I can imagine Tiger Woods talking to one of his advisors, hopefully someone who understands PR:

Advisor: Tiger, we have to say more about what happened. You’re being criticized everywhere and people are making up bizarre rumors.

Tiger: It’s nobody’s business but mine and I refuse to give in to all those people who want to know my dirty laundry. I can rise above all this. I’m not about to sink to their level.

Advisor: The truth is the only thing that’s going to shut this down. The longer you stonewall the longer the speculation will go on. In the meantime, your image is being tarnished.

Tiger: My image is fine. I make those advertisers millions and millions of dollars and nobody would dare to drop me as spokesperson.

Advisor: I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Unfortunately you’re not a normal person. You’re the best golfer in the world making huge amounts of money because the public worships you. You can’t have it both ways. If you want the their attention during good times, you have to fess up and be open when things go wrong.

Tiger: I’m Tiger Woods. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. Screw them.

No, Tiger, you’re the one who’s screwed. The truth will ultimately come out, one way or another. If you had been ahead of the story, you could have had some control of the message. Now, despite your mansion and millions, you’re at the mercy of “them”.

But that’s exactly what Orange County Register sports columnist Mark Whicker did.

“She never saw a highlight. Never got to the ballpark for Beach Towel Night. Probably hasn’t high fived in a while.”

He then proceeded to list 20-some things Jaycee didn’t get to see while she lived in a hell-hole, from Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron’s home run record, to the Anaheim Ducks winning the Stanley Cup.

He ended with “Congratulations, Jaycee. You left the yard.” Funny, huh?

To add insult to injury, after readers started sending in angry emails, Whicker issued a lame apology.

“For Tuesday’s Register, I wrote a column that clearly offended and outraged large portions of our readership. It was not my intention to do so. But it’s obvious that I miscalculated the effect the column on Jaycee Dugard, and the events that she might have missed during her captivity, had on those who read, buy and advertise in our newspaper.”

Yeah, and what about Jaycee and her family?

“For 22 1/2 years at The Register, I feel like I’ve had a good and direct relationship with our audience and I think most of the regular readers know how I go about reporting and commenting on sports. This column appears to have disconnected that bond with at least part of our readers. For that I apologize.”

He goes on to call it a “lapse in professionalism.”

How about calling it extreme bad taste, an outrage, an insult, arrogance, and a dozen other things I could think of?

At least the deputy editor, John Fabris, (one of many who should have stopped the column before it ran) posted an apology that seemed sincere and contrite.

“The past few days have been the kind that make an editor’s heart ache. We ache thinking about the hurt we have caused, and we ache knowing it was preventable.”

Maybe it’s time for Whicker to issue his own honest apology.

Don’t you just love a good scandal? Especially one that’s so blatantly hypocritical?

Mike Duvall, a pro-family values member of the California Assembly, got caught talking with a fellow committee member about his extra-marital sexual exploits.

Duvall and the other Assemblyman, Jeff Miller, were waiting for a meeting to begin and apparently didn’t realize their mics were open. Duvall went into lurid detail (TMI) about his sexual activity with two women, including a lobbyist 18 years younger than him.

“So, I am getting into spanking her. Yeah, I like it. I like spanking her.”

“She wears little eye-patch underwear…the other day she came here with her underwear, Thursday. So we had made love Wednesday—a lot!” (Ewwwwww)

Another irony—Miller, the one who was listening, is a member of the Assembly Ethics Committee, which is investigating whether he should be punished for not reporting Duvall. Miller claims “he wasn’t really paying attention.” Ah, yeah, right.

Duvall is married (at least for now) and has two children. He resigned from the Assembly yesterday.

Alliance Bank of Arizona had great news about reaching a critical goal: $1 billion in total assets! The president and CEO, obviously excited by his bank’s achievement, was quoted from the press release sent to Casacchia: “Reaching the $1 billion dollar milestone in total assets, driven by our exceptionally strong deposit growth, continues to illustrate the value of having a strong capital position.”

Can’t you just see him spouting that gem while toasting his company’s success!

In another segment of the column, Jacob Gold was quoted in a press release about his book “Financial Intelligence: Getting Back to Basics after an Economic Meltdown.”

“You would think that with the abundance of readily available financial information, people would know which path to take with their money,” he said. “In reality, the exact opposite is the case.”

No, it’s not perfect, but at least it’s conceivable that those words actually came out of someone’s mouth.

