sorry’ isn’t in many CEOs’ vocabularies anymore.”    

The take-away of the story was as follows:  “As the world comes to grips with the biggest financial crisis in seven decades, the mea culpa machine has ground to a halt. Apologies, encouraged in recent years by the crisis-management industry, have dried up — even apologies deployed as a business or political strategy.”

First, I am not so sure I agree with this.  I have seen no quantitative data to support such a conclusion.

But the following passage is what caught my attention:

Companies have found that heart-felt apologies can decrease the likelihood of lawsuits if they’re well crafted and don’t come off as “Sorry I got caught,” but express regret, assume responsibility and map out a plan to avoid repeating the offense, says Leslie Gaines-Ross, chief reputation strategist at public relations firm Weber Shandwick and a longtime student of apologies in crisis management.

I have two problems with this.

First, to suggest that a company can reduce or eliminate its litigation risk by simply apologizing is a pretty bold claim to make, and rather implausible, if you ask me.  If indeed this were true, wouldn’t every general counsel simply tell the CEO to apologize?  That would certainly save the companies millions of dollars, and ease the strain on our courts.

I fear that people are drawing conclusions about the power (or danger) of apologies with little or no quantitative data to support those conclusions.  I have been in this business for more than 20 years, and have worked with any number of companies involved in litigation, and I don’t recall an instance where a plaintiffs’ lawyer has been able to convince a judge that a letter of “apology” published in a newspaper is alone tantamount to acknowledging liability.

Nor have I seen an instance where such a communication enabled a company to prevent the filing of litigation.

The second problem I have with this assertion is the notion that a company should “assume responsibility.”  If the company believes it is responsible for a problem, then it should say so.  But I would never counsel a company to make such an assertion unless it was certain of its responsibility.  That’s bad PR advice, and even worse legal advice.

According to Merriam-Webster, an apology is an admission of error.  I have seen lots of letters from CEOs and companies where they express sympathy or regret or understand for a situation, without saying “it’s our fault.”  Does that make the communication any less effective?

In many cases, the fault is not the company’s.  So why SHOULD it say, “I’m sorry” if the implication is, “it was my fault”?

A colleague told me about a piece of legislation being considered in Canada, The Uniform Apology Act.

The provisions of the proposed law make the protection accorded to apologies clear by providing, first, that an apology is not an admission of legal fault or liability, express or implied; second, that an apology is not relevant in determining fault or liability; and third, that an apology is not admissible in evidence to establish liability.

That we have come to the point where we need legislation to protect a company that offers an apology is a sad statement about the condition of our society.

But as I said in my earlier posting on this topic, way too much is made of apologies.  Yes – companies should communicate empathy and concern.  And when a company is responsible for a problem, it should say so, and apologize if appropriate.

But a company need not fall on the sword simply because it is seen as being the right thing to do.

Companies successfully work their way out of a problem because they address the problem, and not just the perception of the problem.  In other words, a business problem requires a business fix.  A letter of apology or regret published in a newspaper solves nothing.  And the fact that such a tactic is now seen as “required” in the PR tool kit diminishes its value even more, precisely because it is seen as required and thus not genuine.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am not suggesting that such communications are unnecessary.  I simply believe they have very limited value, and alone they won’t lift any burden off a company in crisis.

In my view, the entire discussion of apologies is overblown.  If people fixate too much with the tactic of apology (or expression of regret), then they are ignoring the far more important issue of root cause of the problem, and its solution.

#   #    #

The recent hubbub about Steve Jobs and rumors of his health exposes a considerable chasm between what companies feel obliged to reveal, and what some investors and media believe is their right to know.

And given that the media have nothing better to do than to chatter about how Steve Jobs looks (never mind the growing recession, the crisis in the banking sector, collapsing financial markets, skyrocketing energy prices, collapsing housing prices and a war or two), there has been no shortage of chatter in the press and the blogosphere on the topic.  The following are just some of the chatterboxes on the topic.

