Like other professional writers and editors, I can’t just “turn off” my editing hat when I’m not devoted to a work-related task. Billboards, posters, disclaimers on pharmaceutical commercials—all of those platforms, and more–are fair game. So two weeks ago, when I literally couldn’t help but notice Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s bio had a […]
Category Archives: Crisis Communications
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine who is opening a restaurant had a nice problem on his hands. The nice part: a local newspaper reporter had arranged to interview him about the new venture. The problem part: my friend was a rookie when it comes to dealing with the media, and didn’t know what […]
Say it ain’t so, JoePa! Sadly, longtime Penn State football coach Joe Paterno didn’t say enough–and to the appropriate people, such as law enforcement authorities–when he learned of allegations of criminal sexual misconduct regarding his former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky. Last night, as the Herman Cain sexual harrassment scandal continued to unravel and as Paterno was […]
Some will decry the move as March Madness gone too far, but I say it will undoubtedly go down as one of the most courageous coaching disciplinary decisions ever. As was reported first by an Indianapolis television station (see link below), Butler basketball coach Brad Stevens has suspended four of his five starters for unspecified […]
It’s true–I’ve been hammering hard lately on the fibbing front and the damage that lies can wreak on anyone’s credibility, reputation and overall bottom-line in the marketplace. And so it is that The Four Horsemen of the Apocryphal–the military, academic, athletic and business lies that I have observed in my career–were front and center in […]
Today I began working for a new client who is battling the Chicago-area municipality where he moved his family two years ago. After tearing down the existing house, then building a new one, he began work on a new garage. At first, the structure gained multiple approvals along the way. But then the village, in […]
Doing the right thing when nobody’s looking is so much better than being shamed into doing it when the world is watching. That’s the lesson I take away from the Citizens Bank saga that I first chronicled on this blog a month ago. In my follow-up Citizens Bank post, I detail how Geoff Williams wrote […]
The saga of my sister and Citizens Bank’s dubious sense of responsible and responsive banking received coverage in today’s Wallet Pop. Under the headline “Bank robs customer: a cautionary tale,” writer Geoff Williams succinctly and fairly lays out the sequence of events. Like a penny doubled, or a snow rolling downhill, this could be the […]