This post was co-written by the author and his wife, Stephanie Coffee. 

Horrific events that shock and captivate entire nations, superseding all other news—tragedies like the Newtown shooting and last week’s Boston Marathon terror attack—are thankfully rare. And yet, as we all know, social media and the 24/7 cable news cycle have intensified the public’s focus on these national crises and their aftermaths.

Now that the Boston case has been resolved with amazing speed by state and local authorities, we can examine the media response to last week’s events from a PR perspective.

As communications professionals, we know that the public doesn’t just demand (accurate) news as it breaks in times of crisis. They also value reassurances and statements of support from sources they follow on social media—sources that include their favorite brands.

At least one brand has already demonstrated the dangers of an inept response. So what should public entities and the people who manage their accounts do?

What NOT to do: 

• Don’t tie the event into a promotion: Epicurious (which is usually a very good food site) gave us a perfect case study on Monday with its tone-deaf promotional tweet encouraging followers to buy specific Boston-themed products. We won’t go into why it was a terrible idea because that should be painfully obvious. As another example, who can forget Kenneth Cole’s infamous Egypt uprising PR Fail?

There was a day when a 24-hours news network sounded like a brilliant idea. We live in a complex world full of complicated events that highlight the worst and best of humanity.

From violent wars and corrupt politicians to heroic deeds and acts of selflessness, how could a network not fill its programming with constant and original news updates?

However, with the technology that allowed networks to report 24-7 from every corner of the world, we learned something very important about the public: from cuddly kittens to sickening carnage, we’ll watch the same images over and over and over and over and over again. Who needs a news cycle when you can just hit replay again and again?

The public is strongly addicted to emotional footage, and after September 11, coupling dramatic scenes and outlandish scenarios with charged commentary and paranoid speculation fractured viewers into different but loyal viewing demographics. We all know the stereotypes about the people who watch Fox News and the people who watch MSNBC, as stalwart news anchors like Brian Williams continue to scratch their heads.

Just as times were changing back then, times are changing now, and Jeff Zucker, CEO of CNN, fully understands this. Throughout the past decade the public sensibility has evolved and viewers began migrating from the constant barrage of loud news and bombastic analysis to shows that focused on the more pleasant aspects of life such as food, travel, health, history, science and reasonable opinions on real, everyday challenges.

Though yesterday’s bombing of the Boston Marathon demonstrated there will always be senseless violence and inexplicable trauma in our world, the public appears to be internalizing the frailty of life and living by the mantra we all—at least in theory—agreed to after September 11: the best revenge is living well. And now CNN’s network is beginning to reflect that with more accessible programming. Read more

An eccentric tech entrepreneur turned fugitive, an abrupt change in the papacy, a Japanese tsunami – the fact that each of these stories dominated the news for days and drove a whole lot of traffic confirms that content still reigns supreme. But since every big-news scenario is different, figuring out the optimal timing, location and platforms for presenting it to the public remains an ongoing challenge for media brands.

At MPA‘s recent Swipe 2.0 conference in New York, media presenters including CNN and Wired, discussed tablets and other new digital platforms to help get the message out. CNN’s reps explained their system for categorizing video content, while Wired offered a gripping account of how their reporting on tech security pioneer John McAfee factored into the unfolding odyssey.

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CNN has received a lot of negative attention over the past 24 hours for its reporting on the convictions of the Steubenville, Ohio high school students who were found guilty of raping a classmate after evidence of their crime was widely shared on social media. Most of the outrage focused on this clip:

Many felt that anchor Candy Crowley and correspondent Poppy Harlow spent too much time speculating about the damage the verdict would do to the lives of these “promising” offenders rather than just, you know, reporting on the news or discussing the gravity of the crime. Casting convicted rapists as “poor young men” whose futures have been ruined is not the best way to boost your network’s reputation as “the most trusted name in news.”

It’s damage control time for CNN.

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Anheuser-Busch, maker of such top-quality “beers” as Budweiser, Michelob and Stella Artois, isn’t playing nice in the face of a lawsuit filed by former employees who claim the brewery illegally waters down its products.

Yesterday the company took the opportunity to simultaneously mock its accusers and call attention to its CSR efforts by publishing a print version of this campaign spot in 10 major U.S. newspapers:

Our guarantee to you: We take our beer and our brewing process seriously. Read more: twitter.com/Budweiser/stat…

— Budweiser (@Budweiser) March 3, 2013

Not only did this ad give Bud a chance to brag about the purity of its products; it also reminded fans that the company donates millions of cans of drinking water (complete with the full Anheuser-Busch logo) to The American Red Cross and other disaster relief organizations.

