In these next series of blogs, I am going to take a look at some PR bloopers and what to do about them…
The first is: oops you sent out a wrong, unapproved version of a press release to your entire media database. Now you are on the receiving end of angry spokespeople who demand that you retract the story immediately. As if you have control over retracting something you sent out to the media!
You may think that recalling the story will actually help your situation. First time maybe, but after that not a chance. If you have good media relationships you may be able to get away with it, but remember by attempting to recall the damn thing you will actually draw attention to it.
Secondly, you look like a complete idiot to those very people who are your bread and butter – the media.
So what can you do? Take a deep breath before rushing to your mailbox to hit the recall button. What are the facts that were incorrect in the version you sent out? Are they damaging to your company or client? Trying to recall a story that has simple grammatical errors would be very unwise.
Assess the impact of the story appearing with material you erroneously sent out. Hopefully the change was not a correction to hide the truth. If it was you are in deep trouble. Consider packing your desk and do so quickly. If you recall the story you will draw media attention to it and they may very well check it out to see what the fuss was about therefore highlighting the issue entirely.
Consider telling your company or client the truth. Your error was not an intention to ruin them or bruise their reputation. Surprisingly sometimes people will forgive you if you say you are sorry.
Make sure you never ever do that again. Put in place checking procedures for yourself before hitting that send button. Recheck the story against the final approved (printed) version before sending it out.
Now if you are a savvy PR person you would know that spray and pray, bulk emailing of press releases seldom works unless it is highly newsworthy, so hopefully you only sent it out to one media as an exclusive, in which case you are lucky…just one phone call to make…