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/07/28/do-apple-investors-have-right-to-steve-jobss-health-info/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9996676-37.html

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/7/sorry-apple-steve-jobs-health-is-not-just-a-private-matter

Given the average age of Fortune 500 CEOs, and knowing the stresses a CEO faces, I will venture a guess that there are any number of companies, and boards of directors, that are facing the question of how to address the health of the CEO.

So for communications managers, this is a fair issue to ponder, as all of us may have to deal with it at some point.

So here’s my POV.

If we assert – as we do – that a CEO represents an important element of an organization’s reputation (and, hence, perceived value in the marketplace), then it only follows that the condition and performance of that CEO will weigh heavily on the company’s reputation. This would suggest that the condition of a CEO’s health is fair game and companies should anticipate that investors and media will expect a degree of openness and substance from a company in this regard.

Does this mean that companies must feel obliged to include the results of the CEO’s annual check-up in their SEC filings, just as Presidential candidates are expected to disclose their medical records?  Of course not.

However, it is a matter of political reality that we live in an age where transparency is seen as an obligation, not just something to be rewarded. That expectation of transparency extends to the public face of the company — the CEO.

This expectation is even greater when the CEO assumes a high public profile, such as Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Michael Dell, etc. And when the CEO chooses to become a blogger, he/she is further inviting the investing public, customers and the media to view him/her as an open book.

Claiming ”it’s a private matter” may be seen as antiquated and unsatisfactory as “we don’t comment on litigation,” and as self-incriminating as pleading the 5th Amendment.

As we are seeing with Apple, uncertainty about the CEO creates anxiety among investors, and the chatter simply compounds the anxiety.

So the situation presents some difficult questions for the company (or any company in a similar situation), and it suggests the need to address the ambiguity that exists as to a company’s obligations to disclose.

When is a CEO’s health the business of the investor?

Certainly, if any health issues impede the CEO’s ability to do his/her job, that would seem to be a matter warranting a company comment or announcement.

But what if the CEO is doing fine, but had prior problems with cancer, heart trouble or other such maladies.  Should the company feel obliged to keep the public alerted every time the CEO sneezes, or has an MRI?

Both Joe Nocera of the New York Times and John Boudreau of the San Jose Mercury News have written thoughtful pieces on this issue, and they are worth a read. 

There are two angles to the Steve Jobs/Apple story that make this issue more complicated for the company.  First, Jobs has spoken in the past about his bout with cancer.  And it’s a truism that once a company or an executive starts to speak on a topic, they are expected to continue to speak.  Second, the company made differing and ambiguous statements in response to questions about Jobs’ health.  Perhaps the most troublesome is the separate statements from the company that Jobs’ health “is a private matter” and that he is simply suffering from “a common bug.” 

Understanding that it is our inalienable right to read tea leaves, the former may be interpreted as an acknowledgement that Jobs does have a health issue, but it is no one’s business but his own.  The second statement seems to imply that whatever Jobs is suffering from is no different than what all of us suffer from over time.

But is the “common bug” response potentially misleading?

Joe Nocera, in his column in Saturday’s Times, reports that Jobs called him and shared with him — on an off-the-record basis — information on his health.  All Nocera reported was, “While his health problems amounted to a good deal more than ‘a common bug,’ they weren’t life-threatening and he doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer.“

Frankly, this is no less ambiguous than “a common bug.”  But what I take away from this is that Jobs has some serious health issues, but nothing that will kill him.  However, it doesn’t answer the question, “Does his health situation impede his ability to carry out his job?”

At the end of the day, perhaps that is the test that companies should apply.

(If, down the line, Jobs’ health takes a turn for the worse, and it is determined that it is somehow related to his existing condition, get ready for those shareholder lawsuits claiming the company mislead investors.)

In short, companies need to understand the landscape of the “CEO Health” question. Right now, Apple and Steve Jobs are garnering the attention. But the first company that chooses to be fully transparent on such an issue will set the benchmark for all other companies to emulate.  And once a company chooses to be fully transparent, every other company that chooses to be less so ought to be prepared for the question, “Why aren’t you as forthcoming as the other company?

According to the rules of the National Football League, if a coach believes that a referee has erred in making a ruling on a play, the coach may throw a red handkerchief on the ground, signaling his desire to exercise his right for an instant replay.

