Have you ever seen Merrie Spaeth’s hilarious “BIMBO Awards“? They’re monthly collections of mostly famous people suffering from foot-in-mouth disease, along with some examples of “doing it the right way” in crisis communications. For example, here was this month’s “winning BIMBO”:
“I’m here to tell you right off the bat that I’m not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing,” said Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich after being arrested for corruption and charged with trying to trade an appointment to President-elect Barack Obama’s Senate seat for personal gain. (In one of the more bizarre press conferences, the Governor quoted Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” with the famous lines, “If you can keep your head when all about you/ Are losing theirs and blaming it on you”. The BIMBO denial made it into numerous headlines, boxed quotes and countless repetitions on the news. Does this mean he’s guilty of wrongdoing — just not the criminal variety?) The Wall Street Journal, “Blagojevich Denies All Federal Corruption Charges,” Dec. 20-21, 2008
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JB
Jonathan Bernstein
President
Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc.