Today in CEOs Behaving Badly: We understand why AOL chief Tim Armstrong was a little upset at the unfortunate struggles of Patch, his well-meaning $300 million experiment in hyper-local news content. He promised AOL that the venture would turn a profit by year’s end, and in order to bring this about he seemingly had no choice but to fire hundreds of the writers, editors, and managers at more than 400 individual Patch sites around the country.

But this hardly excuses the commission of a cardinal PR sin: letting his temper get away with him during a 1,000-strong conference call and firing an employee for taking a photo during his speech. It was mild as outbursts go, but it was recorded for the ages and distributed to every media outlet around.

This wasn’t just any employee, by the way; it was Patch’s creative director Abel Lenz. The fact that such a Trump-worthy incident was terrible PR should be obvious to all, but we’ll go into a bit more detail:

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For about 70 cents, you can buy a soda (regular or diet)…

No industry relies more heavily on the public’s good will than the non-profit sector, which ostensibly exists for the sole purpose of serving the greater good. For this reason, inflammatory reports about how some of America’s biggest charities spend their money present professional and ethical challenges for crisis comms experts.

50 foundations around the country desperately need some good PR right now after a joint project by the Tampa Bay Times, CNN, and The Center for Investigative Reporting named them among the worst in the country for doing little beyond “turn[ing] donations into profit.”

The saddest part about this story is the fact that most of the groups on the list claim to support children, veterans, cancer victims, and public servants like cops and state troopers. We’d like to think that Americans will be quick to punish any charity suspected of exploiting sick kids.

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In case you haven’t heard, quite a few people on the Internet are upset at Applebee’s right now for its actions in the tale of the obnoxiously self-righteous customer. After the story blew up, the company went strangely silent on social media, but on Friday its PR team got pro-active, releasing an official statement from the company president and choosing Facebook as the best forum in which to respond.

There’s a reason for this: Ad Week recently named Applebee’s as the most “socially devoted” restaurant brand on Facebook. But this story has proven to be its greatest social media challenge: “What’s the Buzz”, a homepage feature showcasing tweets about the brand in real-time, has been overwhelmingly negative for the past few days.

The new damage control effort began with this post:

The message goes on to clarify that the fired server violated company policy by publicly sharing a receipt on which the customer’s name was visible, thereby compromising her privacy (they added that the customer’s party did in fact pay the 18% gratuity required). Since then, the post has inspired almost 25,000 comments.

This crisis is not over.

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Politics is a slick business. We know this, you know this…everybody knows this. But a little bit of investigative reporting by the Tampa Bay Times that exposed a few poorly planned moves on behalf of Florida governor Rick Scott reveals the kind of weird PR that we’ve unfortunately come to expect from our elected officials.

Mr. Scott wanted to improve his image in the eyes of Florida voters during his gubernatorial campaign, so he bought a rescued Labrador retriever. After he won the election, he did what any responsible dog-lover would do: he returned the lab to its previous owner. Wait, what?

Scott didn’t just buy the dog:

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As proud amateur musicians, we understand the importance of a treasured instrument–especially a premium electric guitar worth thousands of dollars.

Today we came across the story of a musician who nearly lost his six-string in transit and experienced two completely opposite reactions from the brands involved: Delta Airlines and Gibson Guitars. Can you guess who comes out looking better in this case?

Dave Schneider, who fronts a couple of bands we don’t think we’ve ever heard, always carried his 1965 Gibson (estimated value $10,000) onboard when flying because he didn’t trust others to handle it–and he was right to be worried. When Delta employees forced him to check it on a flight from Buffalo, New York to Detroit, he got paranoid and started filming with his iPhone as soon as the plane landed.

As you’ll see from this video, the guitar got stuck in an elevator at the airport, destroying the case and seriously damaging the instrument inside. Bad news.

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Courtesy of our sister blog GalleyCat, we bring you news of a relatively obscure nonprofit called the Dalkey Archive Press, which received a whole lot more media attention than expected this week for posting a ridiculous, nearly insane job listing. The weird part is: we can’t quite decide whether this event amounts to a PR fail or a big win.

The group, which “exists to publish, promote to readers, and preserve modern and contemporary literature and cultures from around the world”, is looking for a couple of good (unpaid) interns who will eventually make up “the pool of candidates” for future leadership positions.

But the given requirements for these positions are a little…unrealistic (emphasis ours):

 ”Any of the following will be grounds for immediate dismissal during the probationary period: coming in late or leaving early without prior permission; being unavailable at night or on the weekends; failing to meet any goals; giving unsolicited advice about how to run things; taking personal phone calls during work hours; gossiping; misusing company property, including surfing the internet while at work; submission of poorly written materials; creating an atmosphere of complaint or argument; failing to respond to emails in a timely way; not showing an interest in other aspects of publishing beyond editorial; making repeated mistakes; violating company policies. DO NOT APPLY if you have a work history containing any of the above.”

