Pirozzolo Company Public Relations

Breaking News, Multiple Deadlines, the Rush To Publish and the Quest for Truth in a Hostile Political Environment

The president routinely calls hard-working professional journalists the enemy of the people, a media giant like CNN fake news and unnamed sources nonexistent.  

When a politician wants to whip up populist frenzy, the press is an easy target. After all the media are liberal  Eastern establishment hacks who don't understand ordinary people and will publish leaks based, let national security be damned in exchange for headlines and breaking news.

To find out whether journalists and their media outlet employers have gotten slipshod and are playing fast and loose with the truth, let's take a look at the role of the press in America from the perspective of Charles J. Glasser Jr. who knows his way around journalism and the law.

For over a decade, Charles, was global media counsel to Bloomberg News, responsible for litigation, ethical newsroom issues and pre-publication review, and was responsible for handling the work of more than 2,100 journalists on a 24-hour basis. 
Prior to becoming an attorney, he worked as a journalist for 16 years giving him a keen sense for the pressures journalists face with multiple deadlines and a “breaking news” media environment and the care they put in to “getting it right.” 

Charles was the guy Bloomberg reporters had to face when they were about to go with a story right on deadline and their editor says, “Great work, but we gotta run it by legal first.”  Here are his views on how professional journalists deal with those pressures and the consequences of their actions from his five-part series on Enterprise and Investigative Reporting he wrote for Talking Biz News. 

 

“This Just In and the Rush to Publish"
by 
Charles J.  Glasser, Jr. Esq.

 

Weighing the public interest against when to publish is a particular challenge for enterprise and investigative journalists, so I thought it would be valuable to hear from Amanda Bennett, the executive editor for Bloomberg News’ projects and investigations team who often manages stories that have been months in the making. 

As a reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal and The (Portland) Oregonian, respectively, Bennett won the Pulitzer Prize in 1997 and again in 2001 for National Reporting and for Public Service. Given the long lead time that her team’s stories have and the often controversial nature of investigative reporting, Bennett refuses to let the convenience of a publication schedule affect her judgment of when a story is ready for publication. “You must approach the subject and allow them the chance to poke holes in what you think you learned,” says Bennett.

Emphasizing transparency and fairness, Bennett notes that younger reporters have a tendency to “hold their cards too close to the chest” by waiting too long on making the call for comment, fearing that the subject will either dish a watered-down version to the competition, start pressuring sources to recant, or launch some other pre-emptive attack on the story. “That’s the cost of doing it right,” Bennett says, and expecting honesty from her reporters, adds that reporters first approaching a story subject “should never obfuscate” what the thrust of the story is.

Unlike breaking news, Bennett notes, enterprise and investigative stories may be complicated by negotiations with the company or story subject. Deal-making is sometimes necessary, Bennett says. “Companies will often say ‘If you hold off from publishing, we’ll give you an hour with the CEO’, or they offer to provide access to documents.” In her experience, “making reasonable accommodations to include the subject’s point of view or allowing them to show you where you might be wrong is the ethical thing to do, and we are better off if this happens sooner, rather than later in the process.”  At the same time, reporters should never show anyone outside the newsroom a draft of a story as part of a deal, Bennett adds.

Here is my Checklist for Public Interest when the pressure to publish is building

• Ask yourself if your reader will be demonstrably smarter, safer, healthier, wiser, or able to make more informed decisions as a result of your article.

• Show the impact on lives that the facts about which you report will have. Don’t assume that readers see how a story affects them.

• Separate merely interesting or previously unknown tidbits from genuine information that the public ought to know. The former may not enjoy a high degree of legal protection while that latter almost always will.

• Don’t let yourself be accused of sandbagging a subject. If you have been working on a story for three weeks, it’s unfair to call them for comment or denial the night before publication.

• Be honest with the subject about what you are writing, but never ever show them notes or a draft.

• Use great caution in making deals with story subjects, and use “check quotes” or “quote approval” very sparingly. This almost always gives the subject an opportunity to re-write what they said. Confer with your editor or newsroom lawyer before making any such deal: it might be a binding contract.

Dick Pirozzolo, APR  www.pirozzolo.com  is a member of the Foreign Press Association and The Society of Professional Journalists. His  Pirozzolo Company Public Relations  builds positive relationships with journalists and the media for his clients.