Whoa there, guys. Didn’t your mom teach you that no one likes a braggart?

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Have you been following the latest, dumbest political media scandal? We hope you answered “no”, because this one is a real doozy. It’s a classic case of “hack” vs. “flack” that will feel very familiar to anyone who has spent some time in PR or journalism.

To summarize: Bob Woodward, the veteran reporter who was one-half of the team that exposed the Watergate scandal leading to Richard Nixon’s resignation, had a mildly testy exchange with a White House rep over the pending “sequester” drama. Essentially, if the two parties can’t agree on a mix of new revenue and spending cuts, a big rash of cuts that they set up last year precisely to avoid this sort of showdown will go into effect. It’s basically President Obama versus the House of Representatives, so…politics as usual.

Alright, now what’s the “controversy”–and how does it relate to PR? Glad you asked!

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Someone did NOT take the Obama administration’s “No leaks, ever” advice to heart: an internal FBI report that somehow found its way to (we assume) the desk of Wolf Blitzer‘s intern at CNN urged employees to stop using government-issued devices to “send lurid texts and nude photos” to one another. Little did the genius who issued this memo realize that it would only serve to turn the bureau’s “rash of sexting” into a big headache. (And no, we really don’t think this was a PR stunt.)

Media Relations 101: if one of your employees “used (a) personal cell phone to send nude photographs of herself to other employees”, a second sent a “nude photograph of herself to ex-boyfriend’s wife” and a third  “was caught in a child pornography sting operation”, you really don’t want this information to find its way to anyone in the press. In fact, you shouldn’t even put it on paper–real or virtual.

Why would anyone inside the FBI want to leak this info in the first place?

There’s a new job opening for an ambitious, politically-minded PR professional in the greater New York area: Governor Andrew Cuomo‘s spokeswoman Allison Gollust stepped down from her post today after just four months on the job to return to what would seem to be her first love: broadcast television.

Gollust will now serve as head of communications for CNN. This isn’t an unprecedented move; Gollust previously worked in various communications roles within the NBC organization under newly appointed CNN president Jeff Zucker. Both left the network after its takeover by Comcast.

In her new role as senior vice president, communications, Gollust will serve as official spokeswoman for the brand in additional to managing all PR initiatives and overseeing the 24/7 news channel’s messaging strategy.

Christa Robinson, who served in the senior VP position for 13 years, will leave CNN according to a memo sent to staff by Zucker and reprinted on sister site TVNewser.

Will the newly reunited team be able to turn CNN around? Only time will tell.

On Wednesday we advised Tesla founder/eccentric weirdo Elon Musk to stop insisting that The New York Times auto critic John Broder intentionally sabotaged his Model S test drive because he hates electric cars.

We are shocked to learn that Musk did not take our advice, instead releasing another lengthy statement in which he critiqued nearly every element of Broder’s highly detailed follow-up to his initial post.

We won’t get into the technical specifics as others have covered them extensively, but here’s a good example of the nature of this tit-for-tat showdown: Musk accuses Broder of driving in circles in order to intentionally run down the car’s battery; Broder says that he was simply trying to locate one of the company’s poorly-lit Supercharger stations. He said, she said.

Again, we understand Musk’s desire to protect his baby.

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In CNN‘s creatively chosen words, the troubled Carnival Triumph is expected “to finally limp into port later today”–but the PR emergency has just begun!

Cruise line executives breathed a sigh of relief last month during the industry’s peak season. This January got off to a much smoother start for them than last year, when the Costa Concordia ran aground off the Italian coast, impacting the industry’s reputation and bottom line. They were so focused on (successfully) selling their products they didn’t even have time to speak at travel industry marketing conferences.

However, cruise companies’ sense of calm has been shattered again as a result of the Carnival Triumph’s engine fire on Sunday. The vessel drifted off the Yucatan coast of Mexico for more than three days–and despite the fact that no casualties have occurred, the 3,142 stranded passengers have reported deteriorating and deplorable sanitary conditions.

The crisis is still unfolding and it’s too soon to know the full outcome. However, all signs (most prominently falling stock prices) bode badly for Carnival. So far the company hasn’t followed an effective course of action for service recovery during a crisis. Below are our takeaways from the ongoing saga.

1. Don’t keep screwing up:

Hey, accidents happen! And customers can forgive a company experiencing its first crisis. But Carnival ships have repeatedly suffered other performance and safety-related incidents. Carnival is also the parent company of Costa Concordia, so they were already on a short leash in terms of public perception. They should have taken extra precautions to avert another disaster.

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