Chief executives, politicians, and celebrities have long complained of media callousness and sensationalism. Musician Don Henley of the Eagles has such contempt for reporters that he wrote "Dirty Laundry," a song about news anchors who worry more about their looks than they do about the news or its repercussions. "We got the bubble-headed bleach blond who comes on at five," Henley sings. "She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye."^[3]

Based on my personal experience, Henley was not far off the mark. I vividly recall one particularly disturbing instance. It was a slow news day and the producer of the six o'clock news was upset because we did not have a good lead story to open the broadcast. All we had as a possible lead story was a stabbing that had taken place. Then, a half hour before we went on air, the assignment editor came on the loudspeaker in the newsroom and announced that there was good news—the stabbing victim had died. My colleagues in the newsroom erupted into a cheer. Now they had a lead story for the six o'clock news. That was the day I left journalism.

Since that time, the news business has evolved dramatically. Names and faces have changed, papers have come and gone, and the world of media has become fractured, with the Web altering what and who make up the news media. Still, what constitutes news and how news stories are shaped has remained surprisingly consistent since the days of Caesar's first newspaper.

The term social media refers to the use of technology to facilitate interaction and the sharing of information, opinions, and experiences. Forms of social media include blogs, which are websites that offer posts where readers can provide comment; forums, where a wide number of users discuss topics online; and social networks like Facebook and Twitter, the free microblogging service that lets users connect with each other using 140 characters or less. MySpace, Technorati, digg.com, and a growing list of other social media communication tools round out the options.

Social media represents much more than tools to entertain oneself or allow old friends to catch up. It offers reporters, companies, governments, and newsmakers powerful ways to communicate. Social media in general and blogs in particular have become an important resource for journalists. According to PR Week Magazine, in the course of researching a story, 29 percent of reporters look to general blogs, 25 percent use company blogs, and 24 percent use social networks.^[6]

In addition, social networks are updated 24/7. Former Time Magazine employee Erick Schonfeld, who writes for TechCrunch, believes this immediacy provides a new way of getting at the truth. Sometimes, says Schonfeld, he'll run a story online before all the facts are in, just to see what the story turns up. "More often than not, putting up partial information is what leads us to the truth—a source contacts us with more details or adds them directly into comments."^[7] But the use of social media as a means to disseminate information and propagate news is not limited to professional journalists. Witness the explosive growth of "citizen journalists"—people who report news for free and share it with the world online.

A decade ago, corporations were giddy with excitement about going online, reaching around the world, and communicating with anyone who would pay attention. Today, companies no longer control what is being said on the Web. Similarly, traditional journalists who write for print and broadcast media are not the only purveyors of information and news. "We are all newsmen now," said pioneer blogger Matt Drudge.^[8]

The general public, customers, critics, and your competitors are now among those online discussing your company. According to The Blog Herald, a monitor of the blogosphere, a new blog is created every second of every day. In the ten minutes it takes to set up a free account at Blogger or other such sites, anyone with a computer and Internet connection can instantly become a blog publisher, reporter, saboteur, or critic. In many online venues, the balance of power has shifted from corporations and media conglomerates to the average person.

Just think, three years after Twitter's launch in 2006, it was estimated that seven million people were tweeting regularly and sharing information that runs from the mundane to the meaningful. In Korea, more than seventy thousand citizens contribute to OhmyNews, which is run by former investigative journalist Yeon Ho Oh. The site receives, on average, two and a half million page views a day. The BBC and Time Magazine have described this model for citizen journalism as the future of the media industry. NowPublic.com, a North American citizen journalism company based in Vancouver and ranked by Time Magazine as one of the Top 50 Best Sites of 2007, has tens of thousands of citizen journalists all over the world—five thousand in Washington, D.C., alone.

