February 11th, 2009
A tale of two faux pas: When transparency meets bad behavior
Earlier today yet another Twitter brouhaha erupted when a Canadian marketing professional named April Dunford was allegedly verbally attacked by David George-Cosh, a National Post tech reporter, after she apparently wouldn’t take his phone call. Ian Capstick does a nice job of rehashing the battle on his MediaStyle blog so I won’t go into it other than to say… Dunford is no victim (hence my “allegedly” statement). Both parties behaved quite badly.
My quick summary based on Capstick’s post: George-Cosh reached out to Dunford regarding a story he was working on and she took a day or so to get back to him. He was, according to Dunford’s Twitter stream, rude to her during the eventual call back, so she expressed frustration in a tweet. It was clear to George-Cosh, it seems, that she was talking about him since they’d just hung up the phone. Her defense was, and I paraphrase, “Dude, I didn’t say your name.” George-Cosh swore. A lot. She put on a show of trying to calm him. It ended… poorly.
Some might say this is where everything went wrong. I think it went wrong from the beginning. Dunford’s excuse of “I was busy and didn’t have time to call the reporter back” shows a lack of urgency on behalf of her client. Sure, sometimes a client doesn’t want to be included or comment on a story, but as a public relations professional she should know better than to avoid the press. She should also know better than to adopt a holier-than-thou stance about calling him back. Other tweets of Dunford’s show passive aggression and condescension that even the most patient people might find akin to nails on a chalkboard.
George-Cosh’s side is a little bit easier to digest. Yes, he F-bombed the heck out of this woman. I think his freak-out and his own alleged holier-than-thou-I-am-the-media comments were unacceptable. He shouldn’t have reacted the way that he did in public and kudos to his publication for apologizing for the behavior. But I can see why he’d be annoyed and as a former PR / current marketing professional I don’t believe Dunford handled this like a pro. I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic. I wouldn’t want to be sworn at like that. I would also try really hard not to ignite a situation like that — and after his FIRST tweet I would’ve remained silent and taken it to the phone or some other medium.
What’s bugging me about all of this — as Todd Defren called out tonight on Twitter — “he was incorrigible, she was unprofessional.” And many comments in Capstick’s blog post (other than those made by a very smart Caitlin Fitzsimmons) were sympathetic to Dunford. April Dunford herself commented but didn’t appear as sorry as she claimed to be. It was more of a “I wish this would go away” rather than a show of accountability.
The reason I am even writing about this? The “lesson” that is being passed around the socialsphere tonight is about “watch what you say on Twitter.” I am sort of sick of this lesson, truth be told. We’re grown-ups. We’re professionals. Watch what you say everywhere. What this is highlighting are two things that I have droned on and on about in this blog over the last handful of months:
- Social media is merely shining a huge spotlight on bad PR people / poor PR practices that have always existed
- There are still a large amount of mainstream journalists and bloggers who have no idea how to work with PR people
When it comes down to it I think both behaved despicably. He’s positioned himself to me as a journalist without much credibility and she’s positioned herself to me as a consultant I would never want representing my company. This is not a Twitter lesson. This is a business lesson. Take it to heart.
Update 2/12/08 8:08 a.m. - Dunford clarified in the comments that she is not a PR person. My response was, essentially, that those folks branded as marketing professionals should always consider PR tactics when communicating publicly.
Jennifer Leggio, aka "Mediaphyter," writes about the "social business" side of social media - including enterprise, security and reputation issues. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
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| 02/12/09
