There’s an old adage that goes, “the cover-up is greater than the crime.”
I don’t fully agree with it; it depends on what the crime was.
But one thing that’s evident is that covering up a crime, no matter how big or small, will usually lead to extensive negative media coverage for the offender(s). All PR people should remember that.
Below are four examples of how the cover-up of a situation backfired for the perpetrators.
All the examples below have received negative media coverage; two still on-going, the others are occasionally the focus of current news.
Current:
The Trump-Epstein Affaire: Because Mr. Trump and his other supporters said that the Democrats were not being transparent and were covering up facts used in the conviction of Jeffrey Epstein, it became a major PR crisis for the administration when it refused to release the Epstein files after saying they would do so. Lesson to be Learned: Never make statements to the media on behalf of a client unless you follow through with what you promised. If you don’t, it will result in two PR crises – One for the client and one for you and your agency.
Colbert’s firing by CBS: Despite Colbert’s “The Late Show” being the number one rated program in its time slot, CBS fired him just a few days after he said the deal between CBS and Trump, regarding the editing of a Kamala Harris interview on “60 Minutes,” looks like a $16M bribe because CBS needed the Trump administration’s approval for the $8.4 billion merger between its parent company, Paramount Global, and Skydance Media. The FCC approved the merger on July 24 with the understanding that Skydance would not produce diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The timing of Colbert’s firing created a PR crisis for CBS, which was accentuated after the FCC approval. Lesson to be Learned: When dealing with a controversial situation, PR people must factor in the optics of the circumstances when crafting a defense to prevent a self-inflicted crisis. (Ironically, now that “The Late Show” will end next May advertisers might flock to the show in the expectation that it will receive major media coverage and a surge in viewership.)
Occasionally:
The National Football League’s concussions problem: For many years, the NFL denied that concussions suffered in a football game resulted in serious brain damage and attempted to destroy the reputations of medical scientists who said otherwise. As a result, whenever a NFL player donates his brain for concussion research, it becomes a major news story, most often including the NFL’s past history of denial. Despite the NFL’s PR campaign to convince the media and public that it is taking steps to improve the safety of its players, the NFL’s statements about concussions are largely taken with a grain of salt. Here’s why: “In Vengeful Screed, Talk of C.T.E. and a Plea to ‘Study My Brain’ was the headline of a page one article in the July 30 New York Times. The article was about the midtown New York shooting by a football player who blamed the NFL for his having what he believed is chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the brain disease known as C.T.E, which was found in the brains of football players who donated their brains to scientists to study the life-altering and life-taking disease. The article included details how for years the league denied that football concussions could cause brain injuries and attempted to cover up the situation. Then, on July 31, the Times published an article headlined “Familiar Suicide and Final Wish of New York Gunman” which detailed other football players who killed themselves because of C.T.E. Lesson to be Learned: Once a company, or individual like Donald Trump has a history of lying, or covering up a situation, everything an entity or individual says is taken with a grain of salt by reporters. PR people should always advise clients to be truthful, and can use the current Trump-Epstein and the NFL history of stonewalling about concussions as an example.
Baseball’s Steroid problem: For 20 years, from the late 1980s to the late 2000’s, Major League Baseball players were hitting what were called ‘moon shot home runs.” Many players, including standouts Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Alex Rodriguez, were accused of using steroids and other performance enhancing supplements (PEDS). Concerned about the dangers of using steroids by young athletes, in 2005 Congress investigated the use of steroids and PEDs in baseball and found a substantial number of players were using them. As a result, because of Congressional pressure, MLB began testing players for use of the products. But even today, the use of performance enhancing drugs continues and players caught using them face penalties. Lesson to be Learned: If a PR practitioner represents an individual or entity that has had a PR crisis in the past, part of every program should contain a “crisis response” plan that can be used if the past crisis again becomes newsworthy. In addition, the use of athletes as publicity spokespersons must be carefully vetted to make certain that the person was not a PED user in the past.
Unlike new crises which always deserve original thinking, it should be easy to craft a response to an old crisis that might become temporarily newsworthy because the client is not the center of the new crisis. But it’s important to remember that one negative article is not a PR crisis and does not need a response.