Does this mean that people who tweet, blog, and contribute to online forums will replace trained journalists? Not all are convinced of blogger bona fides. Tom McPhail, professor of journalism at the University of Missouri, has called bloggers "pretend journalists" who "thrive on rumor and innuendo."^[9] Political journalist Glenn Greenwald is more generous in his perspective. "There are alternative voices now," said Greenwald. "The Internet enables people to construct their own platforms and to attract like-minded people, so that now there are gathering places of hundreds of thousands, if not more, citizens who are just as angry, just as dissatisfied."^[10]

Regardless of one's perspective on the impact of bloggers, a few points are clear: social media is anything but a passing fad; bloggers and other social media proponents will constantly place pressure on news companies to report the news faster and more transparently; and despite the technologies people use to get their news now and in the future, investigative journalism is here to stay. "It doesn't matter if it's a five thousand word story in a newspaper, a tweet, or a blog," said John Stackhouse, editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail. "The basic challenges are the same: finding out information that matters to people."^[11]

With an ever-expanding number of professional reporters, citizen journalists, and bloggers vying to break the next big story, executives and spokespeople must take potential threats to their organization's reputation more seriously. According to crisis management expert Ian Mitroff, author of Why Some Companies Emerge Stronger and Better from a Crisis, "Every organization is virtually guaranteed to experience at least one major crisis."^[12] A look at the daily papers appears to confirm Mitroff's premise. On one day alone, the Wall Street Journal featured the following headlines:

Interestingly, however, a survey done by PR firm Weber Shandwick found that nearly half of CEOs questioned were slightly or not concerned at all about threats to their reputation.^[14] To some, a good reputation is nice if you have one, but bottomline results are what count. Unfortunately, this attitude ignores a significant body of research and numerous metrics that measure the value of a company's reputation through parameters like market share, price premium, revenue generation, transaction value, lifetime value of brand, and brand growth. The simplest of these metrics is derived by taking the current market capitalization of a company and deducting the tangible assets and accounts receivable to determine the value of its reputation. Another simple method is to compare the company's products to similar name-brand products or competing generics. Are consumers willing to pay a price premium for the name on the label? But despite these metrics that measure image and public perception in actual dollar terms, reputation is still dismissed as an intangible that has little effect on current and future performance.

Consider the case of Union Carbide. In 1984, a Union Carbide–owned pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, released a toxic cloud that killed thirty-eight hundred people and disabled eleven thousand more. Though they launched an aggressive media campaign, Union Carbide never took responsibility for the accident. Instead, it claimed the disaster was caused by an unknown and unidentified disgruntled employee. Critics, however, pointed to previous accidents at the facility and asserted the tragedy was a result of poor maintenance and lax safety measures. Because of the controversy surrounding culpability, the disaster became a continual headline for decades. Civil and criminal litigation persist even now, and an international arrest warrant remains outstanding for the former CEO. At the time of the tragedy, Union Carbide was one of the largest and most recognizable companies in the world. Today, it's a subsidiary of Dow Chemical.

Similarly, Exxon did nearly everything wrong from a media standpoint during the Valdez oil spill of 1989. One of the most destructive environmental disasters ever, the spill polluted over thirteen hundred square miles of pristine ocean. And even though Exxon launched the most expensive cleanup effort in history, John Devers, then-mayor of Valdez, Alaska, said the community felt "betrayed" by Exxon's response to the crisis. Why? Because Exxon dismissed the concerns of the community, refused to publicly acknowledge the extent of the problem, and accused others of causing delays in the cleanup. Amazingly, Lawrence Rawl, Exxon's CEO, waited six days before even releasing a statement on the spill. Subsequently, the images people associate with Exxon remain decimated shorelines and dead animals, not the extensive cleanup efforts. In the aftermath of the spill, Exxon's market capitalization plummeted $3 billion, dropping it from the largest oil company in the world to the third largest. As litigation and protests over the Valdez spill continue to this day, Exxon has become the public incarnation of environmentally irresponsible and ecologically destructive corporations.

