Not too many years ago, a negative article in a small newspaper or on one of the cable news programs at a non-peak news hour usually elicited a “who cares” shrug of the shoulders and life moved on.
But not now. A posting of that once obscure clipping or that 50 seconds of damaging reportage on YouTube or Twitter multiplies its audience by a magnitude of ten or more. A thousand readers or viewers can easily become more than a million.
That’s not all. When posted on a mega-viewed website the negative message gains credibility. Being there implies a trusted third party endorsement; a respected outlet, in effect, vouched for the content and has tacitly agreed it deserves a wider audience than the local hometown newspaper or cable news outlet.
The “who cares” attitude can no longer pertain. Depending on the content, a full-blown crisis may be in the making – just as likely to happen at midnight as at mid-day and any place on earth. YouTube and Twitter are as easily accessed from Malaysia or Moscow as from Memphis or Manhattan.
Media relations has become a 24/7 job. Relaxing after the 11 o’clock edition has gone to press and the airing of the 10 o’clock late news is now out the window. But short of the Pentagon and State Department, few institutions in our society are prepared to respond to this new breaking news paradigm.
Nor is technology the only villain in today’s news breaking scenario. One must also acknowledge the growing number of insider leaks -- news emanating from “an unidentified news source whose career would be jeopardized” if named. Insiders leaking news has become part of today’s business ethos and mass media make it easy for leakers to reach them and their ever-growing audiences. Remember always that they thrive on ears, eyeballs and clicks.
There’s no “one fits all” solution to this cancerous phenomenon of leaked information and media’s craving to being first with the news. We now live in a “gotcha” age fueled by technology and people who get their kicks demonstrating they’re in the know. It’s unrealistic to think leaking by employees and informed outside parties is a here-today gone-tomorrow fad.
Realistically, companies vary in their vulnerability – largely a factor of the degree of public interest in a company or industry and the content of the leak (sex and misdeeds like theft and fraud always rank high with listeners and readers). The remedy is, first, to make media relations operative 24/7, i.e. literally around-the-clock staffing. It also takes a constantly updated data bank with responses to any and all issues, real and imagined. Most of all, it takes a management commitment to transparency and the will to “tell all” before it’s discovered by an investigative reporter who flushes it out dribble by dribble.
More CEOs should think of media relations as risk management.