Sep 10
Myths, lies and crisis management
When did lying become such an acceptable part of political public relations?
That was a question I was asked during the heat of the debate on healthcare reform in America.
I really don’t know the answer, or even if it is becoming more acceptable today to lie in the name of winning a political campaign; whether it’s in support of a ballot issue, congressional legislation, or win majority control of Congress or a state legislature. Personally, I don’t think so, but I do know that lying is becoming more and more mainstream in politics.
On the national level in America, lying seems to have hit a new low when opponents of healthcare reform began crying out that the legislation being pushed by the Democrat-controlled Congress and the Obama Administration would require “death panels” to determine the future of our country’s elderly. Despite being debunked by the news media, the AARP, GOP political pundits and even many top Republicans in Congress, the lie continues.
It’s similar to the campaign by the so-called “birthers,” who claim that President Obama isn’t qualified to be president under the U.S. Constitution because he wasn’t born in America. Again, despite being debunked by just about everyone, the campaign continues. And yes, Hawaii is part of the United States and yes that is where President Obama was born. He was not born in Kenya.
In Ohio, there is a campaign today to allow gambling casinos in the state. Both campaigns are accusing the other one of lying. And, who knows which one is telling the truth.
The loophole that seems to open the door for lies these days is to say something “could happen.” Under that philosophy, just about anything is possible. So does that make lying more acceptable?
Lying, and how to confront it when the lies are being lodged against you, your campaign or your company isn’t new in America, but it does seem to be reaching new levels.
A national fast-food chain, years ago, had to respond to malicious allegations that there were “worms” in its hamburgers. Other consumer products have had smear campaigns linking their products to Satanism. The campaigns against those lies were long and costly even though there was never any truth to the allegations.
The problem is that no matter how ridiculous the lie may seem at the time, if it is told often enough, some people will ultimately believe it. That was the case years ago in America and it is even truer today, in part due to radio and cable talk-show hosts and the ever-present internet.
Despite the belief that America is a country of intelligent and well-educated people, we are – at least in part – a nation of individuals who at times can be extremely gullible and will believe what we want to believe, even when it is not true.
And for those of us in crisis management, fighting the "believable" lie may be one of the most difficult tasks we can face.
You can’t ignore lies. Not with the internet. Not with bloggers and talk-show hosts who will repeat them, even knowing there is no truth to them.
But how do you take them on? You can identify them for what they are; mistruths, myths, fabrications and lies. But you have to do it with credible statements and credible spokespersons. It is not easy and there is no guarantee that even that will work.
Over the past two decades in crisis management, I have often stated that the best quality a corporate spokesperson can possess is credibility. If people don’t believe you, it doesn’t make any difference whether you’re telling the truth or not.
Unfortunately, the opposite also exists today. If you’re an incredibly credible spokesperson, people may believe you even when you lie.
Aug 27
Crisis Management and the Web
For the past several months, one of the forums on this site has been discussing the demise of newspapers throughout the U.S. and how the web has become a more and more important way for Americans to get news.
The next question, for those of us in crisis management, is how does the shrinking role of newspapers and the growing role of bloggers, forums and online news sites change the way we do business?
For one thing, no one in crisis management can afford to ignore what happens on the internet. A misstatement at a public meeting can be captured on a videophone and end up on YouTube within seconds. So much for the daily news cycle. You can even forget about the continuing news coverage of cable television. Now it’s 24/7 on the web, worldwide.
What we’re finding in our practice is that the declining number of reporters on newspapers and possibly local television stations has been more than made up for by a flood of new “journalists” on the World Wide Web.
There was a time when you might have only worried about the three major networks, CNN and Fox, local television, your local daily and possibly a handful of other publications that might have an interest in what you were doing; particularly when what you were doing had the scent of a crisis.
Not to worry, but today you can be contacted any time of the day or night by a “reporter” or “columnist” for an online web site you’ve never even heard of. And, the fact that you’ve never heard of them doesn’t mean they don’t have just as much – if not more – power than your local newspaper might ever have had.
That happened to one of our clients the other day. The PR guy got a call from a freelance “reporter” with quite a following on the blogosphere. She was demanding, pretty much pre-determined what she wanted to do and she wanted it “now.” She had already called some of the company’s executives the night before and got through. Now, she just wanted to wrap up her story.
