The morning talent is accused of spousal abuse, leading to an arrest and a court battle. The high-profile midday talk talent is involved in a case of road rage. A personality decides to use “the great outdoors” as a urinal, leading to an arrest for indecent exposure. A fight at a remote broadcast puts a listener in the hospital. Waking to news on your own station that your star personality has been detained for DUI and resisting arrest.
These things, and more, have graced the headlines of news in communities and across the nation.
Broadcast groups spend money building shows. Talent are often connected to station brands. The magnitude of the success of talent comes from their hard work and the level of investment made in them. It’s become common knowledge that on-air personalities make the difference between new media and legacy media. Talent provide security when new competitors attack. Especially where talent are ingrained in the community.
Because of the strength of successful talent, those who are dominant and well known, bad behavior can lead to the loss of support from ownership and the audience, and no one wins. Situations like this have the potential to derail a career, cost a company advertisers and an audience, all while destroying a culture.
It’s been my professional experience that most times the talent who are at the center of crises are themselves devastated. Not all times have I seen the personality react with remorse, but often enough to believe that most do.
There have been times in my career when I’ve been hired as part of a crisis control team. Several times to work with artists and their management. Several times by radio companies to advise them on how to handle a situation. Not everything is an HR issue. Those are the easier problems to identify and address, as there are usually pretty clear parameters detailed in employment agreement clauses that address those issues.
The need for crisis control comes when something happens that impacts revenue or damages an image in a way that may have a long-lasting negative impact.
Crisis Management Actions:
- First action: pause and assess the situation. When things go wrong, shut down all comments temporarily, and give yourself time to examine the facts and weigh your options. Learn from history. How have others successfully handled similar unfortunate situations? What did they do well? What wasn’t done well? How did the advertising community or audience react? When do you do nothing and when do you do something? If you don’t control the narrative, the narrative will control you.
- No coverups. Tell the truth. History has shown that more individuals have had long-term problems in the aftermath of a crisis because of the coverup, and not because of the actual incident. President Bill Clinton comes to mind. He wasn’t impeached because he stepped outside of the bounds of his marriage. It was because he lied under oath. If you studied the Watergate Coverup in school, you know that what tarnished Richard Nixon’s presidency was the coverup.
- Sometimes it’s smart to apologize and disappear … for a while. John Lennon said that The Beatles were “More popular than Jesus” and that quote, taken out of context, could have ended their acceptance in North America. It was part of a remark made in a March 1966 interview, in which he argued that the public was more infatuated with the band than with Jesus, and that the Christian faith was declining to the extent that it might be outlasted by Rock music. The band finished their last show in August 1966 and retreated to the United Kingdom. The Beatles never toured anywhere again.
- What you do next matters. In 1996, then Baltimore Orioles All-Star player Roberto Alomar got into an argument with Major League Baseball umpire John Hirschbeck over a called third strike. He spit in the umpire’s face. In a postgame interview, he referenced Hirschbeck being an angry man since the death of his eight-year-old son. The two continued their feud through that season, but by October of that year they had publicly made up, and Alomar apologized to Hirschbeck. Alomar joined with Hirschbeck in donating money to look for a cure for the disease that claimed the umpire’s infant son. The two joined forces and created a foundation and continue to focus on stamping out adrenoleukodystrophy.
- Create a Sense of Community. Charlotte Jones Anderson is the Dallas Cowboys’ Executive Vice President and Chief Brand Officer, in addition to being the daughter of the owner of the Cowboys, Jerry Jones. Ms. Anderson spoke at the 2019 Radio Show, produced by the NAB and RAB, in Dallas. She spoke of a problem that arose when Hall of Fame player Michael Irvin, early in his time with the Cowboys, was arrested for drugs and prostitution. Irvin had tarnished the Cowboys’ name.
Jones shared that she decided that the team needed to enlist Irvin and other Cowboys players in helping raise money for the Salvation Army. The Cowboys had to show that they were worthy of the title “America’s Team.” It was her initiative and marketing savvy that took the spotlight off of bad behavior and shone it on their good behavior. The first time the familiar red Salvation Army kettle was in an end zone at an NFL game was during a Thanksgiving Day Cowboys game.
She was appointed Chairman of the Salvation Army’s National Advisory Board a few years ago and is the first woman to ever serve in that role. Her amazing accomplishment, while admirable, isn’t the point. The point is that she found the good inside of Irvin and engaged him in helping a national charity. That move put the good in Michael Irvin on display. It put the shine back on the star on the side of the Cowboys’ helmet.
The 8 Steps to Recover:
- Shut down all comments until you have a chance to analyze the situation.
- Hit pause. Pull everyone together and understand what happened.
- Answer the question: what’s the negative impact of the situation? Address that.
- Search for the truth. Demand the truth.
- No Cover-ups. Whatever “It” is or was, own it.
- Does the situation warrant an apology? If you offer one, it has to be sincere.
- Does the talent disappear for a while? This is important if some form of rehabilitation is warranted.
- Can you engage with community service or a charity to show that, at the root, the talent is a good person, and the company/station are good people?
