There’s an old saying in journalism, the camera doesn’t lie, nor does it blink. But until recently, the camera has always been in the hands professionals. Not in the hands of citizens documenting police or airline brutality.
Photo courtesy of: Time.com
Now everyone with a cell phone, and that’s pretty much everyone, is a documentarian, taking cameras and matters into his or her own hands. And thanks to social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Snapchat, et al, there is no shortage of airtime.
Traditional print media like the New York TIMES (which narrowcasts to only those who choose to pay for it) advertises its policy of “all the news that’s fit to print.” But today’s social media publishers have yet to restrict the freedom of their presses.
According to Wikipedia, Clint Eastwood’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was one of the greatest and most influential Westerns of all time. But these citizens offer cowboy justice at its best and worst because there are no filters on their cameras.
In our Los Angeles media training and social media training world, this is the phenomena of loose cannons. Executives must be Ready to defend themselves and their companies. It cannot be the “shoot from the hip” approach taken by United Airlines’ CEO Oscar Munoz and most recently, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. There must be a sensible crisis plan, designed, prepared and practiced in advance.
Crisis training would have explored whether it was the best policy to allow flight attendants to let a puppy die or to boot paying customers to make way for employees. Then, not to defend employees’ actions in the face of excessive force without being aware of the details: a passenger being seriously beaten.
After a deluge of negative traditional and social media, Mr. Munoz abjectly apologized saying Dr. David Dao “did nothing wrong.” A more appropriate response would have been, “Dr. Dao was badly mistreated and I’m sorry. But for the safety of all the passengers on my airline, everyone needs to follow the orders given by our people. And for that, I will not defend Dr. Dao’s actions, either.”
Or, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg who took 5 days to acknowledge his responsibility, without apology, that Facebook had not prevented misuse of customers’ data. And may now be sold on the black market or may have influenced a presidential election.
The costs to United Airlines’ and Facebook brands in dollars and reputation is impossible to estimate.
The lesson, of course, is to get in front of a crisis, but to do it correctly. As the victimized doctor’s code would suggest, “First, do no harm,” by responding impulsively without planning or design.
Social media offers the broadest of possibilities and pitfalls to every executive and company. That’s the name of a new game.