 

Charles Classer, is the author of “The International Libel and Privacy Handbook” and consultant on media law and corporate communications issues He can be reached at www.charlesglasser.net or charlesglasseresq@gmail.com For the complete series visit: Talking Biz News.

How's Your "Issues Management Hygiene?"

PR Gurus the world over have been weighing in on the media fallout from United Airlines forcibly removing passenger Dr. David Dao from a flight as an object lesson in lousy crisis management.

It was painful to watch the smart phone videos of law enforcement agents dragging Dr. Dao off the plane while a major carrier slow walked its response from blaming the customer to the announcement of a lawsuit to a financial settlement and finally an apology by CEO Oscar Munoz.

Though CEO Munoz struck out during his first at bat, he finally connected by instituting a number of reforms. He increased compensation for bumped passengers, empowered employees to more easily resolve passenger complaints on the spot, and even provided a phone app to assist them in doing so. As consumer expert Shep Hyken pointed out in Forbes recently, “United Airlines is upping its customer service game, and it is my prediction that other airlines will follow. United employees will be on their best behavior, and so will employees of other airlines.”

 

 

Everybody wins. This time.

United’s crisis management mistakes could have been averted if the company had recognized and planned for all three components of communication management that propel companies onto the nightly news and create infuriating Twitter storms. They are:

Emergency Management

Issues Management

Crisis Management

United and the airline industry generally get A+ on only one of the three components, Emergency Management. Carriers anticipate and have detailed plans, personnel and systems in place to deal with customers, family members, the media and other stakeholders in an emergency and they know how to coordinate with government agencies like the NTSB when the most dreaded of operational failures occurs – a plane crash. And they practice.

While it’s best to routinely review and practice the fundamentals of crisis management with the CEO and review the crisis management plan periodically it’s harder to make it happen. Notwithstanding, savvy senior managers are smart enough to listen to their public relations counsel, once they find themselves in the midst of a media maelstrom.

The Department of Defense offers a solid definition of a crisis: "A low-probability, high impact event that threatens the viability of the organization and is characterized by ambiguity of cause, effect, and means of resolution, as well as a belief that decisions must be made swiftly.”

Additionally, a crisis has the ability to impact public opinion and trust in an organization and devalue its brand equity. Look no further than the massive Yahoo customer hack that reduced the company’s value by $350 million in its bid to be acquired by Verizon.

While United, with some expert PR counsel, eventually moved on from the crisis, the game is not over for the private airport security firm that, acting on orders from the airline, dragged Dr. Dao down the aisle creating the viral video sensation in the first place.

Issues Management: the neglected stepchild of PR Planning

While the value of Emergency Management and Crisis Management principles and practices are valued and well understood, organizations fail most often when it comes to Issues Management practices, which often stems from a firmly held belief among senior management that “our organization is different—special, better, even unique.”

Military leaders, for example, certainly read the newspapers and watch the news about issues involving Second Amendment rights and their relationship to workplace and gun violence, changing attitudes toward sexual harassment at work, decriminalization of drug possession and the epidemic of opioid addiction, legalization of Marijuana, immigration policies and so forth. All too often corporate leaders convince themselves that the problems associated with these hotly debated issues cannot possibly impact the people I manage because we’re different, more disciplined, prouder, more cohesive.

iPhone Apps empower flight attendants to take care of passenger problems immediately

And then stories, seemingly out of the blue, emerge about Marines passing around nude photos of their female colleagues and an Army major goes on a murderous armed rampage at Ft. Hood. Everyone is caught off guard because of an it-can’t-happen-here culture.

Same goes for the airline industry. News outlets are filled with reports of customer angst over outdated crowded airports, overbooking, flight delays, burdensome TSA procedures, and burgeoning checked baggage fees. Flying is miserable, getting worse every day and the customers are doing a slow burn.

Yet, United couldn’t see this? Other airlines as well had to wait until Dr. Dao was dragged off a flight before examining their own customer relations practices? No one saw the pressure cooker of public discontent was about to blow its lid?

A smart statistician once told me: gather a mere 300 people at random and over time every human condition will present itself: drug abuse, divorce, death, alcoholism you name it, it happens and it doesn’t happen to other people. Organizations need to bear this in mind and practice Issues Management Hygiene to stay tuned into the early warning signs of a crisis before it spins out of control.

