Tiger Woods learned about his Ryder Cup standing via twitter.

This morning while I was working out ESPN reported that Ryder Cup Captain Corey Pavin denied that Tiger Woods was getting one of the four wild card spots on this year’s 2010 U.S. Team.  Pavin further went on to say that the official announcement will be made September 7.

OK, you may be saying, big deal, Cindy – this is just an another announcement.  But, it wasn’t. This story broke on twitter. Yes, the Ryder Cup Captain held his own presser (press conference) via twitter. He controlled the news by breaking it –which led me to think about how different the present PR practices are from the past.

In the past, news was usually broken by a scheduled press conference. But, today, celebrities/politicians and those in the public eye are taking matters in their own hands.  No longer do these public figures need to rely on an establishment or a PR firm to announce their latest endeavors.  Now, they can just tweet it and the results are just as effective as a press conference.  Heck, besides messages, you can tweet out images, videos and power point slides too. twitter does it all.

So the question really is …are press conferences things of the past? The answer to that is definitely no.  However, they are not as prevalent or necessary as say last year.  Not only is this sad news for PR agencies, but for the news media.  I mean – how in the world is the news media going to monitor every one’s twitter account? You need a mighty big tweet deck to do that to catch breaking news.

Ryder Cup Captain Corey Pavin's tweet

However, if we unravel how Pavin was able to get the word out successfully today (@RC_Captain_2010), I’m sure that among his nearly 7,000  twitter followers, some of those folks were members of the golf media.  Thus, they must have seen it and retweeted and reported it. With one little 140 character message, Corey Pavin broke news in less than a minute and then went about his day. There was no need to set aside a block of time to phone the sports media.  All it took was a one short message to get the message out. I personally think this is marvelous.

This was a great case study and it’s only the start.  I think the journalists of the future will have large monitors on their desks and be assigned certain people to follow on twitter. I can only see this area growing…twitter has now become the new wire service.

Are secrets ever harmless?

I’ll going to let you in on a little secret. Secrets are a dangerous tool in your public relations tool chest any way that you look at them. When your client is keeping a secret from you – that’s deadly and when you use them in your strategy – that’s never a good thing. So my advice to all you budding publicists and those more advanced is to never go that route ever if you have the choice. For secrets, always have a way of rearing their ugly head.

And there are several examples to point toward regarding this “bad” practice. The primary example….Former President Richard M. Nixon. Did he or his cabinet ever think that they would be implicated in the Watergate break-in? And for more modern examples…how about Tiger Woods and Jesse James. Do you think that their “playing” the field with other women besides their wives would ever get them into trouble? Tiger even had a team surrounding him to keep things quiet – or for that matter secret.

This secret caused an impeachment. Heck, even the secret of "Deep Throat" was exposed.

Or corporately….Toyota. Did they think that they could forever sit on not warning some of their customers about the acceleration problem?

And on more personal grounds, how many people do you know that have had a secret in their family and it get uncovered. These secrets may have been not exposed during that person’s lifetime…but sooner or later they eventually did-a secret love child, a secret way of life, etc.

Here’s my best advice regarding secrets in communication matters.

• 1) When something is exposed, whether its true or not about your client – ask your client point blank if there is anything that they should tell you about the situation. Get all the truth you can out of the person in the strictest confidence.
• 2) After that, talk to the lawyers involved on your side and ask them if there is a secret that you need to know about…get all the facts you can.
• 3) If there is a secret and you know it – work to position your client in the best way in the comments that you will craft surrounding the situation. But, you will have to start to expose the truth.
• 4) When exposing the truth, make sure that you address only facts and keep it short. Say the least that you can. Have you noticed how short all of Tiger Woods’ press conferences are?
• 5) And be sure to get in front of the story.
• 6) And always work in conjunction with the lawyers on the case.

The Los Angeles Dodgers Owners Frank and Jamie McCourt are telling all their secrets in an ugly divorce.

Did you think that the McCourt’s (LA Dodgers owners) dirty laundry would ever be exposed? Well it is, thanks to an ugly divorce. Did Mark McGwire ever think that he had to expose that he used steroids? He came clean last January.  And now even criminals don’t stand a chance due to the incredible DNA process which identifies them more quickly than before.  So you see — Secrets are never a safe practice.

The saying the truth will set you free is always true. Work toward truth in all that you do, for lies and secrets, will eventually be uncovered. And they are no fun when it happens on your watch.

I’d love to hear your thoughts regarding secrets in the PR practice. Whisper them here in your comments.

Best,

Cindy

CLIENTS: WORLD CLASS GOLFER, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, GLOBAL CAR MANUFACTURER, TOP CELEBRITY, AFFORDABLE AIRLINE AND OLYMPIC COMMITTEE

Man, every time we turn around – it seems like some public company or public figure is apologizing.   If you are skilled in crafting apologies that can be read well, but don’t have much meaning then you’ve got yourself a highly sought after career.  Just look who’s needed an “apologist” of late.

Tiger Woods, Toyota (they need several actually), John Edwards, Southwest Airlines, The International Olympic Committee (after the death of the luger) and Charlie Sheen.

Apologies are all the rage.

Sorry seems to the a hard word to convey through a public apology

When writing apologies, I think one must keep in mind that no matter what when it is recited in public, the apologetic person will never win over everyone.  I think we need to keep in mind that no matter how well it is written; nor how true the information – the said apology will be scrutinized by a critical public.

The reason for this post is that many people I talked to today felt Tiger just read a few words and was once again fell in line with his skills as a professional spokesperson. He is experienced in dealing with the media.

In case you haven’t seen it…here it is.

He does appear to be going through something and is showing signs that he’s understanding how much hurt he caused his family.  And he did admit that he was a cheater.  I do hope that he gets to the bottom of what is missing in his soul and is able to changes through treatment.  It’s not fun seeing people in pain.

But, apologies are tricky things to write.  And if you are charged with writing one – here’s my tip for the day – try and stay as true and authentic as possible that is as much as the lawyers allow you to do.  Words from the heart and spoken without the perception of a teleprompter being present nor read from a script goes so much further to conveying remorse.

Just think about the apologies you had to personally give and/or receive. They meant more when the person looked you in the eye and said they were sorry. That’s how you should write them for the public too.

I apologize I’ve gone on too long in this post and would love to hear your thoughts on Woods’ apology and other such matters.  Gotta run because live curling in on. Woot!

Cindy