The risk with reporters like this one is not that different than some of the local newspaper reporters in the past. A “local” story can be picked up by the Associated Press and become national or even international within hours.
With the web, it works much the same although a story that begins on the web may end up on Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh within a few hours. All of a sudden you find yourself faced with trying to defend your company’s actions with a talk show host who has already made up his mind that you’re wrong. And, possibly his or her guest contributor on the show, is – you guessed it – the blogger who wrote the piece to begin with.
So how does this change the way we do business in crisis management?
For starters, you have to take every call from a “reporter” seriously. It doesn’t make any difference whether they’re writing for the New York Times or a web site. It also means you have to start watching the web a little more carefully because they may just write about your company without ever talking to you.
But, when you respond, if you choose to do so, you still need to react with a carefully constructed message that gets your point of view across. And, you need to respond quickly.
Trained spokespersons and crisis teams that can develop the right strategy and the right message are more essential today, perhaps, than they’ve ever been.
Just because the news may be moving more and more toward the web doesn’t mean that it’s gotten any easier to get your message across. It just means you’re dealing with a new medium. A sound bite is still a sound bite. A corporate message is still a corporate message. And a carefully orchestrated crisis strategy is still vital for your survival.
Aug 10
The Power of corporate apologies
Have you ever been running through an airport to catch a flight and then got up to the gate agent only to find out that your flight has been canceled? If so, then you know firsthand how important a simple apology might have felt at the time.
Instead, however, most of us get to the gate agent – often angry and upset – only to be told that the agent has (1.) no control over the problem, (2.) that it was an Air Traffic Control problem, (3.) that they’ll book you on the next flight out sometime next week, or (4.) good luck finding a hotel room at this time of night.
A little less excuses and a little more empathy and yes, even an apology, would go over real nice about now.
Perhaps it’s the potential legal repercussions or they just don’t feel responsible, but much of corporate America seems to have a problem with saying they’re sorry.
Years ago, we were working with a corporation that had been accused of wrongdoing that impacted the nation’s school lunch program. It was if, one news organization said, they were stealing the change out of little kids’ pockets. When we started looking into the problem, we found out that some of the company’s executive’s had indeed been involved in some shady behavior. In addition to trying to make the situation right, we went on network TV with a statement from the company’s second-highest ranking official.
His message: What happened was wrong. We will take actions to see that it never happens again and – oh yes – he apologized to anyone – particularly the school children – who were in any way impacted by his company’s actions.
A few years later, we were involved with a hospital where a nurse was involved in a scenario in which she was believed to have stolen powerful pain medications from post operative patients. When the hospital’s president went on television to talk to reporters, the message was once again: What happened was wrong. We will take actions to see that it never happens again, and – once again – he apologized to anyone – particularly the patients and their families – who in anyway may have suffered as a result of the nurse’s actions.
A similar statement has been incorporated in our consulting work for many years now, ranging from incidents of racial discrimination to people being evacuated from their homes due to chemical spills.
It was never said because it might help reduce the number of lawsuits (which it has in some cases), but because it was the right thing to do.
Today, more and more hospitals are inclined to take responsibility for their actions when someone does something wrong and patients are negatively impacted. The same thing seems to be happening to some extent with other industries.
Still, there are those who maintain that apologizing for an inconvenience or upsetting someone is not the way to go, even though ultimately it might work very much in their favor.
Although I’ve been a firm believer in the power or apologizing for some time, I was even more convinced when I heard a student in one of my media training classes tell the story of his brother who was involved in a car-truck accident.
He said while his brother was in the hospital hoping to recover from his injuries, the officials with the company that owned the truck went out of their way to make sure he got everything he needed and that the family was taken care of. All of this, he said, was done very quietly, without any fanfare whatsoever.
Following his brother’s death, the student said some members of his family wanted to sue the truck company for what they had done to his brother. But the victim’s mother spoke up. She asked, “How could we possibly sue them after all they’ve done for us?”
The bottom line was that she didn’t have to. The company could do absolutely nothing to bring back her son, but they did about everything that could have been accomplished in a lawsuit without ever having to go through the time and turmoil.
For more that two decades, I have been preaching that crisis management often can be defined as just “doing the right thing.” You don’t do it to avoid lawsuits. You don’t do it to save money. You just do it because it is the right thing to do.
That includes apologizing once in a while in times of crisis. Sometimes, it is just the right thing to do.
