When I was a schoolboy, I delivered Sunday newspapers to peoples homes in Dundee. Some customers just had the News of the World. In the nicer streets they liked to have a quality title with the News of the World slipped in between it, to keep up appearances. If you didn't buy it, you usually ended up talking about what was in it. The paper educated newspaper delivery boys on matters not covered in the school curriculum.
Now it's gone.
It's not what happens to your company. The public judge you by how you deal with it. Even when things go wrong in your company due to errors or omissions on your part, you can still recover if you deal with it promptly and honestly.
As the Times newspaper in London put it in a very considered leading article today: "We all make mistakes, and we measure ourselves by how we handle them".
Danny Rogers, the highly respected and measured Editor of PR Week, quoted in today's Guardian, is amongst most who feel that News International and Rupert Murdoch were much too slow to react to what was a fast growing crisis. "The longer this drags on, the more damaging it will be in the long term", he said.
If you feel that's stating the obvious, it is, nonetheless, true. However a powerful organisation that is used to calling the shots usually does not react well to being challenged. But as the Times says this morning, "if you do not own your mistakes, your mistakes will own you."
Advised by Edelman, News International is taking major steps on the road to putting things right (it is a very long road ahead). A venerated British newspaper closed, executives gone, full page apology ads today in most newspapers (see above) promising more updates on further action, and most important of all, Rupert Murdoch has been to see the parents of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, whose phone was allegedly hacked by someone acting for the News of the World. The solicitor for the Dowler family stressed that the main purpose of the meeting, which came at Mr Murdoch's request, was for him to apologise as sincerely as he could. He told them it "shamed his family name".
Journalist friends say it's significant, too that Murdoch has appointed Tom Mockridge as Chief Executive of News International. He's known for his integrity and high professional standards. That's extremely important. It's also important that people are talking about the way the Murdoch owned Times newspaper and Sky News have reported his troubles prominently and impartially. Watching Sky last night or reading the Times this morning, if you did not know Murdoch owned them, you would not be given any clues by the copious and tough coverage. This is a strong signal that News International is serious about journalistic integrity.
The most basic crisis rules: acknowledge the problem, apologise where appropriate, tell the public what you are going to do to put things right, and then put things right and above all act with honesty and openness do not change however powerful you are.
Students of crisis management will be watching closely as Rupert Murdoch's action plan unfolds.
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