Applicants also MUST NOT have “family obligations…degrees to be finished, holidays to be taken, weddings to attend in Rio, etc.)”

Well, that disqualifies just about everyone, doesn’t it?

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This week a LinkedIn editor’s personal story highlighted a significant and previously unreported problem with the American Red Cross’s uneven Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. Due to a technical “issue”, the organization’s online payment system charged “an unknown number” of well-meaning supporters twice for the same donation.

While the Red Cross claims to be “working quickly to resolve the issues” that affected “a small number of donors”, its spokespeople have yet to release a statement despite reports of efforts to contact each affected individual.

We shouldn’t have to say it, but this is not the proper way to address a potential PR crisis–however isolated it may be.

The longstanding aid group has already received a good bit of mixed-at-best media attention for its “slow” response to the Hurricane Sandy crisis. Lest we forget, the American Red Cross is not a nonprofit organization, and headlines about “raking in $150M in the name of the storm” do not boost the public profiles of prominent charity brands like this one.

Of course, technical snafus are an unavoidable part of modern life. But we classify this story as a PR Fail because the Red Cross didn’t mention it until the post surfaced on LinkedIn this week—and its reps have yet to offer any specifics beyond a claim that the issue affected “fewer than 1 percent of donors.”

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In a tale of tragedy and PR disaster that almost certainly could have been avoided, a grieving Bronx husband just announced plans to sue Delta, KLM and Lufthansa airlines for millions.

Earlier this year, the three carriers each claimed to be unable to provide seating to his wife Vilma, who died in Europe while awaiting a return flight to New York. The couple planned to go home to the States after a European vacation so Vilma could resume treatment for diabetes and kidney disease; she weighed approximately 425 pounds at the time of her death.

The couple flew to their native Hungary via Delta and KLM “without incident” in September after Vilma apparently boarded two planes “with the help of an airlift…and a seatbelt extender”. Husband Janos now claims that airline reps in Europe “asked about return flights so [they] could make proper arrangements” and that he purchased two separate seats on the way back to accommodate his wife.

And yet, the couple’s lawyer says that the very same KLM Airlines forced the pair to de-plane in Budapest “due to an issue with a seat back” and urged them to drive to Prague, where a second pilot ordered Vilma from his plane after “they put her on the seat and they couldn’t belt her in”. The two then drove to Frankfurt only to be denied service by Lufthansa reps, who voiced concerns over passenger safety when Vilma “didn’t fit in a three-seat gap”; she died of kidney failure in Hungary two days later.

A Delta rep told ABC News that the airline simply couldn’t seat Vilma “Despite a determined good-faith effort”; the husband’s attorney claims that his client “wants to know why his wife had to die because the airlines simply didn’t want to be inconvenienced.”

We’re not sure the story is so simple.

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The People’s Daily unambiguously describes itself as “the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China”. Based on that description and a few handy stereotypes, you might expect the rag to be a humorless collection of articles offering nothing but effusive praise for the nation and its single-party government—and you’d be right!

Today, however, we also note that the editors of the Daily seem to be missing a crucial snark detector. A quick glance at the site’s English landing page reveals a feature based on the recent Onion spoof naming North Korean Communist dictator-by-birth Kim Jong-un as “The Sexiest Man Alive”, reprinted with nary a hint of irony.

The best part about it? The editors didn’t just run the story—they added their own 55-page slideshow to highlight all the best things about their favorite ally/supreme leader/murderous despot.

Did they really not get the joke? The fact that they reprinted this ridiculous quote in full makes us wonder:

“With his devastatingly handsome, round face, his boyish charm, and his strong, sturdy frame, this Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every woman’s dream come true. Blessed with an air of power that masks an unmistakable cute, cuddly side, Kim made this newspaper’s editorial board swoon with his impeccable fashion sense, chic short hairstyle, and, of course, that famous smile.”

And here’s a picture of him riding horseback, because that’s just the kind of thing sexy men do.

Since we feel like covering the indulgent lifestyles of pop stars today, we’d like to offer a postmortem assessment of Rihanna’s recent PR disaster disguised as a whirlwind international tour.

See, the very concept behind this extended promo event demanded the “stunt” label: The pop star planned to play seven countries in seven days, and she invited approximately 150 music journalists to join her on her Boeing 777 mega-jet (we don’t really get the “7” theme).

Anyway, chaos quickly descended upon the unfortunate entourage. These journalists relayed news of on-plane streaking, hunger, sleep deprivation, lack of bathroom access and general anxiety while receiving very little attention from an apparently disinterested Rihanna. The star’s heart just didn’t seem to be in it: She received boos from fans in Berlin after forgetting the lyrics to her own songs and denied all interview requests during the trip as some journalists began to wonder whether she was on the plane at all.

On first glance, this all looks to be something of a PR disaster. On second glance, it looks even worse.

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