Original story found at: http://www.bulldogreporter.com/dailydog/issues/1_1/dailydog_barks_bites/7424-1.html
By K.C. Brown, Vice President, Cision North America
The quiet tug-of-war between the media and the private sector has gotten more intense in recent years, pitting the public's right to know against corporations' rights to privacy. This conflict sometimes breaks out in the open with cases such as Hewlett Packard investigators intercepting reporters' phone records or Wal-Mart IT employees monitoring phone calls made by The New York Times reporters in misguided efforts to plug leaks.
Behind these and other major news stories is an important transformation of the media over the past decade. Beyond their traditional role as a "Fourth-Estate" watchdog over government, the media today play an equally important role as watchdog over the private sector. With private and publicly held companies increasingly influencing all stakeholders of society, the media have made large businesses—and the CEOs who run them—the center of the story in ways unimaginable a few years ago.
Aggressive media coverage has played a primary role in unearthing and driving to resolution corporate reputation scandals of recent years, from Enron to options backdating. CEOs ignore this new media assertiveness at their peril. The negative coverage of Enron CEO Ken Lay's belated protestations that he knew little of the illegal actions of people in his company demonstrates how devastating the failure to take a proactive role in a crisis can be.
CEOs therefore have a new, long-term, hands-on responsibility as guardians and gatekeepers of corporate reputation. They can no longer delegate management of the corporate image. They must engage with more publics than ever and take public positions on everything from the environment to healthcare policy to labor practices and more.
The expansion of business coverage and the 24/7 news cycle have driven changes in corporate behavior. A generation ago, corporate social responsibility (CSR) was not an expectation that existed. But today, CSR—along with all the communication it requires—is part of every CEO's job. CSR used to be limited to obeying the laws and paying taxes. For large companies, there was also an expectation of lifetime employment and a pension. As those benefits have become increasingly difficult to deliver, CEOs have had to grapple with difficult communication issues hoping that the public won't "shoot the messenger." At the same time, a broader set of expectations has rapidly emerged that CEOs will engage with issues such as transparency, the global economy, community relations, sustainability and the environment.
Because these new responsibilities affect publics beyond the traditional customer base of public and private corporations, they are fair game for reporters looking for stories that question corporations' abilities to deliver on their social obligations and commitments. With watchdogs in the media keeping the CEO honest and on his or her toes, the successful CEO not only must play defense to protect corporate reputation, but also must engage with the media through a proactive communication strategy based on real issues.
Unfortunately, the first response of many traditional CEOs has been to put their heads in the sand or barricade themselves behind a wall of "no comments" erected by legal teams and media-leery executives, and enforced by increasingly uncomfortable PR representatives. But the media, emboldened by their success in making business news as vital (and profitable) as political and local news, are not going away.
The CEOs who understand this long-term trend are taking action to contend with the new environment. Wal-Mart's "war room" patterned after the fast-response teams created by presidential candidates is a good example. While some in the traditional media view such war rooms as cynical attempts to control the message and put a misleading or merely positive spin on stories, it also reflects the new rules of the game: Corporations now must engage with the media on public issues and stay on top of the story.
Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott is an example of a corporate leader proactively taking public stands on issues such as healthcare and the environment that the company avoided discussing in the past. The result has been public debate over Wal-Mart's role and influence, which while not always painting the company in a positive light, has served to inform the public and let important constituencies come to more informed opinions about the issues the company and the public must address.
PR professionals can be catalysts for a new, more effective engagement with the media by their CEOs. The first step is education to persuade management to acknowledge the validity of the media's private-sector watchdog role. Second, they must make sure their crisis plans are more than aging documents sitting on dusty shelves. Finally, they must insist on their seat at the table and start playing the senior counselor role PR professionals so often talk about, but seldom achieve.
Only by driving your CEO and other senior managers to maintain an active, ongoing dialogue with the media on issues of the day—beyond this quarter's P&L statement—will you keep the watchdogs from turning all their barking into biting.
K.C. Brown is vice president of the U.S. operations at Cision, the media research, distribution and evaluation services organization. He previously served as SVP in the company's evaluation and research-based consulting arm, Delahaye, where he founded the Delahaye Index.
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