Let’s look at the fundamentals. Issues are what you find yourself discussing with peers and press most of the time. Most issues develop over time, and they can generally be seen developing if one pays attention. Issues offer professional communicators the most time to put a management plan together that addresses emerging concerns and growing sentiments before they harden into rock-solid opinions. Take heed of trends and don’t be shocked when what’s happening out there happens under your own roof. 

Issues have three common elements:

• For something to be an issue, whatever is being examined or talked about must have two or more strongly opposing arguments being made about it.

• For something to be an issue, a large number of people must be emotionally involved with whatever is being discussed.

• Finally, issues typically involve a concern people are experiencing about a decision they see as having an impact on their lives or the smooth functioning of society.

As a professional communicator you will find a variety of issues facing you and your organization; environmental issues, medical issues, social issues, gun lobbying issues, and consumer protection issues are but a few.  In many cases you will have a position on those issues that impact your organization, say zero tolerance over sexual harassment and age, racial or gender discrimination. But intensity can build rapidly, consider how quickly the town hall meetings with US Representatives and Senators over healthcare policy turned rancorous.

Smart PR pros are tuned into emerging issues, responsive to public opinion shifts and intensity, prepared with a clear message and willing to advocate for a shift in organizational behavior when the tide of public opinion is going against you.

By Dick Pirozzolo, Managing Director 

Pirozzolo Company Public Relations

Emergency, Issues and Crisis Management services and training since 1981

www.pirozzolo.com 

Contact: dick@pirozzolo.com or 1-617-959-4613

 

Written in part with input from DINFOS the DOD's Defense Information School for public affairs professionals

Dick Pirozzolo Continues to Foster Positive US Relations, Economic Development and Freedom in Southeast Asia

Dick Pirozzolo: "Vietnam is growing steadily every day."

By

Nguyen Lan Anh

VietnamNet.Vn

Vietnam Net, Vietnam's largest online newspaper, published an interview with Michael Morris and Dick Pirozzolo, authors of  "Escape from Saigon - a Novel" chronicling the end of the Vietnam War or in Vietnam The American War.

Click here to read the original Vietnamese language version 

Saigon View from the Rex Bar in 1995

 Having returned to Vietnam many times since the war ended, communication consultant, journalist and US Air Force veteran Dick Pirozzolo chose trade, culture and tourism to establish a link between Vietnam and the United States. In so doing he has written articles and editorials on the reconciliation between two former foes.

Michael Morris was in Vietnam in 1967-1968 as a US Army infantry soldier and returned with Pirozzolo as part of a Boston Global Forum delegation of scholars, international marketing experts and journalists.

Vietnam Net: Congratulations, you have launched the book "Escape from Saigon -  a Novel” in 2017, what can you tell us about this book?

Mr. Dick Pirozzolo: Putting aside the past is a theme running throughout the book whose characters often come in conflict with their ideologies as they try to move forward. Even though "Escape from Saigon" is fiction it hews closely to historical events as it recounts the lives of both ordinary people as well as officials who are trapped in a city once called The Paris of the East.

The Continental Palace Hotel figures into "Escape from Saigon." While this classic hotel has been upgraded and retains its charm, it lacks the famous veranda where journalists and diplomats mingled during the war.

Some of these fictional characters include Lisette Vo, NBS-TV's first Vietnamese-American reporter who chronicled the fateful events of April 1975, Sam Esposito of The Washington Legend who writes about America's involvement and doing so angers US President Richard Nixon, an American businessman desperate to help his employees flee; Jean Paul Pelleran, a French pub owner, who wishes to remain in South Vietnam and continue running his piano bar, and US  Ambassador Graham Martin who becomes despondent and disillusioned over the April 1975 events.

Mr. Michael Morris: We concentrated on what happened during the last month when the Vietnam War ended on April 30. While the action occurs at that moment in time, reminiscences at Jean Paul’s bar and old newspaper stories are filled with historical events such as the partition of Vietnam that prompted Jean Paul to leave Hanoi for Saigon in the mid-1950s, or Sam Esposito who, before arriving in Vietnam in 1963, meets his old high school friend Billy Freda for beers at Mory’s in New Haven right after Billy returned from a year in Vietnam.

The Vietnam War was a major event in the lives of an entire generation of Americans who witnessed the war firsthand and had to deal with its aftermath. In our case, when we returned to the US we became professionals – I became a journalist in New York, and Dick became a journalist and media consultant in Boston. Even though the War ended 42 year ago, it is a permanent part of who we are.