Jul 18
That's the way it was
Hardly a week goes by in our media training classes that we don’t hear complaints from our students regarding the news media. Often, it is about the media’s lack of objectivity. Often, they believe the news media is too opinionated.
We hear that Fox News is too conservative, that CNN is too liberal and that most newspapers are terribly biased in their reporting.
Oh, for the good ole days when reporters kept opinions to themselves.
That was one of the comments I heard Friday, just a few hours prior to learning of the death of the legendary Walter Cronkite: the most trusted man in America.
I was a student when Walter Cronkite first took over the anchor chair and I vividly remember sitting in a high school study hall when he reported on the death of President John F. Kennedy. In Vietnam, I used to view his newscasts – usually days later – after they were flown over to our information office. It was interesting to be in the war and see how it was being covered back home. It provided us with a perspective you couldn't get anywhere else. Partly as a result of his broadcasts, I changed my personal perspective on the war. Much of America did the same and as a result, Walter Cronkite changed American history. President Lyondon Johnson figured if he had lost Walter Cronkite's support, he had lost middle America's support.
Year’s later, I remember his reporting on Neil Armstrong becoming the first man to step foot on the moon. I’ll never forget it. My son was born the next day.
By the time Walter Cronkite was covering the Watergate scandal, I was a political reporter and saw his newscast as the one all other journalists used as a yardstick to measure their professionalism.
I was overjoyed at the thought in 1976 that I was going to scoop CBS on Jimmy Carter clinching the Democratic presidential nomination. But Walter wasn’t going to let that happen. He led with it the night before my paper could run the story.
Then there was the story I broke in China in 1978 about student unrest at the universities. Walter led with it and attributed it. I was in Seventh Heaven when I learned about it. To me, having Walter Crokite use your story was the gold standard. It couldn't get much better than that for a young reporter.
I never had the chance to meet Walter Cronkite, but clearly he was a big part of my life, as he was part of most Americans’ lives who watched television news in the 70s and 80s.
When I first started in public relations, Walter was no longer the CBS anchor, but he was still very much a part of journalism. My opinion is that he always will be.
As for the charges that many of today’s reporters and news anchors lack objectivity, it depends on whom you are comparing them with.
If Walter Cronkite is the standard, no one else will ever measure up. There will never be another Cronkite. And, that is just the way it is.
Jul 02
"Fatal" Distractions in Media Training
With almost every media training workshop we’ve conducted over the past two decades, we’ve asked students to fill out a questionnaire that provides us with a “report card” of sorts on how we did as well as help make sure we’re on track for future workshops.
It has always been our attempt to make the workshop as good an experience for them as we can. And, we know that there are many factors that go into the “good experience” equation than just the training program and the skills of the presenter. The workshop facility itself often plays a major role in how students evaluate their personal experience with media training.
That’s why we’ve always asked students to evaluate the facility where the training is conducted, as well as the workshop’s content and the way it was presented. A cold room, a cramped room, a noisy room or bad food can directly impact the way students look at the overall training experience.
We also ask whether they prefer to have future training conducted on site at their location – say in a training room or conference room - or off-site such as a local conference center or hotel.
Although many clients prefer the convenience and economics of conducting the training at their own facility, it often comes with a hefty price in the way of distractions. When your office, boss, colleague, and computer are just down the hallway or a floor away on the elevator, it’s difficult to give training your full attention. Just having your cell phone or Blackberry at a workshop can be a distraction.
Over the years, I can’t remember the number of students who have been called out of training sessions by their bosses: often the same people who asked that the training be scheduled in the first place. But it’s not always the boss who is the distraction. When the “boss” is in the training, there is never a shortage of people who seem to need his or her attention “right now.”
One of my favorite “complaints” came a few weeks ago from an executive who came in late for the group session, left frequently and then questioned why we didn’t cover some of the material he thought we should. The fact was that we did cover the material. He just wasn’t there to witness it. During the six-hour session, I doubt he was in the room for more than 90 minutes.
More recently, we had a one-on-one session for an executive who asked not to be disturbed during the training. That lasted about an hour and a half, before colleagues dragged him away for other pressing priorities.
I guess the bottom line is this: Media training requires not only a financial commitment, but a personal time commitment, as well. It works best when students can devote their full and undivided attention to the subject at hand. That is difficult to do when their attention is being diverted by other people and priorities.
