I read and digested chapters 10 and 11, but I am following
my anger with this post. I know I am not directly discussing the models and
case studies outlined by Cornelissen, but I need to vent. When I read the
chapters, my continual thoughts were that this is a guidebook for the powerful
to obfuscate, evade, and even lie to the less powerful.
I am a fan of team sports: baseball, basketball, football,
soccer, hockey. At the professional level these sports generate tremendous amounts
of attention and with that attention comes tremendous revenue. Because of all
that attention and revenue, along with other cultural factors, issue and crisis
management are especially compelling to me through the lens of major
professional sports. Essentially, most
organizations in the world of sports favor a tone-deaf approach to both issues
and crises to the detriment of society. (Yes, I see the hypocrisy of my anger
and concern because I keep watching and supporting these sports.)
For example, the professional football team in Washington
D.C. has a nickname that is a racial slur. Many media outlets have already
taken to only referring to the team as “Washington,” and a federal court has
struck down the team’s trademark registration rights because of the offensive
nickname. The owner, Daniel Snyder, does nothing but double down on his aggressive stance that the name is not offensive and it will not change as long
as he is the team’s owner.
This example is interesting because Snyder views this as an
issue as defined by Cornelissen. It is simply something that is negatively
affecting the reputation of the organization (p. 181). To outside activists and
many football fans, this issue is a crisis. The name needs to change
immediately.
The sheer power of certain organizations affords them
opportunities to keep the perception of issues from becoming crises by force. Because
of this, I question how Cornelissen decides to differentiate the two terms.
Another example of the fuzzy dividing line between issue and
crisis and how it is exploited by powerful organizations also comes from the
sordid world of professional sports. Chicago Blackhawks star Patrick Kane was
recently under investigation for rape in Buffalo, NY. In this example, we have
a crisis being treated as an issue again, but the crisis is far larger than and
more important than the reputation of a hockey team.
Our country continually refuses to confront how prevalent
sexual assault is, how few victims actually report the crimes, and how victims
are shamed and degraded. The Patrick Kane case reinforces these ideas. The Chicago
Blackhawks recently gave him a platform to claim his innocence and call the
victim a liar when he spoke at a press conference to open the team’s training
camp last week. This action of crisis management enables the type of people who
make death threats at journalists covering the story, which is exactly what Julie DiCaro experienced.
Am I overreacting and again allowing my politics and proclivities to guide my reading and resulting criticism of the chapters? The case studies in these two chapters are not as ugly as my examples, but they do nothing to move me from my original assertion that these chapters are a handbook for denial and cover-up.
I am glad that you chose to express your frustrations about how powerful organizations spin messages at the expense of the less powerful. The fact is, what many organizations deem "issues" or "crises" are often attempts to conceal or explain away unethical actions. In your example of sports teams covering up sexual assault and domestic violence, the desire to protect what Cornelissen would consider a supporter stakeholder (and a valuable asset) is more important than the ethical demands of a low priority problematic stakeholder. While I am sure there are some examples of organizations employing issue and crises communication strategies for good causes, it is more common that they engage in these tactics to cover up bad behavior.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you're overreacting at all. Corporate communications is essentially a way for those groups that care not about the communities in which they operate as much as they care about depleting a many resources from those communities as they are able. This goes all the way back to my initial feelings on corporations which I expressed in my first blog entry: they tend to be evil, manipulative, and power hungry. Applying the text's model to the examples you point out makes that crystal clear to me.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right when you say that "this is a guidebook for the powerful to obfuscate, evade, and even lie to the less powerful." And speaking of sports, my undergraduate alma mater is the University of North Dakota (aka the Fighting Sioux). They have gone without a nickname for a few years now I think because they stubbornly didn't want to change their nickname. The Sioux nation in North Dakota, apparently, has stated that they don't mind the nickname. They built a new arena some years ago from donations from an alum (I can't remember is name right now). In that arena the Fighting Sioux logo is imprinted practically on every other tile. They are currently running a campaign to pick a new name. I wonder how they are going to handle the logo situation. As long as different sports make money, they will not be penalized. And the Sioux are 1 or 2 in the WCHA championship. [I hope I have that right. It's been many years. :) ]
ReplyDelete