The 3 Tells
January 31, 2008 by prmagnet
After hearing that Michael Wilbon, heralded sports writer and lively television personality, had a heart attack yesterday, I found myself sifting through some of his columns. I found a good one about Kelly Tilghman’s two-week suspension involving her racist comments on The Golf Channel.
And things got hotter after Golf Magazine had to fired its editor for going to print with a picture of a noose that took up the entire front cover. I hadn’t gotten past the first couple of paragraphs when I knew this was a PR nightmare.
As Wilbon said, The Golf Channel should have made the suspension immediately and Dave Seanor should have never gone to print with that “inflammatory” cover.
“Tell it first, tell it fast, tell ‘em what you’re going to do about it.” That is the mantra that was drilled into my skull by my public relations professor, Kelly Matthews, during my third year. Obviously the PR folks for The Golf Channel haven’t heard about the “3 tells” principle in crisis communication.
Bloggers and traditional journalists are calling it like it is, saying the apology was useless. Just one more lesson learned for me.