Perhaps the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should consider handing out red handkerchiefs.

The recent media frenzy over the salmonella scare (allegedly) associated with tomatoes got me to start thinking about a conversation I had with a senior executive of a major consumer products company.  Some of the points we discussed then — the growing power of the internet, consumer uncertainty about the concepts of safety and risk, the hyper-sensitive nature of regulators, the uncertainty of science, the hovering presence of trial lawyers, etc. — all seem to be at play here. 

And even for communications managers whose companies are not in the business of selling fruits and vegetables, this is a cautionary tale for anybody involved in the messy business of managing communication and reputation.

As everyone in the Western Hemisphere surely knows by now, an outbreak of salmonella in the U.S. prompted food safety experts (including the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control) to issue a warning in June to consumers about eating certain types of tomatoes.  The issue quickly became a national news story.

Saturday’s (July 5) Wall Street Journal caught my attention.  “Jalapenos Probed in Outbreak — Tomatoes No Longer Seen as Prime Suspect for Salmonella,” said the headline of the top story, above the fold, on page 1.

After reading this report, I went back to the transcript of the joint FDA/CDC conference call with media on July 1, when the agencies conceded that the source may not be tomatoes at all.  Specifically the comments of Dr. Robert Tauxe, CDC’s Deputy Director, Division of Foodborne, Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases:

I’d like to say that the process of investigation is complex and often difficult and when CDC and the states conduct a foodborne outbreak investigation, it’s like a – a detective trying to solve a case. We often have to rely on peoples’ memory about things that are not very memorable such as what they ate last week or the week before or the week before that. People may remember many things but they may not remember everything they ate and they may not realize or remember that many of the things that they ate have many different ingredients. So our information is gathered through interviews with people who got sick as well as other people who did not get sick. It might be family members or neighbors or other people that are in the area. And then we compare that information….

Hardly what one would consider a sound scientific investigation.  Now contrast that to what the FDA said in its June 7 news release (emphasis added):

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expanding its warning to consumers nationwide that a salmonellosis outbreak has been linked to consumption of certain raw red plum, raw red Roma, raw red round tomatoes, and products containing these tomatoes.

Certainly no sense of uncertainty in this declaration.

If there is one thing crystal clear as I write this blog entry, is that there is absolutely no clarity as to the source of the salmonella outbreak.  Yet almost a month ago the FDA and CDC were speaking as if they had every confidence that the source of the salmonella was tomatoes.  The response provided by Dr. David Acheson, the FDA’s Associate Commissioner for Foods to a question from CNN’s Amy Burkholder during the June 16 FDA/CDC media conference call is telling, particularly in light of the new revelations about a possible alternative source of the outbreak:

Amy Burkholder: We had one other quick question. We are getting a lot of questions about salsa. Can you help us give the proper message regarding fresh salsa or even jarred salsa?

David Acheson: I think with regarding the question to ask is what kind of tomatoes was the salsa made from and where did they come from? And if the place that’s selling the salsa can – has information to say that they come from one of the areas where we don’t have concern, then fine. If they – if they’re from an area where we still have concern, then that’s not fine and it shouldn’t be consumed. The salsa shouldn’t be consumed.  If the salsa obviously made with grape, cherry, or tomatoes that are still on the vine, which is probably unlikely, then that’s okay too. But it’s the usual message that if a consumer is in doubt, it’s better to play on the side of safety and not eat the salsa. I – but that’s one of the reasons why we’re emphasizing to retailers and restaurateurs — know where your tomatoes are coming from and tell your consumers. Tell your customers, because you’re’ right — it’s about an information flow and how’s a customer going to know.

Dr. Acheson’s response focused solely on the tomatoes in the salsa.  Never once was there discussion about the potential that other ingredients may be the culprit.

In fact, in a review of the FDA’s special website (which includes the title, “Salmonella Saintpaul Outbreak” over a photo of tomatoes) I was hard pressed to find any discussion of alternatives to tomatoes as a possible or likely source of the contamination.  Bottom line:  If one were to solely rely on the FDA website, one would draw the conclusion that tomatoes were the definitive culprit.