Vietnam Net: As far as I know, a lot of American veterans have been writing about the war and the events of April 1975. What makes your book different, special?

The former US Embassy in Saigon remained vacant for over two decades before being razed to make room for new development in Ho Chi Minh City

Mr. Dick Pirozzolo: We have gotten a lot of praise for creating a unique work of fiction for example Winston Groom, author of "Forrest Gump," said, "Escape from Saigon offers a vivid unvarnished vision of the war-torn lives of people trapped in the capital.”

Casey Sherman, author of The New York Times Bestseller "The Finest Hours" and "Boston Strong" called, "Escape from Saigon … a sweeping saga in the tradition of Michener and Clavell.”

Llewellyn King, producer and co-host of PBS-TV's "White House Chronicle,” added, "Escape from Saigon is exceptional in its authenticity, with descriptions of Saigon that are in the tradition of American author Graham Greene's The Quiet American. "

Vietnam Net: You both recently returned to Vietnam with a Boston Global Forum Delegation of journalists and scholars. How did returning to Vietnam make you feel?

Mr. Michael Morris: For me personally, it was a meaningful trip. I did not know what to expect and did not know what my feelings would be. I could not even imagine seeing all that was new since I served in the country in the 1960s. And, finally I felt very satisfied. Like many American soldiers returning to Vietnam, I came here with an eye toward the future and was very happy to see the Vietnamese wholeheartedly welcome us. They are kind, treated me very well, invited me home for dinner. I was very much pleased with the experience.

Mr. Dick Pirozzolo: I have returned to Vietnam many times striving to cement relations between Vietnam and the United States. As part of my work, I became the media representative for Mr. Le Van Bang, Vietnam's first ambassador to the UN and later to the United States. Additionally, I’ve written articles and editorials on United States-Vietnam relationships and how they benefit both peoples.

Children peer into a US tank turret at a war museum in Saigon

During one of my trips to Vietnam I visited the Cu Chi tunnels outside of Saigon. One of the guides spoke in a very distinct American accent, that of New Jersey. When I asked him about it, he explained, “During the war, we took everything the Americans brought here including English which I got from listening to the US Armed Forces Radio and TV.”

 A fictionalized version of that tour guide appears in "Escape from Saigon,” arguing with one of the American characters over who in 1975 was the best pitcher in American baseball.

Vietnam Net: “Although we should not be not allowed to forget history we must live for the future.” What do you think of the message?

Mr. Dick Pirozzolo: The war ended 42 years ago, and I am confident that we are on track to further tighten relationships between the US and Vietnam. Those who are 30 years old or younger, know Vietnam only as a developing country, not a war and, overall, two-thirds of Americans were born after the war ended on April 30, 1975. This is similar to the Vietnam where 60 percent of the population was born after that historic milestone.

Since the 1990s, Americans have seen Vietnam as a market to promote brands and as a travel destination. According to government statistics, 400,000 people in the United States and 100,000 people in Canada are expected to travel to Vietnam this year.

Vietnam Net: Did you know that President Donald Trump has announced his visit

Ho Chi Minh City's iconic hotel

to Vietnam in November to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit.

Mr. Dick Pirozzolo: That is a positive step. I had the opportunity to work with many Vietnamese leaders during the 1990s. At that stage, Vietnam was working to reconcile and begin trade relations with the United States as a Most Favored Nation.  I believe we will continue to develop in a positive direction. More and more Americans choose to buy Vietnamese products such as clothes, rice and coffee in large quantities. Moreover, the cultural and academic relations between the two countries are rich and multi-dimensional.

There is no debate, now is an important moment for Vietnam to become a closer partner with the US, playing a greater role in the maintenance of peace and stability in the region and the balance of power in the Pacific

Mr. Michael Morris: Economic relations are a very important bridge in international relations. I know American companies are increasingly looking to Vietnam to do business, and in so doing will help to boost your economy.

More people from our generation, veterans have brought their children and loved ones to witness Vietnam with their own eyes—a country that has a significant place in American history.

“Escape from Saigon – a Novel” is available on Amazon.com.

 

Trendy shops and cafés are emerging in Ho Chi Minh City

All images appearing in this article are protected by Copyright ©2017 Dick Pirozzolo. All rights reserved.