April 1, 2021
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A Tasty Reputation Recipe for the Cinnamon Toast Crunch Debacle
By Howard Fencl, Hennes Communications
When you were a little kid, you couldn’t wait for mom to get home on grocery shopping day so you could tear into a new box of breakfast cereal to get the cheesy toy tucked into the very bottom of the box. But a true surprise premium appeared in Jensen Karp’s box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch in the form of shrimp tail exoskeletons. Did General Mills handle the situation correctly? You decide.
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A Newspaper Has a Novel Strategy for Covering One Politician’s Falsehoods: Don’t
Ohio’s biggest newspaper is taking an unusual tack toward covering falsehoods from a U.S. Senate candidate: It doesn’t plan to do so at all. The Plain Dealer in Cleveland said its journalists intend to ignore inaccurate statements from Republican Josh Mandel that they consider to be ploys for attention. Chris Quinn, the Plain Dealer’s editor, wrote, “Just because he makes outrageous, dangerous statements doesn’t mean it is news.” Quinn’s decision is a marked departure from conventional journalistic wisdom that politicians’ statements inherently deserve coverage and that every story has at least two sides.
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Responding to Reports of Sexual Abuse of Students, Past and Present – The Convergence of Attitudes and Expectations
Our colleague and friend, attorney David Wolowitz, writes: I believe we are in a period of cultural change in which there is a convergence of attitudes and expectations relating to sexual abuse of students, without regard to when it occurred or whether the abuser was an adult or another student. Attitudes and expectations about the extent and nature of sexual abuse of students have evolved dramatically and swiftly in the past few years, spurred by the federal government’s focus on Title IX violations in colleges and universities. Students, parents, alumni and the media now see student sexual assault in colleges as a systemic issue, rather than a school-by-school issue. Victims have formed survivor groups to provide support and advocacy. Prevention efforts have proliferated and have received bi-partisan support locally and nationally.
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Few Facts, Millions Of Clicks: Fearmongering Vaccine Stories Go Viral Online
The odds of dying after getting a COVID-19 vaccine are virtually nonexistent. According to the CDC, you're three times more likely to get struck by lightning. But you might not know that from looking at your social media feed. A new NPR analysis finds that articles connecting vaccines and death have been among the most highly engaged with content online this year, going viral in a way that could hinder people's ability to judge the true risk in getting a shot. The findings also illustrate a broader trend in online misinformation: With social media platforms making more of an effort to take down patently false health claims, bad actors are turning to cherry-picked truths to drive misleading narratives.
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Why Women Face Different Standards on Zoom and What to do About It
Research from The Harris Poll shows 39 percent of women, but just 25 percent of men, turn off video during Zoom calls. That’s a fairly significant difference. In addition, when they turn on video, women are more likely than men to prepare (do their hair, change clothes or clean visible workspaces). Also, they are more likely to mute themselves, in addition to disabling the video, while multitasking. We asked professors of communication and business management why.
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Our New Seminars
Social Media and the Courts: A New Frontier
There have been more “trials of the century” than we have had centuries. This seminar explores why trials have been big news for decades, but also how profoundly coverage of those trials has changed with the digital revolution in communications - and what lawyers need to know about it. Topics include: a brief history of high-profile media coverage of trials – and the sudden, recent change in how the coverage works; how and why social media are now crucial for journalists and why you must understand “iterative reporting”; social media’s impact on jurors and court rulings; the scarcity of research on how social media and digital journalism impact witnesses and trials overall; pros and cons of social media and digital journalism in trial coverage.
Getting to the Truth: How to Detect Fake News
Fake news is not new news. But in the digital media era, when information – true and false – travels in seconds, fake news has become a prevalent challenge in society. This seminar delves into the history of fake news, explores how we are living through a second coming of Yellow Journalism and provides practical tips for how to recognize fake news – and avoid spreading it.
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Blunt Talk
So many companies today, when first confronted by a crisis, go into a bunker mentality. They either say, "No comment," or they lie as a knee-jerk reaction. Neither of these sins, I believe, is generally committed on purpose. Rather, companies often panic when first confronted with a crisis and either say nothing, which looks like they're covering something up, or they speak what they wish was the truth.
Steven Fink
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Our New Seminars
Crisis Communications For Educators Amid a Pandemic of Crises
The echo chamber of social media. A tense, politically charged national landscape. And the Covid- 19
pandemic. Learn how to help protect your school’s reputation in one of the most challenging communications atmospheres imaginable.
Crisis Communications and Your School in the Social Media Era
Social media is now where your school’s reputation, earned over hard years of accomplishment, can be shattered in minutes. Learn best practices for effective crisis management on social media, including applying the fundamentals of effective crisis communications; using social media before the crisis; threat assessment and response; leveraging social media to your advantage; and specific action steps to help protect your reputation.
