For years, many years, I’ve been writing and telling PR practitioners that once a client has had a PR crisis it’s embedded in the client’s DNA and can resurface any time. And I’ve counseled that PR account handlers should always be prepared for a crisis to reappear.
In 2018 and 2019, within five months of each other, two Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashed, initiating a crisis for the company that is still written about in 2025. The response by Boeing to the disasters was disastrous and provided “do not copy” lessons. (More on that later.)
Within the last few weeks, two other PR crises from the past have made news headlines—one regarding baseball player Pete Rose, the other sportscaster Brent Musburger.
The Rose situation was given new life when President Donald Trump lobbied MLB commissioner Rob Manfred to allow Rose to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, even though Rose was on “the ineligible list” because of his betting on baseball, a violation of the rules.
After commissioner Manfred removed Rose and others from the list, media stories reported on Rose’s behavior, which included, in addition to his betting on baseball, serving a jail term for tax avoidance and having an affair with an underage girl, which he denied.
Some baseball players were on record as saying Rose’s conduct should bar him from being elected to the Hall of Fame; others said he should be in the Hall, and others were undecided.
But a May 14 Boston Herald commentary by Gabrielle Starr looked at Rose’s reinstatement from a different angle. The article is headlined “Pete Rose Reinstatement Sends Terrible Message to Women.” She wrote in part:
“Neither camp is focusing enough on what really matters in a discussion about Rose’s Hall of Fame eligibility—something far worse than betting on baseball while playing and managing the Cincinnati Reds.
“In 2017, a woman testified about a sexual relationship with Rose in the 1970s, when he was a married, 30-something father of two, and a star player. She said she had been 14 or 15 years old when it began and that they had been together out of state, where the age of consent was higher than Ohio’s 16.
“In court filings, Rose admitted to the sexual relationship but claimed he believed she was 16 and denied traveling with her out of state. He was never charged, as the statute of limitations had expired.
“Not enough people know about this, in part because not enough media members include it in their coverage of Rose. Not enough people care. It’s already the norm for sports fans to excuse any wrongdoing by their favorite players as ‘off-field’ issues.”
The article concluded: “Pete Rose got himself banned from baseball. Dying isn’t a good enough reason to let him back in.”
People might disagree about whether Rose should be Hall of Fame eligible. But what is assured is that the Rose controversy now has long legs and will be written about for years, especially when articles are written about the Hall of Fame.
The Brent Musburger situation was revived when it was announced that he will be honored with the 2025 Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award this August at the Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement Week.
The controversy began On Oct. 16, 1968, when U.S. Olympic medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised black-gloved fists during the national anthem to protest racial injustice. Instead of focusing on their courage or the context of Avery Brundage’s overt anti-Semitism and alignment with Hitler’s Olympics in 1936, Musburger, then a sports writer, wrote a column calling the athletes “black-skinned stormtroopers.” (Stormtroopers, for those unfamiliar, were Hitler’s paramilitary brownshirts.)
A June 4, 2012, column in The Nation quoted Carlos:
“We are talking about someone who compared us to Nazis. Think about that. Here we are standing up to apartheid and to a man in Avery Brundage who delivered the Olympics to Hitler’s Germany. And here’s Musburger calling us Nazis. That got around. It followed us. It hurt us. It hurt my wife, my kids. I’ve never been able to confront him about why he did this. Every time I’ve been at a function or an event with Brent Musburger and I walk towards him, he heads the other way.”
Over time, others recognized their bravery. Peter Ueberroth hired Carlos as a consultant for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. ESPN awarded Smith and Carlos the Arthur Ashe Courage Award in 2008, stating: “They were right.” But the damage was done and they never received the acclamation they deserved as Olympic track stars.
The Musburger situation proves what I always said: Actions of an individual or entity can always be revived. Time doesn’t make it go away.
The Boeing situation cited earlier in this essay provides an example of how to make a PR crisis situation worse.
The first mistake was Boeing rushing a statement before all the facts were in. What they should have done is expressed a statement of empathy and say, “We will make a fuller statement after we researched the reasons the planes crashed. Period.
The second mistake was Boeing’s response to the 737 Max crashes when its CEO Dennis Muilenburg blamed pilot error for the crashes. This resulted in a “he said, she said” situation with executives from the crashed airlines saying the fault was Boeing’s, leading to extended media coverage.
My final advice to clients during a PR crisis is what I’ve often advised: Often the best strategy is to say less than more, and always clear everything with corporate counsel and don’t listen to PR people who say, “The lawyers are restricting us from doing our job.”
During a PR crisis protecting a client should be foremost. The “big hit” might make a PR practitioner feel good, but it doesn’t do any good for a client in crisis.
