Caught in the crucible of crisis, two figures central to recent major news events have emerged as a study in stark contrasts.
One is a ship captain accused of placing his safety ahead of others by abandoning his sinking vessel; the other, a student editor who discovered that news reported by his college website turned out to be false.
The former is Captain Francesco Schettino, who ran the motor vessel Costa Concordia aground off the coast of Italy, waited 45 minutes before giving the order to abandon ship and then sought safety aboard a lifeboat while leaving behind more than 4,000 passengers and crew. The death toll from the shipwreck stands at 17, and 15 are missing and presumed dead.
The latter is Devon Edwards, managing editor of Onward State, an independent website run by Pennsylvania State University students that published an item reporting the death of the school’s recently ousted head football coach Joe Paterno. Gravely ill, Paterno was on life support at the time the erroneous news was posted on Onward State’s Twitter account. Once CBSSports.com picked up the bogus story, it swiftly spread with subsequent reports by other top media outlets. Paterno did not succumb until the next morning.
The duo’s responses to their sudden, high-profile tests of character—and statements from the organizations directly associated with the crises—offer a lesson in one of the most difficult public communication: the apology.
Worlds Apart
Errors in judgment appeared early on. It has been widely reported that Schettino allegedly caused the accident by steering the cruise liner off its approved course and toward the dangerous shoreline. His reason for bending the rule? He wanted to sound the horn in a salute to a retired officer who lived nearby.
As rescue operations began, a telephone recording captured a heated exchange between Schettino and a Coast Guard official, who employed brute intimidation to make sure the captain returned to his stricken ship.
In recounting his actions during the frenzied evacuation, Schettino later claimed in a hearing, “I tripped and ended up in one of the lifeboats. That’s why I was in there.”
At Penn State, the misstep was one of sloppy journalism. The Onward State staff had received an unverified set of emails ostensibly sent to school athletes as confirmation of Paterno‘s death.
Edwards made the decision to allow the now infamous Tweet to be posted. Within hours, the missives were found to be a hoax.
In an e-mail later sent to his supervisor, Edwards wrote that “sadness turned to shock and panic as I realized that I had made the mistake of a lifetime.” On the very same evening the error was discovered, Edwards published a formal retraction and heartfelt apology to Paterno’s family and the Penn State community. The editor closed it with his resignation.
Thousands of miles separated the incidents involving Schettino and Edwards. But distance was not the only measurable difference. Apparently, both were also worlds apart in terms of personal accountability.
(This post is an excerpt from an article written by Mary C. Buhay, vice president at Gibbs & Soell, and originally published in the G&S Insight newsletter. Read the entire article.)