When clients ask us for a recommendation on whether the training should be conducted on-site or off-site, I try to let them know the challenges of conducting the training at your own facility. It can be done, but there can be potential distractions that can negatively impact the training.
In case you’re wondering how students answer the “on-site, off-site” question, it’s probably about 50-50. It depends on their experience. When distractions become a factor, however, most opt for off-site workshops in the future.
Jun 02
Crisis Management on the cheap?
In today’s economic climate, it’s easy for companies to balk at anything that looks even remotely expensive, whether it’s business travel, office expenses or the cost of hiring an outside consultant to provide counsel on crisis management.
As the current recession progresses, we’ve been finding more and more resistance from companies who are balking at the price of crisis management. As a business owner, I understand the need to keep expenses down when times are tough. And in the 22 years I’ve been in business as a crisis management consultant, this is the toughest I’ve ever seen.
But what is the real price of crisis management? If the crisis is real and the need is great, it’s hard to place a value on a good crisis management strategy.
And what is the cost of not having a crisis management strategy? With more and more companies in bankruptcy these days, I believe we already know.
Throughout the two plus decades we’ve been in business, it seems most clients typically wait until they are in the middle of a crisis before they seek help. Some come at the very onset, but that’s not the norm. Most of our business comes from current clients or referrals from them, or as a result of our web site, speeches, articles or word-of-mouth.
Although some of our clients ask upfront what our fees will be and what we anticipate overall expenses to be, some never ask at all. If your company’s existence is at risk, they seem to think the cost of doing nothing would far exceed anything we could charge them.
Still, we see some organizations treat the purchase of crisis management consulting as they would purchasing a used car or hiring a plumber. They want to know in advance details of what we’ll do for them, what it will cost along with references and what kind of warranty we offer. I know I can’t speak for others, but isn’t that something you ought to think about before the crisis? When your house is burning down, do you want to start interviewing various fire departments and then go with the lowest bid?
I guess my advice to company leaders is this: give some thought to crisis management before you’re engaged in a real crisis. Check out who you’d like to work with if things suddenly turn sour and establish some kind of relationship with them now. Don’t wait until the crisis strikes. Believe me; while you’re interviewing potential consultants, you’re going to lose control of the crisis.
Fees are important. There’s no doubt about that. But, fees aren’t everything. You need to find someone you can work with who can be your partner in managing a crisis.
From my experience in handling a multitude of crisis situations over the past two decades, I can tell you that the cost of a good consultant is minimal compared to the cost of letting the crisis get out of hand.
In fact, it is my belief that crisis management – whether it’s on-the-scene consulting during a major crisis or preparing for the possibility of a crisis in advance – should cost you nothing. It should more than pay for itself in benefits you can take advantage of in better managing your organization.
Crisis management is just part of good overall management. And good management comes at a price. You can’t do it on the cheap.
May 19
Ready for your own mock disaster?
As a crisis management firm, we get many inquiries each year from individuals and organizations interested in staging mock disasters. A lot of those people don’t have a full appreciation for how difficult it is to stage a mock disaster drill, or the potential costs involved.
Many are from schools, hospitals, fire departments and other government or not-for-profit organizations who feel if we provide them with some basic information, they can stage their own mock disaster and save the costs of outside consultants. While it is possible to “build your own mock disaster,” it can be a real challenge. And, it can get expensive. That's why most of the mock disasters we conduct each year are for corporations or large hospitals.
The problem most organizations face in staging their own mock disaster is they don’t start at the right place. They often spend a lot of time creating the scenario and then somehow hope it will help them gauge their ability to cope with something similar in real life. Too often, they end up disappointed.
From our point of view, if you’re a fire department and your disaster drill involves a fire, it’s a fair bet that you already know how to put it out. If you’re a hospital, you probably already know how to handle a heavy influx of patients.
When we develop mock disasters, we start off with the questions: What is it you want to accomplish as a result of this drill? What is it you want to test? What systems or individuals do you want to test?
We then build the mock disaster around those needs and incorporate a method of testing to see how they do. Did they pass, fail, or break even? Why did they fail? What can they do to make sure they do better the next time? We want to make it tough, but so tough that everyone participating throws their arms up in despair. It needs to be challenging, not impossible. And, it needs to be realistic.
