Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of the religiously conservative Liberty University, has a serious problem. He’s been involved in a tawdry relationship, both business and personal, with a guy named Giancarlo Granda who was having sex with his wife Becki. He released a statement. I take it apart and suggest a more honest approach. Some…
A character on the CBS program “The Good Fight” called Alan Dershowitz a shyster. Is that libel? Dershowitz says yes. The producers of the show say no. So let’s get into it. There are really two questions here. First, can a fictional character’s statements be a cause for libel? And second, is what the character…
Last Saturday, I received a call. The woman said her name was Ella. And she was very close to tears. Ella was begging me to remove her name from a blog post I’d written in October of last year. At the time, Ella had attempted to deceive me by stating that there was an urgent…
So many people have sued the Boy Scouts of America over childhood sexual abuse that the organization has filed for bankruptcy. The organization made one official statement and one heartfelt statement. While what happened is terrible, their communication about it is intriguing. Let’s start with this. Childhood sexual abuse is horrifying and awful, ruining lives….
When you have a difficult decision to share, it matters a lot how you communicate it. Sonos proved this by annoying its customers with a message about obsolescing products, then turning around and making things better the next day. The original Sonos post was offensive Here’s the hard fact: technology products become obsolete. After a…
Two years ago, Equifax blamed an “application vulnerability” for a “cybersecurity incident” that exposed personal data of 143 million consumers. Last week, it agreed to pay $125 to any affected person who asks for it. Unfortunately, that’s another lie. Here’s what it says on the Equifax Breach Settlement site: Welcome To The Equifax Data Breach…
The international print version of The New York Times published a political cartoon caricaturing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog leading a blind Donald Trump in a yarmulke. That was pretty dumb. Its apologies aren’t helping much, because they don’t address what appears to be a pernicious blind spot on the Times’ Opinion…
The actress Felicity Huffman just pleaded guilty to bribing college authorities to get her daughter into college Oliva Jade into USC. Then she apologized briefly and effectively. A true apology admits guilt and addresses the harm the apologizer caused to specific people. It isn’t “I’m sorry you were hurt,” it is “I’m sorry I hurt…
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft just apologized for not doing anything wrong. Why bother? Police in Jupiter, Florida say they have video of Robert Kraft visiting the Orchids of Asia spa and massage parlor, which they say was a front for prostitution. The video almost certainly shows him doing something he’d rather you didn’t…