INTRODUCTION
The media often make a mountain out of a molehill, and they do it on purpose. A story with a juicy or riveting angle will get more clicks, readers, viewers and listeners than one that only reports the facts.
Here’s a look at a recent example of media spin, and a recommended course of action if it ever negatively affects your company.
EXAMPLE OF MEDIA SPIN
Recently, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and other subsequent media reported that union workers at Royal Dutch Shell not attending the president’s speech at their plant would not get paid. In essence, the story was framed as union vs. Trump.
What the media glossed over was the fact that the union workers could take paid time off if they didn’t want to take an unpaid absence. The company used the same policy when other VIPs came to visit.
PREPARE FOR THE WORST
Your first step is to prepare as if this type of situation will inevitably occur. You should expect that someone will leak your internal memos, someone will take your words out of context and/or you will see discord among your staff. Keeping this in mind, you would likely be more careful with your wording (written and verbal) and how you disseminate info to employees.
In addition, imagine all the possible/likely scenarios and determine what your remediation steps would be. For example, let’s say the president had condemned the company publicly and changed his mind about coming. What would you say and do?
DON’T PUT GAS ON THE FIRE
The worst thing you can do is make the story bigger than it already is and extending the news cycle. One way to avoid this scenario is by making sure your response clarifies the situation, doesn’t use or repeat words/phrases with negative meanings and doesn’t sound defensive.
When you follow this formula, you can see that the union rep shouldn’t have said, “The president is the president whether we like him or dislike him.” The better statement came from a Shell spokesperson. He explained the visit was “a paid training day with a guest speaker who happened to be the president.”
Your goal is to turn the situation into a non-story, and that will hopefully prevent follow-up stories.