Issue management 101: Douse the issue before it gets out of hand

Fire at the White House is out. Time to go back to the health care debate.

Wow. President Obama just went in front of the Whitehouse Press corps and said he'd erred in his comment on how the Cambridge, Mass. police arrested a prominent African American professor. Immediately after the arrest, Obama had said:

"the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home."

But today, Obama rightly moved to douse the issue, calling the arresting officer directly and saying he'd essentially erred in his comments.

"I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically," Obama told reporters. "I could have calibrated those words differently, and I told this to Sgt. Crowley."

The fact was the controversy over the arrest and the President's subsequent comments were overtaking the agenda in Washington and distracting media and politicans from debate on the health care legislation in front of Congress. All too often people in this position wait too long to engage with the counterparty in a controversy and this usually just magnifies the issue.

Mark Knoller (@markknoller) from CBS notes that:

In the past, Presidents wait to the very last moment to admit an error in judgment: Clinton-Monica; Reagan/Contras: Ford/Poland.

Obama made the right move by acting quickly. Most politicians aren't this astute. Normally we see officials in trouble bend themselves out of shape to avoid saying they screwed up. It's an all too often occurrence. Outside politics it's an issue you frequently see as well.

The bottom line is people sometimes make mistakes. Your average person understands that. So if you take the initiative and wrest control of the issue by owning up to the blunder, you and your organization will be better off in the end. You might just have to swallow a little pride in the process.

The case against real-time PR

At the end of the G8 conference Canadian Prime Minister Harper attacked Liberal opposition Leader Ignatieff for a quote that ended up being from someone else.

How'd it happen? Harper's press secretary Dimitri Soudas was e-mailed the quote from a colleague in Canada; briefed the PM on the fly; and the PM then let fly a verbal pounding against Ignatieff. When it soon became clear the quote that set Harper off wasn't actually from Ignatieff, apologies started flowing from the PM and Soudas.

Harper: "I learned shortly after the press conference this was not a quotation of Mr. Ignatieff," said Harper before departing L'Aquila.

"I regret the error and I apologize to Mr. Ignatieff for this error."

Soudas: "I am upset," and he added later that the prime minister was "clearly, clearly not happy with the fact that he was put in that situation by one of his advisors.

"The prime minister is very bothered by the fact that his press secretary mis-informed him, and mis-briefed him and hence he obviously made an accusation."

I can see where Soudas wanted to use what seemed like a good opportunity to bash an opponent, but this episode is a great example of ensuring your communications infrastructure has the right checks and balances to make sure everything you say is 100% accurate.

For companies, the closest comparison to the speed in which the communications cycle was running in this situation would be a crisis management episode. In crises, events happen quickly, facts can change by the moment and its critical for your reputation that your communications remain accurate.

That means stay open and honest, but also slow down the process a bit to ensure you're providing clear and accurate facts. If you don't you run the risk of a meltdown that could likely compound any reputational damage from the crisis.

Jasmine MacDonnell, Ryan Sparrow - move over and make room for Mr. Soudas.

When in doubt, blame the reporter

Not that many people outside politics are paying much attention to it, but former Prime Minister Mulroney testified again today about the Schriber/Airbus affair. At one point he started to break down on the stand. His PR team was quick to post on Mulroney's web site:

"...Mulroney struggled to tell the story. As he did, he looked out into the audience and saw the producer of the Fifth Estate, Harvey Cashore and Globe and Mail reporter, Greg McArthur laughing–laughing–at his testimony. It was that sight–not captured by the cameras–that caused Mr. Mulroney to break down. “They were carrying on like a pair of school children,” said Mr. Mulroney after the break. “It just got to me.” What a disgrace."

Note to PR team: If the guy you're representing, who happens to have been Prime Minister, has admitted he's accepted envelopes full of cash from an arms dealer, labeling tittering journalists as a "disgrace" is a bit much.