In a more recent example of reputation mismanagement, the investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed under the combined weight of poor financial decisions and erroneous public perceptions. Already under stress from the global credit crisis, Lehman allegedly became the target of rumors spread by short sellers and hedge funds. These rumors eroded investor confidence and fueled fears that the investment bank was soon to be sold at an absurdly low price. In a clear PR blunder, Lehman failed to defend its reputation and publicly address the panic surrounding its stock. In the fall of 2008, after nearly 158 years in business, Lehman Brothers filed for what was then the largest bankruptcy in American history.

Bad news situations like industrial accidents, oil spills, and financial impropriety are expected to result in negative headlines and challenging media environments. But, as the following story illustrates, even good news can end up being portrayed as bad news.

When John Walter was anointed CEO of AT&T, it was supposed to be a good news announcement. The company's plan was to introduce Walter to the media and convince stakeholders of his ability to lead AT&T into the future. The event turned out to be anything but good news, and in fact, resulted in a catastrophic outcome. At his introductory news conference, a reporter asked Walter which long-distance provider he used—a valid question considering Walter's new role. Walter was flummoxed, unable to answer a question made relevant by his new position. Within hours of the exchange, AT&T's market capitalization dropped $4 billion.

Clearly, a question about John Walter's service provider does not represent an important strategic or policy issue. However, his inability to answer a simple question had a significant impact on investor confidence. Whether speaking about change in leadership, a poor financial quarter, or a lost championship game, people in the news are under pressure to always have right answers, worded just the right way, knowing they are a slip-of-the-tongue away from harming their share price or becoming a punch line in the Tonight Show's opening monologue.

What follows is a transcript of an interview from an actual media training session I conducted. The interviewee, Joan Smith (not her real name), is chief executive officer of a biopharmaceutical company I'll call JLA Life Sciences Corporation. Recently, the privately owned company received government approval to market Biojax, a highly effective cancer-fighting biologic drug. Use of the medication is costly. Each round of Biojax treatment costs $25,000. The treatment is only accessible to patients who can afford it and those with insurance plans that cover all or part of the cost of the treatment. So far, government and most managed-care and insurance companies refuse to cover the cost of Biojax treatments. This is despite the fact that Biojax significantly slowed the growth of tumors in 60 percent of patients and demonstrated a clear survival benefit. Going into the media interview, Smith is convinced she has a positive story to tell. Carefully review the interview transcript as it unfolds, because you will have the opportunity to see how the reporter later wrote the story. Here is the unedited media interview:

Following the interview, which took about two minutes to conduct, I asked Joan whether the reporter got what he was looking for and could write a news story based on their encounter. "No, not really," she said. You decide.

After sharing this edited news report with Joan, she was in shock. By focusing on the dramatic element in telling her story, did the reporter sensationalize, do something wrong, or act in a less than ethical fashion? No. The quotes are accurate. Like them or not, Joan did make those statements, all of which are truthful. However, she was naturally displeased with the story the reporter wrote. In fact, her initial comment was "You took me out of context. Where's the rest of what I said?"

Please keep this encounter in mind. In Chapter Six, we will revisit the same interview. Only, in the next encounter, Joan will be much better prepared to address criticism of Biojax and begin shaping public perceptions of the drug.

When the headline is you, the words out of your mouth can have reverberating consequences. At the same time, a CEO's positive reputation can help drive shareholder value. Edelman Public Relation's Trust Barometer, a yearly comprehensive survey of public sentiment, reports that 90 percent of professional investors are more likely to recommend or buy the stock if the chief executive is seen in a favorable light.^[16] The same survey reveals that 93 percent of people find information in articles and news stories more credible than information presented in advertising. Similarly, a study by PR firm Burson-Marsteller found that media is the Number One venue for message delivery. Eighty-four percent of chief executives believe conducting media interviews is the most effective external activity to deliver corporate messages. For comparison, industry conferences and trade shows measured in at close to 62 percent, with advertising at only 47 percent.^[17]

What's more, appearing in the media actually contributes to higher executive compensation. A University of Colorado study determined that executives written up in business media earn more money. Study author Markus Fitza interviewed fifteen hundred CEOs and concluded that a single article featuring a CEO in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, or BusinessWeek raised the CEO's compensation by an average of $600,000. In addition, getting on the cover of Forbes, Fortune, or BusinessWeek was good for an average raise of just over $1 million. This type of exposure, he said, leads management and boards of directors to believe their CEOs "had exceptional accomplishments that year."^[19] Considering the current social and political climate, this type of positive press coverage is increasingly important.

