By Fraser P. Seitel
Alright you budding crisis managers, you decide.
Who do you think will make out better in a 21st century, social media driven, front page crisis – a media savvy media company or a reticent, conservative, oil company?
If you took the oil giant – Exxon – over the media conglomerate – News Corp. – you won.
Indeed, the differences in the handling of crises by these two behemoths should serve as ready instruction as to what works and what doesn’t when crisis strikes in the 21st century.
Exxon gets an “A” for taking charge and acting decisively when an oil spill in Montana threatened its reputation yet again. News Corp gets an “F” for the way it stonewalled, backpedaled and otherwise ignored the British hacking scandal that continues to threaten its vast empire.
Here’s what we can learn from these ongoing situations.
First the good.
• Exxon Gets Out in Front.
PR students for generations have studied how the world’s largest oil company polluted the pristine Gulf of Valdez in Alaska in 1989 and then botched the public relations response to historical proportions.
Most famously, the Exxon Valdez spill yielded this unforgettable line from CEO Lawrence Rawl, in response to a journalist’s question as to why, months later, the chairman still hadn’t even visited the scene of the spill. Said Rawl, “I had better things to do.”
Ooofa.
But that was then, and this is now. And the new Exxon, having learned from its merger with the more outgoing and public Mobil Corp. in 1999, is, today, a model of savvy crisis management.
When the company suffered a spill on July 1 near Billings, it didn’t wait around like its former chairman to see what might wash ashore.
First, the ExxonMobil Pipeline Company apologized to the people of Montana for the breach and vowed to make sure the spill was cleaned up.
Second, the company set up a Crisis Command Center and dispatched 700 cleaner-uppers to the spill, within hours of the first reports.
Third, the company immediately made contact with Montana’s governor, senators, representatives and other elected officials, as well as regulators for the environment and wildlife rescue, to keep the cleanup coordinated.
Fourth, in terms of continuing communication, Exxon’s communications director used his blog to update the public on the company’s response and progress.
Said Exxon’s Public Affairs Vice President Ken Cohen, “The biggest lesson is stay accessible, stay available and get after the cleanup immediately.”
If only Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. followed this advice.
• News Corp. Gets Crushed.
Where Exxon’s handling of its Montana spill was the “good” of crisis management, News Corp.’s inexplicable botching of its hacking scandal was both the “bad” and the “ugly.”
(Full disclosure: I occasionally appear on News Corp.’s Fox News Network, and always appreciate the invitation to display my battered old mug on national TV. So I’ve always rather liked Rupert Murdoch.)
But this burgeoning News Corp. crisis – which has now forced the resignation of Britain’s top law enforcement official, the arrest of the former CEO of News International, the beheading of the head of the Wall Street Journal, and increasing pressure on the British prime minister – couldn’t have been handled worse.
From the get-go, News Corp. and its defenders played down the scandal as a “hacking problem” that happened nine years ago, committed by low level employees, and had been dealt with appropriately.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
In the 21st century, perception is reality. This wasn’t perceived as a “hacking problem,” it was a “decency” or an “ethics” problem. And whether “old news” or not, it needed to be dealt with forcefully, right now, not dribbled down the field hoping the public would lose interest.
Indeed, the ham-handed attempt to “close down” the scandal by ceasing publication of the offending News of the World publication – which would have been replaced by another Murdoch vehicle -- only enflamed British legislators and Murdoch enemies further.
The only real way to begin to “close down” the turbulence was to fire Rebekah Brooks, the lightning rod chief of the paper. In a cataclysmic crisis like this one, no one will be satisfied until the heads of those responsible are put on the chopping block. It may be medieval and unfair, but a crisis can’t end until a “villain” is punished. (See “Weiner, Anthony” or “Former BP CEO Hayward, Tony.”)
And this, alas for Rupert Murdoch, proved to be his Achilles’ heel. Canning his trusted colleague – his “surrogate daughter,” as observers put it – was a decision Rupert couldn’t make. And so, for two excruciating weeks, Mr. Murdoch and Ms. Brooks gutted it out in the foxhole, as News Corp.’s credibility deteriorated.
This failure to fire early on the one individual in charge of the inexcusable hacking offenses, more than anything else, was key to why News Corp. and its CEO still find themselves in such peril.
Left with falling executives and fading reputation, News Corp. had no choice but to finally call in crisis management experts at Edelman to try to staunch the blood-letting.
And what was Edelman’s first suggestion to its tottering client?
Fire Rebekah Brooks! |