Comments on: Five Simple Steps to a Classic PR Disaster

By: When it comes to crisis communications, plan for the worst « Bonnie Elgie – Blog

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:02:04 +0000

[...] For a look at what not to do during a crisis, read last week’s post on 3 crisis communications mistakes to avoid, and check out this story on how the City of Hamilton ended up in a PR disaster. [...]

By: The Anatomy of an Apology by @dbreakenridge

The Anatomy of an Apology by @dbreakenridge — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:04:12 +0000

[...] Tone and Intent. How many times have you heard an apology and felt it was forced, almost as if someone was saying, “Now, say you’re sorry,” not [...]

By: AmyMccTobin

AmyMccTobin — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 14:58:08 +0000

@HamOntReporter @belllindsay As a non involved observer here is my question: Is this blog post not accurate in its dissection of how Dialogue Partners responded to the uproar, orchestrated or not???? <— that is the entire point of dissecting what happened. As PR and Marketing professionals we learn from these occurrences. If indeed Dialogue Partners responded with snark, took down their exploding FB page etc., they should be fired for their reaction to the firestorm. After all, aren’t they PR Professionals themselves??Crises occur regularly; companies/cities/organizations hire outside consultants to guide them through them, not inflame them.

By: HamOntReporter

HamOntReporter — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 05:44:35 +0000

@belllindsay Here is a RE TWEET by the very same man – from two days ago — an elected councillor of the City of Hamilton – who has been one of the central Tweeters to spread the flames of hatred against the consultants – someone to whom research and facts are immaterial to the “game” :
20 Jan …. Even PR Daily has heard of #HamOnt’s PR campaign gone so, SO wrong! #OurHamilton http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/13623.aspx# … [[ "Retweeted by Sam Merulla" ]] What you call a “PR apocalypse” was nothing more than a well orchestrated public lynching. I hope someday, you do get around to researching this in depth and correcting your story — for it would be a great shame, if any Canadian PR professors or PR agencies were to end up using your article verbatim, as a case study.

By: HamOntReporter

HamOntReporter — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 05:17:24 +0000

@belllindsay Civilized conversations can only happen when one stops being so defensive and moralistic when one is called out for being slanderous and ill-informed. This is where your moral and ethical journalist compass went awry: “The problem started when The City of Hamilton hired a firm based in another city to build and launch the campaign.” What you are telling your readers is that the “culprit” was the consultant company — even before you have presented a prosecution worthy case. There was no problem well into 60% of the contracted work, up until part of the community engagement piece to be done over social media was initiated. Did you care to find out anything about the work done up this stage, the relationship between the city and the consultant upto this stage — before you went ahead and slandered the company in Step 1, itself? Your journalistic compass simply broke down, when you deleted my comments by claiming it to be: “rather inflammatory content”. What the normal world considers inflammatory is “public swarming”, and false claims by media experts. Calling out those who spin loose stories in the name journalism or PR insights… stories that destroy reputations of others with no shred of evidence that could be held up in court, is not an attack on your credibility. You simply fell on the your own credibility and trampled all over it when I merely presented the facts. That it hurts you now so much is immaterial. Think about how much hurt your ill-researched article may have caused those you slandered to begin with. By deleting my comment on the “11 MYTH of a poor campaign” – you managed to get rid of the Updates which you ought to have made promptly, when it was brought to your attention. ::::::: For the readers here, again the comment deleted here by the author, can be found under Update, in its entirety at: http://metrohamilton.ning.com/profiles/blogs/does-hamilton-s-twitter-universe-represent-the-whole-city Why is it so hard to accept that you made a big mistake, and give an apology that is convincing? I am so, so sorry that “I caught you”. I hope this is civilized enough a conversation for you. — Mahesh P. Butani

By: belllindsay

belllindsay — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 02:12:27 +0000

@HamOntReporter Based on your tone, as well as the previous comments you made on this site (which as Gini mentions below, were taken down due to their rather inflammatory content), in the end I was hoping that at best you and I could “agree to disagree” on this whole affair. However, with this last comment I must respond. I will not allow anyone to call into question my character or – more importantly – my journalistic integrity. I have spent the last 20+ years as a researcher, writer, producer and story teller, in various media. I’m quite adept at using Google, and social media, and found you in approximately :45 seconds. As for research, I wrote this story weeks ago, in fact within a day or so of the events in question. I was physically on the Facebook page and read all the comments and their apology – before Dialogue Partners pulled the page down. I also researched the Twitter side of the story, on the various streams and using the various hashtags. *Then* I researched various local news organizations – including the CBC – and their detailed meetings, interviews and reporting.

You might also have noticed that their are a few updates in my story. This is fairly standard journalistic practice – every so often there are corrections and/or updates to stories – in this case the bike path was wrongly reported by many, many outlets as being in Ottawa.

I might add, of the hundreds of people who read my story – including many, many Hamiltonians – that was the only correction I received.

I am happy to have civilized conversation and healthy debate with anyone – wouldn’t it be a boring world to live in if we all felt the same way about every issue? But I will not tolerate rudeness, highly inappropriate and inflammatory comparisons, nor attacks on my credibility.

By: HamOntReporter

HamOntReporter — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 23:35:18 +0000

**UPDATE: “Myths about the poor campaign” is published at: http://metrohamilton.ning.com/profiles/blogs/does-hamilton-s-twitter-universe-represent-the-whole-city

By: HamOntReporter

HamOntReporter — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 22:14:12 +0000

ginidietrich, AmyMccTobin: My apologies if you feel my comments are a rant. I was just mirroring the title and tone of this blog in my first line. I do not work for DP, nor am I in the PR industry. A simple Google search would have told you who I am — (interestingly those who joined in the lynching also told that DP should have just googled HSR!! and then concluded that DP did not have a clue of what they were doing!! … Don’t you think you have been unfair and defamed character with your story – when it is clear that you have not researched the piece you wrote, but just picked up what you found on the Internet and regurgitated it into 5 points? This is honest question. You’ll appear to be in the PR industry, and are very passionate about deconstructing incidents such as these. If any learning has to occur from this, it is important to sift thru spin and fact. I have presented what are facts. It is up to you to recognize it and verify it for yourselves, or discount it and continue with the expanded lynching. In presenting facts, names have to be named unfortunately. A crime was committed. It was not a “new-media community conversation” that went awry, it was a premeditated act, which cascaded into a national embarassment for all who participated in it, and continue to do so. — Mahesh P. Butani.

By: AmyMccTobin

AmyMccTobin — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 16:00:13 +0000

@ginidietrich @HamOntReporter I read your responses in my email delivery of Spin Sucks HamOntReporter and my only answer is: I hope you don’t actually work for Dialogue Partners, but I suspect you do. The first answer to a PR debacle is to NOT go on the attack. A sincere apology where appropriate, and an honest and open conversation about what happened is the answer. You are a) Anonymous, and b) ranting at fever pitch. A PR professional could really help you know.

By: ginidietrich

ginidietrich — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:27:50 +0000

@HamOntReporter I am the owner of this blog and one of our policies state we have fair and professional discourse. Your first sentence leads me to believe that is not your intent and, because you are posting without a name and under the auspice of “Hamilton Reporter,” my inclination is to remove your comments. I am leaving this one because it was the most tame of the three, but the other two have been deleted for defamation of character and unfair – and anonymous – mudslinging toward one of our guest authors.