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Rewind
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The Hitler Diaries
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Crisis management is nothing new - but it has evolved.
Each month, we delve deep into the history books and ask our readers to apply modern day communications to an olden day crisis.
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Rewind is sponsored by Speed Communications. For a chance to win a bottle of champagne, send your submissions to neil.gibbons@communicatemagazine or join the debate online via the hashtag #commsrewind |
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In 1983, the Sunday Times staked its reputation on what were purported to be the diaries of Adolf Hitler. When the diaries were discovered to be a hugely embarrassing hoax, its credibility was shot to pieces. If you were leading the paper’s comms function, how would you restore its reputation?
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The first thing I would do is make a public apology outlining how the paper was led to believe the Hitler Diaries were authentic. As part of this ‘we have let our readers down’ statement, I would pro-actively announce changes to internal editorial processes such as setting up an advisory board of subject matter experts whose job is to ensure that this perceived lack of fact checking will never happen again.
To turn this crisis into an opportunity, I would recommend the Sunday Times assign a columnist to write daily articles online – why wait seven days when readers are being misled by unscrupulous people every day across the country? Via the website, I would also make it possible for readers to ask questions that concern them – such as how not to be ripped off when buying a car or fine wine – which subject matter experts (pulled from the advisory board) would then answer. By having an extensive advisory board of well known experts, the paper would have an opportunity to grow its readership.
I believe immediate action would restore accountability while on-going conversations would restore the paper’s reputation with readers.
Lance Mercereau, Rosslyn Analytics
Given that the story was originally broken and verified by German magazine Stern, The Sunday Times might have been tempted to say ‘See? We weren’t the only ones fooled!’ As well as deflecting some of the embarrassment, this could have gone some way to explaining its own gullibility.
But that would have been a mistake. When a brand needs to restore credibility, the public doesn’t care for mealy-mouthed excuses or finger-pointing. They want to know what you did wrong, that you accept it, and what you’re going to do about it.
The Sunday Times did the right thing. A full page, front-page apology to its readers was absolutely necessary to quell some of the clamour around the brand but it wouldn’t have drawn a line under it – to reassert its values a brand needs to show not tell.
So, under greater scrutiny than ever, the Times would have had to display the very highest editorial standards to convince newly sceptical audiences that it was no busted flush. Although high risk, I would have urged the editorial team to be brave. A retreat into conservative, safe journalism would be no way to convince the doubters. Only once it has re-established a reputation for fearless, quality journalism would the damage be undone.
Clive Copeland, change management consultant
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Publishing excerpts from real Hitler diaries would have been the media scoop of the 20th century (after Watergate), so getting proper forensic tests to validate them before publishing should have been obvious.
To rebuild reputation the editor – preceding his departure from the desk – should write a front page leader piece apologising for the breakdown in journalistic standards normally associated with a newspaper of such repute. By way of mitigation, he could ask the readers to understand how an over-exuberance of belief in the diaries’ authenticity had overcome the customary scepticism that might have helped avoid such a cataclysmic error and embarrassment.
Hiring an unimpeachable, Harold Evans-like editor as replacement and outlining a new system for validating stories should at least draw a line under an editorial low point. But only a run of major stories that stand up to scrutiny will make readers not raise their eyebrows at the next revelation of the century.
Jon Clements, Staniforth
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