MMMM # 174 -- Where are the PR People?

     Public Relations people are sometimes--OK, often--the opponents of journalists.
     They seek to polish the images of the people and institutions they represent, while journalists seek the truth, unflattering or not.
     Nonetheless, PR folks can be of great help to people and institutions that are crashing and about to hit earth in spectacular form.
     A few recent examples where that did not happen:

• Did the big banks really think they would get away with imposing the debit card fees in the middle of the Great Recession? Where were their social-media savvy PR people?
• When he was confronted with multiple allegations of sexual harassment, who told GOP Presidential candidate Herman Cain to pronounce himself not only innocent, but someone who "has never acted inappropriately"? Does his staff not include a single PR person?
• Penn State. Enough said.
• Netflix, which went from being a company who's customers were missionary-like in their zeal to praise it, to being a pariah that hundreds of thousand of customers abandoned.
• During Alabama Governor Robert Bentley's very first speaking engagement, literally minutes after he was sworn in, he defined his constituency as only his christian brothers and sisters. During those months leading up to the inauguration, no PR training at all?
• And there's the more recent "let them eat dirt" proposal from the same administration: that the hundreds of thousands of unemployed people should go work in the fields to replace the largely Hispanic farm-hands who've fled the state because of that other PR disaster, the Immigration Law. Isn't that like suggesting we feed the homeless to the hungry and solve two problems?  PR staff? Hello?
• Which Financial Institution thought it was a good idea for employees to swill champagne on their exclusive balconies high above the Occupy Wall Street rabble far below? I know times are tough, but did not a single PR person see what was coming?
• And let's not forget the Australian clothing store chain's recent dismissive emails to a customer who complained. The seasons are reversed Down Under. Is the customer always wrong there too?

     What all of those disaster have in common is the lack of good advice from a seasoned PR person. Someone who can look more than one step into the future, see the brick wall his or her client is about to hit, and suggest a change of course.
     I wonder if the Great Recession isn't to blame. One of the first places some companies cut when economic problems arrive is media and advertising (arguably the last place they should be cutting, but that's for another MMMM).
     Just as social media is taking an increasingly critical role in how firms and people are viewed, they fire the very people who can help them not crash and burn. Brilliant.

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this site.]