For this post, I will be identifying three stories in the
news this week and how PR is impacting them.
One big story this week is how the first U.S. cruise ship
since the ‘70s sailed to Cuba on Monday with around 700 passengers. This is a
monumental event for both governments since there have been so many issues in
the past, and there was even a protest from exiles of Cuba that almost delayed
the cruise. There had been a Cuban rule that people born in Cuba are forbidden
from leaving the country as well as others entering, but Cuba finally has
agreed to lift the ban.
I think with this event it’s pretty clear PR is flowing in
and out of it. This is such a historical moment for both countries, and it needs
to be covered and handled quite carefully since it is a sensitive topic to
some. Even in the article I read, it focused more on the positives of those
entering Cuba then revealing details of the protest that happened and almost
delayed the cruise from leaving.
The second story I read was about how Johnson & Johnson
have just ordered to pay a woman $55 million who said that using the company’s
talc-powdered products for her feminine hygiene caused her to develop ovarian
cancer. The company is actually facing 1,200 lawsuits regarding this issue, and
they continue to plan to fight these trials.
In my eyes, this is definitely heading in the direction of
crisis communication. The fact that the woman won the trial and that there are
1,200 other claims against this specific issue is going to hurt the company’s
image severely if not managed well. The article even said after this trial
J&J’s stock decreased 18 cents…just from publicity of this one trial.
The final story I saw was extremely interesting to me, it
covered how on the fifth anniversary of bin Ladin’s death, the CIA actually
live-tweeted the events in “real-time.” Yes, I’m not kidding. To celebrate this
anniversary, the official CIA Twitter had someone tweet little known details of
the raid on bin Ladin in the “real-time” that it happened five years ago.
Crazy, innovative, and interesting.
This definitely has PR all over it. Utilizing social media alone
ties into the facet of PR, but this was almost like a mini-campaign idea used
to regenerate talk about this historic event and interact with Twitter users
online. It was very innovative and a unique idea that generated a ton of buzz…I
wonder who that PR person was.
