What Were They Thinking?: Crisis Communication - The Good, the Bad, and the Totally Clueless

Some corporations spend millions of dollars on socalled "crisis communication plans." Others offer lip service, avoiding the subject like the plague. They simply hope for the best, praying that they never face a crisis. Either way, as Steve Adubato says, "Wishful thinking is no substitute for a strategic plan."

Nationally recognized communication coach and fourtime Emmy Award-winning broadcaster Steve Adubato has been teaching, writing, and thinking about comm-unication, leadership, and crisis communication for nearly two decades. In What Were They Thinking? Adubato examines twentytwo controversial and complex public relations and media mishaps, many of which were played out in public. Among cases and people discussed are:

The Johnson & Johnson Tylenol scare: Perhaps the best crisis management ever

Don Imus: Sometimes saying "sorry" is too little too late

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales: Authority does not put you above questioning

Bill O'Reilly: Know when to stop defending yourself and save face

Former EPA Administrator Christie Whitman: Proof that your written words can come back to haunt you

Hurricane Katrina: A natural disaster that led to a larger governmental disaster

The Catholic Church's pedophilia scandal: Denial won't get rid of the skeletons in your closet

Arranged in short chapters detailing each case individually, the book provides a brief history of the topics and answers the questions: Who got it right? Who got it wrong? What can the rest of us learn from them?