 |
| Francis Collins |
Lessons (hopefully) learned. Francis Collins, former director of the National Institutes of Health, said the biggest PR mistake made during the COVID-19 pandemic was the failure of health officials to communicate the ever-changing science behind the recommendations made to fight the disease.
Communicators failed to stress that COVID-19 was an evolving crisis that might require different and changing recommendations about mask-wearing, vaccines or social distancing, Francis told a Sept. 16 conference at Babson College in Wellesley, MA.
“We lost a lot of consumer confidence because of that,” he said, according to a report in Stat.
Collins admitted a failure to issue scientific information in a compelling fashion. “We were basically outgunned dramatically by lies and conspiracies in social media. We should have had our version of flooding the system with truth instead of having the system completely flooded with lies.”
Francis said health communicators should have “immunized people ahead of time” about the anticipated COVID conspiracies.
The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates more than 300K Americans died because they accepted misinformation about COVID-19 and its vaccines.
Collins suggested that the US create a communications corps because trust in science is on a downward spiral, which puts Americans “in a very bad position for whatever is coming up next: a pandemic or climate change disaster."
Collins currently serves as Joe Biden’s science advisor.
Putin is kaput. Russian president Vladimir Putin really, really needs a strong PR counselor, which is not a very cushy gig. He needs to be brought back to reality.
In his Sept. 21 videotaped speech to the Russian people, Putin unveiled his plan to mobilize an additional 300K soldiers who will be tossed into the Ukrainian cauldron to join their undersupplied, poorly-led and demoralized comrades.
While Ukrainians soldiers, who are backed by sophisticated weapons supplied by the west, reoccupy lands that were held by the Russians, Putin issued this threat:
“If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people,” he said. “This is not a bluff.”
Putin has been bluffing his way throughout his reckless invasion of Ukraine.
His brutality has turned Russia into a pariah state, which has now been tossed overboard even by its erstwhile allies: China, India and Turkey.
Ukraine’s ministry of defense mocked Putin’s call for more troops. It tweeted:
“The last time russia (the russian empire) announced mobilization was in August, 1914. We all know how that ended.
Now they are begging for an encore.”
The partial mobilization has brought the Ukrainian war back home for Putin.
More than 500 protesters in 30 Russian cities were arrested following Putin’s partial mobilization speech.
In Moscow, they chanted “Send Putin to the trenches” and “Lives for our children.”
Those protestors showed tremendous courage. They could face up to 15 years in jail under the new draconian laws that went into effect at the beginning of the invasion to crush dissent.
Putin is losing the war in Ukraine and is on the verge of losing it in Russia.
Alaska Housing Finance Corp. loves PRSA. In its RFP for a strategic communications partner, AHFC uses the Public Relations Society of America’s 2012 definition of PR to give respondents a sense of what it is looking for.
Here it is: “Public relations is a strategic communications process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and the publics.”
That definition needs to be updated for today’s hyper communications environment that is plagued by fake news, distortions, conspiracies and lies.
The PRSA definition has a quaintness about it. It needs some edginess.
The NBA, which promotes legalized gambling 24/7, seems more than hypocritical for banning player for placing bets... Diocese of Brooklyn promises to issue press release the next time one of its priests is charged with sexual abuse... Truth Social aspires to be one of Donald Trump's iconic American brands, just like Trump University or Trump Steaks or Trump Ice Cubes.
Publicis Groupe CEO Arthur Sadoun puts competition on notice... Macy's throws in the towel as it appoints two directors nominated by its unwanted suitor... The Profile in Wimpery Award goes to the Ford Presidential Foundation for stiffing American hero and former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney.
JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon's "letter to shareholders" is a must-read for PR people and others interested in fixing America and living up to its potential... Get ready for the PPE shortage when the next pandemic hits... Nixing Netanyahu. Gaza carnage turns US opinion against Israel's prime minister.
Trump Media & Technology Group sees Elon Musk's X as an option for those who want the free expression promised by Truth Social but without Donald Trump, owner of 57.3 percent of TMTG... Chalk one up for "anti-woke warrior" governor Greg Abbott as University of Texas lays off 60 DEI-related staffers... Five percent of Americans see the US as its own worst enemy, according to Gallup.
Nine of the Top 100 firms that participated in O'Dwyer's rankings last year apparently threw in the towel for the 2024 scorecard. Seven other firms also went AWOL.
Have a comment? Send it to 
Sep. 22, 2022, by Joe Honick
Another combination of important stories, at least two of which require specific comment:
You are correct that problems were created by NIH seeming failure to keep the public abreast of the changing nature of the pandemic. Problem with that was precisely the changing nature of the pandemic. Were the public fed more frequent such information, the problems of trust would have been even greater, fertilized as it has been by the vax deniers and the smear jobs of Kentucky's moronic Senator Paul.
Actually, the biggest set of blunders were and remain the failure of Trump to use his platform to organize a worldwide partnership to develop and distribute vaccines. It would have combined the brilliance, economics and energies of tons of people instead of finally dumping for instant solution with a PR slogan of Warp Speed or something like it.
The second massive blunder of Trump's, not NIH: his failure to give even a millisecond of time to visiting a single early group of suffering patients and overwhelmed medics and hospitals to show he gave a damn. Instead, he, with help from the deniers andhis own jocular language that almost mocked what was occurring, including his suggestions of household cleaners...undermined the real scientists trying to get messages out as information dictated, however confusing such efforts might have occurred at times.
Yep, the scientists may have lacked some better sense of PR, but the boss was too busy blaming everyone but himself.
Be very careful about being dismissive of Vladimir Putin who is every bit a bad loser as Trump if not worse. hat we can hope for with his newest moves is that he has the Russian version of a General Milley to pull his string...and button finger before it's too late.