The scenario is simply a “vehicle” to test the organization’s crisis management capabilities. In our mock disasters, it is always a vehicle to test their crisis communications capabilities, as well.
All of the communications aspects of our mock disasters are videotaped, often by multiple cameras strategically located to record what individuals did right, and what they did wrong. This includes not only media interviews and news conferences, but actions inside the crisis control center and sometimes out in the field.
The video works hand-in-hand with critiques by controllers and evaluators, as well as self evaluations by those participating in the drill. While a participant or evaluator might have some built-in prejudices, the camera doesn’t.
My advice to those wanting to stage a mock disaster is first; ask themselves “why?” Why are they doing it? What do they want to accomplish? And, what kind of budget is available?
You can conduct a meaningful mock disaster on a relatively modest budget, or you can go all out. It depends on what you want to accomplish. How involved does the the scenario need to be? How many outside participants will be involved such as mock reporters, camera crews and other role-players, controllers, evaluators?
When done right, however, a mock disaster can be of tremendous value and well worth the effort and expense.
May 04
Preparation is key to good interviews
In our media training workshops, we go over the need for preparing for interviews over and over again. I tell students you probably wouldn’t try to give an important speech without at least some degree of preparation, so doesn’t it just make sense that you should prepare for an important interview with the news media?
Most students thoroughly agree with the need for being prepared, but in their first mock, on-camera interviews, they often find they weren’t as prepared as they thought they were. It can be embarrassing.
Something like that may have been going through Vice President Joe Biden’s mind recently after he told The Today Show’s Matt Lauer what he thought people should do about traveling during the Swine Flu threat. He honestly answered the question saying he didn’t think people should travel on airplanes or subways. That wasn’t exactly what the Obama Administration had in mind and they’ve been trying to “re-spin” Biden’s comments ever since.
The vice president’s episode of “misspeaking” certainly wasn’t his first, nor will it likely be his last. He’s historically had a penchant for speaking his mind without assessing the potential consequences. He’s not alone. A lot of us wish we could have “do overs” when it comes to media interviews. Most of us just don't like embarrassing ourselves in front of millions of television viewers.
Too often, political and corporate spokespersons engage in media interviews without being as prepared as they ought to be. I’m not sure whether they feel they don’t have the time; that they don’t feel the interview is important, or they have seriously misjudged their ability to communicate without preparation. To my way of thinking, all media interviews are important, particularly in a crisis.
In a crisis situation, it is not unusual for a spokesperson to have to speak to the news media with very little time for preparation. There is pressure to get information out quickly. But that doesn’t mean you should speak to the news media without a game plan. In a crisis, you may not have as much time as you would like to have for preparation, so you take the time you do have, even if it is only a few minutes.
For as long as I’ve been doing media training, I have told students that they should never do an interview unless they know their message, package it in a way the news media can use it and can deliver it with conviction.
I also tell them that they should never do an interview unless they are prepared. That includes anticipating questions and knowing how you will answer them.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Obama Administration isn’t saying something similar to the vice president these days.
Apr 16
Keeping the crisis local
The best way to control a crisis, I was told years ago by a veteran public relations professional, is to “keep it local.” His philosophy was that if you kept a lid on the crisis and let it play out locally, perhaps it wouldn’t become a national crisis. And those, he knew from experience, were the worst kind.
But, that was before YouTube, MyFace and Twitter. Today, keeping a crisis local, has gotten a lot more difficult.
Domino’s Pizza found that out recently when two of their employees did some disgusting things with the food in one of their restaurants, videotaped their actions and then put it on YouTube. Within a couple of days, more than a half-million people had viewed the video. By the time it was becoming legendary on the internet, the mainstream media got word of it and it started making the rounds on cable and finally broadcast news via The Today Show and others.
Employees characterized the stunt as a prank, and Domino's said the filthy food was never served. But a spokeswoman said the company "was not in a forgive-and-forget mood," the BBC reported. The chain has gone a step further, with the affected North Carolina franchise filing a criminal complaint against the ex-employees and police issuing a felony warrant for their arrest, according to the BBC.
Domino's apologized for the actions of "Michael" and "Kristy" and said the videos marred "the hard work performed by the 125,000 men and women working for Domino's" in the United States and all over the world.
Domino’s was praised for its swift, deliberate action, but could it keep the story local? No chance. Considering the popularity of the infamous video on the internet, I’m not sure there was any way Domino’s could have kept the work of its two moron workers within the environs of Conover, N.C.