Crisis Communications and Social Media for Public Officials
For elected and public officials, social media represents special challenges – and special opportunities. Accessibility, information-sharing and gauging public interest are easier and more convenient than ever before. As are the opportunities to criticize, organize opposition and spread misinformation. And when a crisis hits, it will play out on social media. This seminar will help participants understand the influence of social media – and how it’s only going to grow. How public officials can use social media to the benefit of their organizations and constituents. And you’ll explore how to apply the best practices of effective crisis management on social media in a public setting.
For information about these new seminars, contact Thom Fladung, managing partner, Hennes Communications at 216-321-7774
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Attention School Board Members,
Superintendents & Attorneys
The Ohio School Boards Association (OSBA) has entered into a strategic partnership with Hennes Communications to provide crisis management and communications services to public school systems throughout the state of Ohio facing sudden challenges to their organizations’ reputations and operations. With this partnership, OSBA member school leaders have access
365 days a year to expert crisis communications professionals.
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Lots of PR Firms Sell Their Crisis Work –
Let The Buyer Beware
With no barriers to entry, every public relations firm in the U.S. now appears to offer “crisis communications.” They don’t. At least, all of those who claim to don’t.
Crisis work requires a different – and often counterintuitive – skill set from the traditional practice of public relations. It’s also an art form where more often than not we’re helping clients figure out not just what to say, but what to do, which isn’t something learned from a book.
Business advisers increasingly understand that the Court of Public Opinion is often as important, if not more so, than the Court of Law, especially with more than 95% of civil cases never going to trial, according to most estimates. And that approach increases among business advisers who understand their clients’ business models and want to offer holistic advice, rather than serving in a narrower or even transactional capacity.
If you have a crisis on your hands or an issue looming and you need communications help, the best questions can get you to the best answer:
- Can the communications or PR firm share a list of named clients involving crisis communications or issues management?
- Can you get a list of case studies that describe, in some detail, what the firm did for clients facing a similar situation to yours?
- Ask for the firm’s experience with crisis situations involving social media. Today, reputations built over years can be shattered in minutes on Facebook or Twitter.
- Ask for specifically who you’ll be working with on a day-to-day basis, their experience and examples of similar situations they’ve worked on.
- Ask if the firm writes crisis communication plans and what goes into those plans. Even if you don’t need a plan right now – or don’t have time to build one – you’ll learn how deeply the firm is immersed in crisis communications.
- Ask what kind of training the firm provides.
- And, perhaps, the most important question: What percentage of the firm’s overall work would be considered “crisis” work? If the answer is 10%, 20% – even 50% – think about whether you want communications about your crisis in the hands of a firm doing something else half the time or more.
Finally, remember: you can’t use communications to “spin” your way out of a crisis. That’s Hollywood. In the real world, you’ll get called on it and your crisis will get worse.
Our best advice: don’t hire a firm that tries to spin its own story.
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No one trains clients for high-stakes situations better than Hennes Communications. We can teach you how to communicate with power, mastering even the toughest interview, speech or presentation.
Call or email us today and ask us about crisis, media, spokesperson and presentation training/coaching for you, your top executives and managers.
Remember, it's usually not what you say, but how you say it. Never again go into a media interview unprepared or go before a hostile audience uncoached.
As the coronavirus situation begins to abate, we now offer this training in-person on a select basis or via Zoom and other video platforms. Please call for details
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4/4 American Public Power Association
4/5 Cleveland State Univ. School of Law
4/6 Ohio State Bar Association
4/6 LeadingAge Pennsylvania
4/13 California Munic. Utilities Association
4/14 American Public Power Association
4/20 Ohio School Boards Association
4/20 BCI Fraud Conference
4/22 Council of School Attorneys
5/5 Youngstown Safety Council
5/10 Fairlawn Area Chamber of Comm.
5/12 LeadingAge - Oregon
5/13 CPA Firm Mgmt. Association
5/19 LeadingAge Colorado
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6/16 Knox County Safety Council
7/13 Winding Riv. Mg. Partner Bootcamp
7/20 Southern Ohio Safety Council
8/4 Winding Riv. Mg. Partner Bootcamp
8/6 LeadingAge Ohio
8/10 Winding Riv. Mg. Partner Bootcamp
8/17 Winding Riv. Mg. Partner Bootcamp
9/22 Fire & Emergency Manufacturers
& Services Association (Tampa)
10/19 Winding Riv. Mg. Partner Bootcamp
11/2 Winding Riv. Mg. Partner Bootcamp
If you'd like to bring us in to speak at a conference or to your organization, either virtually or in-person, perhaps for your practice group, as a value-add for your existing clients or as a new business development event, please give Bruce Hennes a call at 216-321-7774.
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Hennes Communications
You have a situation.
We have a strategy.
Because the Court of Public Opinion is always in session.
www.crisiscommunications.com
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The Hennes Communications Team
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