Meredith is a hot mess’s Reviews > The Fixer: Secrets for Saving Your Reputation in the Age of Viral Media > Status Update

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

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.