The internet, as we have been discussing on crisismanagementforum.com, has changed the way events become crises and it has changed the way they are reported. In the early days of crisis management, PR people were often hired to keep a story out of the newspaper. With newspapers on the decline these days, that may not be difficult. But keeping the story off the internet? That may be next to impossible.
I’m still new to LinkedIn, but there must be dozens of forums there where stories like this are being discussed. YouTube, of course, is always waiting for a popular – even if disgusting – video. There are just too many opportunities and too many people to take advantage of those opportunities to keep the story local much of the time.
In the “old days” prior to the internet, we thought one way to keep the story local was to respond locally and respond quickly. That still works today, but only to an extent. It depends on the “disgust” factor sometimes and Domino’s had a very high factor when it came to disgusting. This was the kind of story that used to be fodder for grocery store tabloids. Today it’s the kind of stuff that feeds YouTube and the rest of the internet.
Today, I think you have to assume a bad story can end up on the internet and consequently on the morning news shows and the front page of the New York Times. And, I think you have to respond accordingly.
That fast, local reaction is still important. But it’s important to go beyond that. Domino’s responded on the internet as it was responding to the mainstream media. That’s important today.
It’s also important to make monitoring the internet a part of your overall monitoring of the news media. If you’re only subscribing to a service that monitors newspapers and television these days, you’re not monitoring all of the media, just part of it.
Apr 07
Who’s going to cover the school board?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always read newspapers while traveling – either for business, or vacation. But this past week, I found myself breaking that habit. I hope it’s temporary.
I was on a short vacation and staying in a rented condo vs. a hotel room, so there was no newspaper being delivered to my door, or in the lobby. As a result, getting a paper meant walking to a local newspaper box. After depositing my 50 cents and returning with my prized newspaper, I noticed the newspaper was a lot thinner than I remembered it in vacations past. It also was more expensive and it seemed like there wasn’t an awful lot of news in it. The business section had all but disappeared, as is the case in a growing number of papers today.
I spent more time watching the cable news channels and checking headlines on my laptop. Ultimately, I stopped walking by the newspaper box and just checked the headlines on the internet.
As I was catching up on the latest news, I read or listened to probably a half-dozen stories on dying newspapers. There were also more and more stories on newsroom layoffs at television stations and how competing stations were now going together to cover news conferences. Newspaper reporters are already reporting the news on some TV stations and TV reporters are reporting the news in some newspapers. The result is that we have fewer and fewer reporters covering the news.
I have no doubt as we turn more and more to the internet, cable news and iReporters armed with their video phones, the big stories will continue to be covered “somewhere.” We can probably read about them on the internet, if no where else. CNN will always cover the Earthquakes in Italy or the shootings in New York. And, they’ll always have their “analysts” to tell us what President Obama’s latest speech really means.
What I began worrying about on this trip, however, is who will be covering the local school board or checking the public records at the court house?
When I first started out as a newspaper reporter, I spent what seemed like a lifetime checking public records or attending public meetings. Most of which I found extremely boring. But, occasionally, you’d find the kind of information that news stories are based on. Occasionally, you’d uncover political corruption. Occasionally, all that boring work seemed to be worthwhile. You felt you were making a difference.
If the layoffs in newspaper and television newsrooms continue. If we have less and less competition among news-gathering organizations, what happens to coverage of those “boring” school board meetings and court house records? Will the iReporters cover them? Will they break the news stories on corruption? I doubt it.
As a young reporter, when I’d complain about covering another boring public meeting or spending an hour at the court house reviewing boring records, my editor reminded me that was what journalism was all about. “If we don’t watch the public officials,” he’d say, “no one will and they’d be able to operate without the scrutiny provided by a free press.”
But now there are fewer and fewer watchful, watch dogs looking over the shoulders of public officials. This doesn’t mean all public officials are going to go out and try to plunder the institutions they are entrusted to protect, but it means there are fewer and fewer people watching them to make sure they don’t.
I personally like to think that somehow newspapers will survive this current crisis that threatens them. I personally like to think that local television will become more and more aggressive in reporting and uncovering corruption. I’d like to think that we don’t have to depend on iReporters to keep a check on public institutions.
I believe a lot of us would like to think that.
8:38 PM Sep 3