How Tiger Woods Should Handle His Sudden PR Crisis

Kevin Sullivan, former White House communications director under President George W. Bush, and former communications executive with NBC Universal, NBC Sports and the Dallas Mavericks, has some advice for Tiger Woods: Tell it first, tell it yourself and tell it all. That is the tried and true formula for handling a messy public relations crisis in the smoothest possible way. When Tiger Woods let 13 hours lapse after Friday's early-morning accident without issuing an explanation, he ceded control of his story not only to legitimate news outlets, but also to celebrity gossip mongers on the hunt for a tale –- made up or otherwise -– of adultery and mayhem. The story of Tiger's first major off-the-course bogey was in their sights and the race was on to fill in the juicy details. Woods hired attorney Mark NeJame, which shouldn't raise eyebrows -– after all, the police are investigating Woods' crash -– but repeatedly declining to be interviewed by the police makes it look like he has something to hide. When Woods finally responded with a Sunday afternoon statement, he called the rumors false, malicious and irresponsible. Good for Tiger, who has a track record of successfully taking on the tabloids. But while he took responsibility for the crash, he provided scant information. ”I want to keep it (private),” Woods said of the details surrounding the middle-of-the-night incident. Good luck with that. Woods' strategy leaves many questions unanswered, which has ignited a media frenzy to fill in the blanks and take down the world's most successful and well-known athlete. Tiger's problem is that we've seen plenty of public figures in hot water make stern denials only to later be backpedaled into confessions after third parties talk or more information is unearthed. Remember the cases of Marion Jones, Michael Vick and Pete Rose, to name a few -– along with a parade of politicians, most recently former Senator and Presidential candidate John Edwards –- who misled and later came clean. We want to believe Woods that all those salacious rumors are false. We certainly don't blame him for wanting to keep private whatever happened that night between him and his wife, Elin. But it's unrealistic. The state police want answers about the incident. The media won't let it go. And while Rachel Uchitel has denied the National Enquirer report that she had an affair with Woods, watching the video of her at LAX Sunday standing silently before the cameras alongside celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, it's hard to imagine that we're not going to hear from her soon. So here are three suggestions for Woods: 1. Don't delay. Hold your scheduled press conference Tuesday to kick off the Chevron World Challenge, which, since it benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation among other charities, makes it the perfect backdrop. Without going into every private detail, provide a sense of what led to the collision. Give an explanation, take a couple questions, and then move on to previewing the tournament and how it will benefit the work of your foundation. 2. If you have something to own up to, do it completely and you will be forgiven. Just ask Kobe Bryant. 3. If not, disarm the skeptics with your sense of humor. Gary Peterson of the Contra Costa Times had a suggestion: Say you were excited about a Black Friday sale and got carried away. Then give a sincere explanation. Anything that actually addresses the incident will bring Woods one step closer to putting it behind him. Otherwise, he better get used to seeing the TMZ.com van hanging around his subdivision.

Newspaper Industry Ad Revenue Far Down

Martin Peers of the Wall Street Journal writes on the critical question of how much of the recent plunge in media companies’ fortunes has been a cyclical decline versus a secular one. It’s obviously some of both, but the mix will decide what the next five years look like for magazines and newspapers, the critical providers of original reporting in the country. A cyclical decline is one due to the inevitable ups and downs of the broad economy. Most businesses get hurt in the recession part of a cycle but do well in the expansionary part and their fortunes more or less move up or down with the economy at large. But structural changes in the economy or a specific industry can result in secular changes for a business. Think for instance, the classified-ads business of newspapers, which has been walloped by eBay and craigslist (with a final indignity provided by the cyclical collapse of the housing bubble). Most of those revenues aren’t coming back. That’s a secular decline. Overall daily newspaper-industry ad revenue just flat-out crashed last year, plunging 16.7 percent to $37.8 billion from $45.4 billion in 2007, which itself was a bad year with ads down 7.9 percent from $49.3 billion in 2006. It gets worse. So far 2009 has been more dismal than 2008. It was predicted that newspaper revenue would tumble 17.3 percent this year to $31.6 billion, or just below 1993 levels. If anything, these numbers may be optimistic. Several major newspaper companies have reported declines of about 30 percent so far this year. But even that $31.6 billion understates just how awful the numbers are. Remember $31.6 billion in 1993 bought a whole lot more than $31.6 billion does today—49 percent more to be exact. Ryan Chitum of the Columbia Journalism Review went back through the Newspaper Association of America’s data on newspaper-industry revenue, which goes back to 1950, to see what year we’re actually even with now. It’s ugly: You have to go back to 1965 to find a year with revenue lower in 2009 dollars than what this year is projected to be. That year, the industry took in $4.42 billion, which works out to $30.22 billion in current dollars. The industry can only hope this year hits 1966 levels, which work out to $32.4 billion in real dollars. (A caveat: there are fewer papers now than there were in 1965 and production is more efficient.) What stands out immediately looking at real dollars (which are all that really matter), is that the peak of the last recovery, in 2004, with $55 billion, never got close to the peak of the previous recovery, 2000—when real ad revenues hit $60.9 billion. To make matters worse, the 2002-2004 recovery never reached the peak of two recoveries ago, in 1988, when real ad dollars hit $56.8 billion. Recall, this year ads are projected at just $31.6 billion—if they’re lucky—a 44 percent decline from twenty-one years ago. That folks, is secular decline, and the vast majority of those dollars are not coming back.