Day 14: Get on your soapbox and rant about something
What do Paula Deen and Alec Baldwin have in common? She made a racial slur during a police deposition 31 years ago after being robbed at gunpoint and he wrote a homophobic tweet last month because he thought the paparazzi were harping on his wife for tweeting during James Gandolfini's funeral (as it turns out, the reporter mixed up time zones...whoops). The comparison really stops there because Deen has lost the majority of her butter empire while Baldwin got no more than a slap on the wrist. While both were definitely in the wrong, shouldn't they receive the same "punishment" from society and the media? Why wasn't Baldwin the leading story on every news program for weeks? Why didn't all of his endorsement deals go down the drain?
I'm going to be joining the media industry soon, and often sing their praise, but they dropped the ball on this one. Good Morning America anchors kept asking "Why isn't Baldwin receiving the same treatment as Deen?" And to that I say, "You are the one who keeps dragging Deen through the mud, why don't you do the same to Baldwin. The ball is in your court."
Lessons learned from these scandals:
1. When you find yourself on the wrong end of media attention...hire the real Olivia Pope from day one. Deen reportedly hired Judy Smith after realizing that, while her sons may know their way around a deep fryer, they know nothing about public relations and crisis communication.
2. If you want to become a public figure, every word you have ever said will come back to haunt you. Especially today, when everyone's thoughts are immortalized in texts/tweets/posts. Before tweeting, think "Will I want E! News discussing this thirty years from now?"
3. If you are Alec Baldwin, you can do what you want with little or no consequence.
No comments:
Post a Comment