Status Updates From The Fixer: Secrets for Savi...

Although punching back at reporters personally may feel satisfying in the moment, it almost always is the wrong response. It sends the message that you can’t argue the facts so you call the reporter names.

People who have been criticized have been trying to shoot the messenger—the media—ever since: politicians embroiled in scandal, CEOs fight-
ing to hold on to their jobs, companies caught cutting the wrong
corners, celebrities. I have seen this strategy deployed many
times, almost always with bad results.

There is one rule, however, that comes pretty close:

Thou shalt not attack reporters . Make it about the facts.
The urge to shoot the messenger dates back at least 2,500
years to Sophocles and his play Antigone, and Shakespeare
warned against it in Henry IV, Part 2.

Keep that in mind: if you lie to reporters, all bets are off. And
they could crucify you.

So at Sitrick And Company we never lie.

David and I also agreed that we should keep it focused on
business, not personal, issues. Shareholders care about stock price,
not personal antagonisms. This is almost always my approach,
the exception being “personal” issues like embezzlement or the
like

After his lunch with Bryson, Disney told Stanley Gold that one of the first
thoughts he had was “I’m not the one who should be leaving. Eisner is the one who should be leaving.” Stanley Gold understood immediately that Roy Disney was going to make Eisner regret insulting him.

I find the Eisner Disney drama fascinating. I had not heard this part about Roy Disney before.

Of all the campaigns I have waged in the past three decades
or so, the Eisner fight was among the most satisfying. It was a
stunning win for a small SWAT team that took on one of the big-
gest media and entertainment companies in the world and one
of the most powerful CEOs in all of Hollywood.

I had no idea Sitrick was involved in the Eisner-Disney conflict.

Every big story is a battle among conflicting versions of
events. Our job is to ensure our client’s version gets seen and
heard. Shaping the story and redirecting it to ensure that our
client’s message is told and received requires us to come up
with a better story through better facts, a more thorough
explanation, and a more plausible alternative.

This is one of the reasons that so many of the professionals
at Sitrick are former journalists...Some clients think the former journalists have some invisible pull with their former colleagues, an ability to reach out to some editor by a back channel. Many do, and if they can, so much the better, but my main interest in hiring them is their knowledge of what makes news and how to tell a good tale.

Getting a favorable story from someone who is known for “softball” interviews won’t influence other journalists to write about your client in a
favorable way, as a Lead Steer media outlet or journalist would. Tell your story through the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Washington Post, LA Times, or 60 Minutes, & it could change the direction of the herd & ultimately change public perception.

Stage Five: Healing and fixing. With outside help, the com-
pany focuses on getting the “facts” communicated to its various
constituents, including the fact that it has corrected what went
wrong.

Stage Four: Help! Belatedly, the brass turns to its lawyers or
board to recommend a crisis communications consultant to
deal with the situation, which has deteriorated into a full-blown
emergency. This is when Sitrick’s Rule 1 for Engagement kicks
in. Get the facts. This should have been the first thing manage-
ment did when the crisis hit.

Stage Three: Turning inward. The company decides it will ig-
nore the media and communicate only to its customers and em-
ployees. This can be problematic for two reasons: (1) There is a
high probability that those communications will be “leaked to
the media,” in which case someone else will be framing and ex-
plaining your message.

Stage Two: Shock and silence. Stunned that controversy has
jolted their company, executives go silent. They may feel that
they don’t know enough to comment. Their media advisors may
tell them that reporters are out to get them. Or the lawyers will tell a
company’s leadership to forgo saying anything publicly.

"No comment" is bad advice.

Stage One: Denial. Companies often don’t realize a crisis is
about to descend; executives don’t feel it is that bad, or they
think if they ignore it, it will just go away. Maybe it will be just a
one-day story.

In tending to hundreds of clients in crisis, I have developed a
sense of the underlying cycle that drives most crisis cases, a cas-
cading series of reactions and actions that play out with an al-
most mathematical order. You no doubt have heard of the five
stages of grief. I have identified five stages of crisis:

First, I had to find out whether what was being said about my
new client was true. If not, then what were the facts? How do we
go about correcting the record so the wrong story doesn’t keep
getting repeated, and then how do we get a compelling, fact-
based counter-narrative that tells the correct facts? And where
do we place that story?

