LOL
Posted on 09/16/2004 8:50:12 PM PDT by FormerACLUmember
In October of 1982, someone began to put poison into Tylenol bottles, and seven deaths resulted. Johnson & Johnson, the owner of the brand, responded immediately and aggressively to the consumer reaction, and the response has become a model for corporate crisis managers, and a famous "case study" at Harvard Business School. Commentary on the episode has always focused on the company's decision to put the public interest first. One historian of the crises wrote:
"The public relations decisions made as a result of the Tylenol crisis, arrived in two phases. The first phase was the actual handling of the crisis. The comeback of both Johnson & Johnson and Tylenol, was the second phase in the public relations plan. The planning for phase two began almost as soon as phase one was being implemented."
"Phase one of Johnson & Johnson's public relations campaign was executed immediately following the discovery that the deaths in Chicago were caused by Extra- Strength Tylenol capsules. As the plan was constructed, Johnson & Johnson's top management put customer safety first, before they worried about their companies profit and other financial concerns."
"The company immediately alerted consumers across the nation, via the media, not to consume any type of Tylenol product. They told consumers not to resume using the product until the extent of the tampering could be determined. Johnson & Johnson, along with stopping the production and advertising of Tylenol, recalled all Tylenol capsules from the market. The recall included approximately 31 million bottles of Tylenol, with a retail value of more than 100 million dollars. (Broom, Center, Cutlip, 381)"
"This was unusual for a large corporation facing a crisis. In many other similar cases, companies had put themselves first, and ended up doing more damage to their reputations than if they had immediately taken responsibility for the crisis."
The contrast with CBS corporate behavior this past week could not be more stark. Dan Rather is a spent asset, with perhaps a negative value even before this collapse, and the producers that fed Rather this stew of forgery, flawed back-up, unpersuasive experts, cover-up and sham can easily be replaced from the nearly limitless supply of hungry would-be producers. In other words, there is no downside to walking away from the story, but enormous damage is done by refusing to come clean and admit what every objective observer --even the Los Angeles Times, for goodness sakes, has figured out: "CBS News was had."
For reasons unfathomable to outsiders, the Board of Directors of Viacom is watching the brand value burn to the ground without lifting a finger to stop it. This isn't about a one week ratings fade. It is about setting free an entire generation of news viewers to sample other networks and develop new habits.
The events of the past week may be taught in business schools for decades to come as the companion to the Tylenol case study: How to destroy a brand it took nearly 90 years to establish. The roped and doped network, all because there isn't one person above Rather with the guts to speak the truth?
I n the nation's top market, New York, Rather finished not only behind NBC NIGHTLY NEWS and ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT -- but also pulled less audience than reruns of the SIMPSONS, WILL & GRACE and KING OF QUEENS.
Rather finished dead last in New York during the 6:30 pm timeslot among all broadcast channels tracked by NIELSEN on Tuesday.
Hugh Hewitt says what I have been discussing for several years, albeit with entertaining far superior wit.
Great article! Puts things clearly into perspective.
Maybe Viacom is looking for a way to implement a "reality" only tv channel/network... and a defunct CBS would be a great place to start.
LOL
"If you see the eye, beware the lie."
Good phrase. You ought to make it your tagline.
Well, they are just crazy to continue this farce. So they deserve what they get at this point, imho.
They won't admit that they were had. It would have been much simpler to do that than to continue to try to sling their bias. But, heck no, they're going to "stand by their story." The funniest thing I read today was Dan Rather saying he'd love to "break the story" if the documents are fake. Thanks for the laugh, Dan. Try to keep up, will you?
Apparently, CBS news has egos as large as Hurricane Ivan. Thinking they are invincible is just crazy.
All the more reason to suspect Dan was not duped, he may well be part of it, and refuses to go down alone.
DOH!!!
BTTT
bttt
CBS new reality show: "Destroying a 90 Year Old Brand Before Your Amazed Eyes."
BTTT
"CBS is just hating, destroying all rating"
"The CBS Eye, is all just a lie."
And in other news, Rather joins OJ in a joint search for the real killers and the real forgers.
CBS not new to deception...last time around:
"It’s not because we’re embarrassed by the story," says 60 Minutes spokesman
Kevin Tedesco, explaining his refusal to provide a tape of the show. "It’s the
lawyers. They don’t want to open up a can of worms."
That was it for the update. What Bradley did not say was that the original 60
Minutes broadcast might have been erroneous or misleading. He termed the NHTSA
findings an "opinion." 60 Minutes’s own role in creating "adverse publicity"
was left unacknowledged. "They never apologized," says a former Volkswagen
executive. "They never said, ‘We were wrong.’" (Bradley declined to answer
questions about his piece.)
What’s more, Bradley also failed to mention how 60 Minutes had been able to
offer footage of an Audi 5000 lurching forward from a parked position. William
Rosenbluth, an automotive consultant retained by plaintiffs in a suit against
Audi, says he drilled a hole in an Audi transmission and piped fluid into it.
The resulting filmed sequence, in which the accelerator pedal moved down on
its own, provided 60 Minutes with the damning visual evidence the program
needed to brand the Audi 5000 a dangerous vehicle.
I wonder if some layed off Audi employee made the docs and set them up the bomb......hehehe
http://www.audifans.com/archives/1998/07/msg02207.html
Gees, first, it is Janet Jackson's so-called wardrobe malfunction and now this. Is Viacom really wanting to kill themsevles? I know they own CBS and MTV, the epitome of trash.
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