So, in light of the growing uncertainty and confusion, one has to wonder…

• Were the regulators acting solely based on scientific evidence and investigation, or did the politics of fear (including the fear of Congressional and media criticism) creep into their decision process?
• Did the FDA move too fast without solid conclusions because it feared criticism that it was moving too slow?
• Did the media know enough to ask the right questions, or were they willing (if not enthusiastic) participants in the hype?
• Was the speed and breadth of the internet a force for good or not?
• How does industry expect to keep the conversation focused around reason and facts in the face of this strong headwind?

I excerpt two passages from a NY Times article from April 25 that tell us a lot about the mood of the consumer and the dogma of NGOs and consumer activists.  While these individuals were speaking specifically on the bisphenol-A controversy, these comments have equal relevance to the tomato commotion, or any similar episodes of market reaction (or overreaction):

“…There is a an extraordinary fear level right now, whether or not it is justified on the scientific side,” said Carol Schreitmueller, director of research and development for Pacific Market International, the maker of Aladdin food containers and water bottles, based in Seattle. “It is going to change what happens to materials. We have to decide if people will trust this material anymore.”

“…This may be a completely safe product, but we don’t have the information we need to make that assessment,” said Aaron Freeman, the policy director at Environmental Defense…”

In short, fear trumps reason, and industry is guilty until proven innocent. 

A July 6 column from the Tulsa World points to a Deloitte study which captures the potential consequence of such fear:

“After more than 300 food recalls last year is it any wonder that a recent survey by the consultancy arm of Deloitte showed that three-quarters of those polled were more concerned about the food they eat than five years ago, and 57 percent said they had stopped eating certain foods following a food scare. Fear creates harm in the marketplace. Consumers avoiding certain foods can put producers out of business and that can affect state economies.”

Perhaps when all is said and done, scientists and regulators will conclude that tomatoes were the source of the salmonella outbreak.  But for the time being, confusion reigns supreme, and the reputation of both industry and regulators suffers.

Where are those red handkerchiefs?

#   #   #

I took a call last week from a Newsweek reporter who was doing a piece on the opening of the “Newseum,” the new Washington, D.C.-based museum dedicated to promoting the high points of journalism, of which there are many.

His question to me was essentially, “Do you think this will help rehabilitate the reputation of journalism, which has taken a severe beating over the past decade?”

I guess I wasn’t clever enough in my response, since my comments never made it into the article which was published in this week’s issue.

But here’s what I said:

Not a chance.

To think a museum will turn around the reputation of journalism is as likely as the idea that a museum on the history of oil will improve the reputation of that tortured industry.

First of all, very few Americans will actually visit the museum (particularly at the ridiculous admission fees being charged).

But more important, this museum is but a drop in the ocean compared to the current of negative attitudes about journalism caused, for the most part, by the journalism industry itself.

Who can blame Americans’ diminished view of the news media when everyday we are bombarded with journalists’ obsession with the trivial (as we saw in last week’s Democratic candidates debate hosted by ABC News), the inane (as evidenced by the 24/7 coverage of Britney, Paris and Lindsay), and the downright mean (as we hear and see every day and night on Air America, Fox News and countless syndicated talk radio programs).

And the cherry on top is the very real bias exhibited by too many media organizations.

Journalism used to be a noble profession.  No more.  Why should it be, when journalists themselves diminish its credibility by promoting “citizen journalism” where anyone with a cell phone camera or e-mail address can get equal billing alongside seasoned journalists who have honed their craft through years of experience and gobs of education and intellect?

Just as I say to any other corporate client who asks for help in turning around a bad reputation, I would tell the titans of journalism, if you want to improve your reputation, then you need to first address the performance issues that precipitated that reputation.

That means, stop dumbing it down, and start to “smart it up.”

I probably will take my children to the Newseum at some point.  But not to encourage them to pursue journalism careers.  No, I will take them to the Newseum for the same reason I will take them to the. Museum of American History… So they can learn “how it used to be.”