My firm hands out scoops boldly and with lethal efficiency.
We know that if we pick an outlet with enough clout—a “Lead
Steer,” as I like to call it—the story will get even more coverage
after the exclusive break, because the herd of reporters will fol-
low in those first tracks.... Quite simply, I believe the media have a herd mentality. And like any herd, they follow a lead steer.

But if we placed the right story—a powerful story with great, exclusive details—we could get one or two good, long stories setting up the factual
template for hundreds of followers. If you first put out a press
release, nobody gets the exclusive. In this case and others like
them: opportunity squandered.

One client of Sitrick dismissed the criticism heaped on him by two Hollywood blogs as meaningless gossip, only to discover that Vanity Fair, which, of course, had a much wider audience, used these blogs as
a basis for its story, citing them at the beginning of the article. This took the story from a limited audience in Hollywood, to a national story, which was then picked up by other media throughout the U.S.

Social media exercise significant influence, but Mike believes
that to bring about major change—such as legislation, indict-
ment or criminal charges, congressional hearings, or even the
firing or exoneration of a top executive—in most instances a
story that began on social media needs to be picked up or re-
reported in “old” (traditional) media.

Here they are, Sitrick’s Ten Rules for Engagement:

1: First, get the facts.

2: Identify your objective.

3: Act preemptively.

4: Use a Lead Steer.

5: Focus on the fix.

6: Social media often are a means to an end.

7: If you don’t tell your story, someone else will tell it
for you.

8: Put your opponent on the Wheel of Pain.

9: “No comment” can be PR malpractice.

10: Never lie.

Sitrick sees reporters as essential to getting out his clients’
version of the truth, and he stresses the value of understanding
their deadline pressures, their competitive zeal, and their fear of
getting beaten on a story. Stories are the currency he carries—
exclusives, interviews, counterpunch tips, profiles—when he
meets with members of his vast network of reporters and edi-
tors.

Sitrick, on the other hand, has a clear affection for jour-
nalists. He even started out as one, albeit briefly. I have dealt
with hundreds of journalists, and Mike Sitrick is, hands down, a
better storyteller than most of them, at all times staying within
the four corners of the truth. And reporters need good stories. He
respects them and refuses to trash them.

Rather than telling his clients to duck and cover, Mike Sitrick
tells them that if they don’t tell their story, someone else will tell
it for them. Failing to respond early and strategically leaves
empty space and airtime to be filled by someone else: your
adversaries, short-sellers, media grandstanders, Wall Street
shills.

On occasion, Sitrick and his partners on a case will fight an ongoing story by developing and placing a different one, a counter-narrative offering compelling new details. His firm’s ex- journalists, lawyers, and executives are particularly adept at this technique. They also have been known to divert negative news by creating a bona fide news event.

Many companies and PR people regard the media as their enemy and reporters as arrogant and evil. Many reporters, in turn, view companies and PR people warily, suspicious they are out to block a good story. Sitrick, on the other hand, has a clear affection for journalists. He even started out as one, albeit briefly...And reporters need good stories. He respects them and refuses to trash them.

Rather than telling his clients to duck and cover, Mike Sitrick tells them that if they don’t tell their story, someone else will tell it for them. That points up a key difference between Sitrick and most other people in the crisis business, a difference that I have observed as a reporter, editor, and television news anchor.

He understands the power of storytelling and harnesses it for the purposes of persuasion. The media wants to tell a story, & he sees his job as helping them get a better one for their audience (and for his client). I have seen from the other side of the desk that he knows how to undercut and counterpunch his clients’ adversaries, how to turn the media to his clients’ favor, and how to preempt or mitigate a bad story.

Sure, there are cases where “no comment” is the right option, when you don’t know the facts or the facts don’t clearly support an acceptable statement, when your client is in a sensitive legal situation, or you are negotiating a settlement with the government. Most times, however, Sitrick says, the better instinct is to find out what the reporter wants, get the facts, and then, if the facts support you, speak up.