Today more than ever the general public demands that those they hold accountable be genuine and trustworthy. The previously mentioned Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that the public's trust in corporate leaders is weaker than ever. Edelman reports that trust in U.S. businesses dropped from 58 percent to 38 percent in one year. Outside the United States, businesses in emerging markets received higher numbers, but not by much. The Trust Barometer also found that trust in CEOs as spokespeople fell to an all-time low of 17 percent in the United States.

As discouraging as these numbers seem, they are understandable in a decade defined by the fraud or incompetence of companies like Enron, WorldCom, AIG, and Bear Stearns. Whether due to the S&L crisis of the 1980s, the Long-Term Capital Management bailout in 1998, the dot-com bubble of 2000, or the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) created in 2008, corporate and regulatory failures have cost taxpayers trillions of dollars and eroded any sense of public faith in the business leaders and politicians charged with managing capital markets. Clearly, there is a need to build trust and strengthen reputation through positive, proactive interaction with the media. So is media training the answer? Like chicken soup, media training certainly can't hurt, as long as the training teaches spokespeople to truly be responsive.

Recently, I hosted a media training program with several manufacturing plant managers to help them become better spokespeople. As part of the training, we simulated a fatality at a plant. When I asked Salim, a plant manager, to comment on the death, he responded, "We have an excellent safety record." His safety claim may be true statistically speaking, but this isn't the right moment to gild the lily on safety. Frankly, a worker is dead and Salim's comment about an "excellent safety record" is not appropriate given the situation. Besides, the comment is defensive and fails to acknowledge the emotions surrounding what has taken place.

When I asked Salim why he answered as he did, he told me a media trainer had instructed him to only provide reporters with positive messages, regardless of the question. Regrettably, this was another in a long list of instances of media trainers telling spokespeople to ignore reporters' questions and just get out their messages. The current model for media training is broken because it calls on spokespeople to ignore questions and simply repeat so-called "key" messages. Each time a nonresponsive message is repeated, a layer of trustworthiness is stripped away from the speaker. The delivery of predetermined messages, regardless of questions asked, whittles away at the spokesperson's credibility. Given a spokesperson's objective is to build trust with the media, it doesn't make sense to chip away at that trust with messages that never really answer questions.

In learning to be better media communicators, spokespeople and executives must not be encouraged to be slick and polished. People do not trust slick and polished. Instead, the objectives of media training should be to learn how to directly address difficult questions, how to avoid falling into media traps, and most importantly, how to accomplish the two previous tasks with honesty and integrity.

In my experience, media training can only be truly effective if executives are aggressively challenged and questioned. Few other people will talk to executives in the probing, confrontational way a journalist may. This can be disconcerting. Unfortunately, many executives feel they do not need to practice answering questions until a crisis occurs and a reporter is knocking on their door. Then, and only then, do they take the process seriously. But the process of interrogating executives in practice sessions has value, if for no other reason than to subject them to the types of tough questions that only journalists have the audacity to ask.

While a book, a seminar, or an online tutorial cannot expose you to the stress of a contentious interview or packed news conference, the remaining chapters in this book will provide an effective alternative to the broken media training model. One that offers strategies for navigating all types of media events with expertise and integrity. One that will help you address confrontational questions while still delivering proactive and positive messages. And, subsequently, one that will help you avoid the many gaffes, missteps, and blunders that inevitably lead to a media catastrophe.