Feed the Beast

You can't blame the customer. They may not be right - but they're never wrong.

That was one of Ed Lewis's main points today, when he spoke to us about his career, a large portion of which he's spent in the public relations section of the auto industry.

Now, working for Toyota, he's been dealing with all the acceleration claims - so he's been in crisis mode (a term I heard a lot of today) for quite some time now.

It was interesting to hear about all the intricacies of his job in public affairs - like how he saw the media as attack dogs, and his metaphor of having to "feed the beast".
Journalists, he said, are continuing to stir up new issues and come at the same story from a bunch of different angles, because they have to fill the 24-hour news cycle. This makes his company's problem all the more difficult, because it never ends. If the journalists don't want to let it go - it'll never fade into the background.

Gotta love 'em.

Alsooooo...he said that when working in public affairs, you need to ask tough questions and be skeptical of your own management, because they're not going to want to tell you things at first. But, he said, they'll thank you later when you're prepared for questions/comments on that info.

It's weird, because it's kind of like being an investigative journalist for your own corporation, but then once you find out all the dirty facts, you have to tweak how you deliver them to give them a positive spin.

He also talked about "planned leaks", and how you want to leak bad news on a Friday, and good news on a Monday. Then, you have to have "experts" or what not, lined up to interview - ones that you can be guaranteed will reflect positively on the corp.

Tricksy, as my dear friend Gollum would say.

A lot of stuff goin' on back there behind the scenes at those big corporations. A lot of people making a lot of money to keep a lot of stuff quiet.

Ed Lewis and some of the gang