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Who
Stepped In It
No Comment Strikes Again: Whether you ignore the reporter's call or say "no comment," you've just damaged your business. CEOs and business owners need to embrace the fact that "no comment" is not a smart public relations tactic. The public, shareholders, potential clients and employees see it as hiding, dodging, or stalling -- all hurtful to the company's image because you now look guilty as charged. Business leaders need to rise above their personal opinions of reporters and make a media call work in their favor. At the end of each day, you've either helped or hurt the company's bottom line. There's too much competition today to take such a huge step backwards.
Today's Virginian-Pilot reported that a Virginia Beach nursing home is one of the worst-performing facilities in the country, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. A call to the CEO "was not returned," the article said. The nursing home probably knew this story was coming. Its communications strategy should have included a media relations plan that mapped out how to handle a media call pertaining to a negative story. It should have laid out potential ways to get something positive in the story to leverage the negative facts being reported.
The CEO could have talked about improvements since the inspection, upcoming policy changes, immediate changes, etc. But, because of no apparent media plan, the public now sees that nursing home as cheap, arrogant and abusing the elderly. And the news gets worse for this company thanks to the Internet. If potential customers Google the nursing home's name in the future under various terms, no doubt this story will surface. And they will not read one positive statement by the CEO, who blew the opportunity.
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