So who cares? Both got the publicity they were asking for. Even the lousy quote from the bank got ink.

The problem is, many reporters will go out of their way to NOT use a quote like that. And even when it’s used by a journalist who doesn’t take the time to call to get something better, it bores readers. They either don’t understand it, or it they do, they’re so turned off, they stop reading.

At least I did.

Vick said all of the right things. His demeanor shouted something different. He wasn’t feeling—or believing— what he was saying. He was simply mouthing the words his media coaches told him to say during extensive training.

Yes, Vick has done his time for the crime. He’ll cooperate with the Humane Society and say he feels guilty for what he’s done. But in his heart of hearts I don’t think Michael really thinks he did anything wrong.  I belive he would still be fighting and killing dogs if he could get away with it.

Prison was just an inconvenience on his way back to a multi-million dollar contract.

Good thing John Edwards didn’t become president of the U.S. The guy obviously can’t strategize his way out of a paper bag, let alone run a country.

Common PR sense says when you’ve done something bad, spill the beans—all of the beans—at once. Don’t let bad news come out in drabs and dribbles. Get it out, aplogize if necessary, take your lumps, let the story die.

Stupidly, John Edwards has done just the opposite. Last year he went on national TV to admit his affair with Rielle Hunter. But in that interview with ABCs Bob Woodruff, Edwards vehemently denied being the father of Hunter’s baby girl. He said it just wasn’t possible.

Now reports say, after taking a DNA test, Edwards is about to admit that in fact he is the father. Once again, we’ll have days of stories about the slimy ex-senator and how he’s betrayed his cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth.

And once again, Edwards’ arrogance and/or cowardice has come back to bite him. He believed—or desperately hoped—his elaborate cover-up would work. It didn’t. And now he may be accused of not only sleazy behavior but also criminal actions: breaking campaign finance laws by paying hush money to Hunter and one of his aides.

Elizabeth Edwards deserves better.

It also shows that getting PR help and media training after a gaffe is like buying a burglar alarm after your house is robbed.

Horizon, a real-estate management company in Chicago, filed a $50,000 lawsuit against Amanda Bonnen after she sent what they claimed was a “malicious and defamatory” tweet: “Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s OK.”

While responding to questions about the suit, one of the owners of Horizon, Jeffrey Michael, gave the Chicago Sun Times what seemed like one of the most outrageously honest quotes in recent history: “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of organization.”

As word spread across the internet, Michael realized his mistake. He—and a PR firm he apparently brought in to help rescue him—sent out a statement apologizing for his “tongue and cheek comments” regarding his company’s approach to litigation. And of course he added the old “out of context” excuse.

He went on to explain that Horizon’s lawsuit came in response to a class action lawsuit Bonnen has filed against his company. At the end of the statement—which should have been at the beginning—he said his company takes allegations of mold very seriously.

Even if Michael was being flip, he obviously doesn’t understand how reporters work and how irresistible his quote would be. If his company was going to sue someone over a tweet, shouldn’t he have been prepared with his statement before the media called rather than after?

It’s a horrible story—a couple in Florida who adopts special needs children is killed in a home invasion/robbery.

In the face of such a crisis and the national coverage it’s drawn, I’ve been impressed with the actions of the Escambia County Sheriff’s Department and especially Sheriff David Morgan.

I’ve seen five interviews on the Today Show as well as videos on other web sites. Morgan has been cool, calm, extremely credible, well-spoken and savvy (besides his rugged good looks!). He knows when not to answer questions but does it in a way that doesn’t seem evasive.

He also knows how to play for the cameras, though for me at least, not in an obnoxious way. At one news conference he hugged a sobbing daughter of one of the victims saying he’d kept a promise to her to catch the murderers.

This guy is good and I’m not sure why. He can’t have had much experience with national media. He’s been sheriff for less than a year. Interestingly, during his campaign he told a newspaper that the county of 300,000 people “isn’t Mayberry anymore”.

How sad those words proved true so quickly.

“To put this in perspective there are 1,415 spaces in this deck,” said Barkley Russell. “One section was involved, and it is estimated that approximately 35 spaces were affected.”

Luckily, no one was hurt in the collapse, but at the time Russell released this statement, police planned to make another sweep of the property. What if someone had been found dead? The statement from Hardin would have looked very cold-hearted.

Even without death or injury, trying to minimize a crisis insults the people who have been or could have been affected—like those whose cars were crushed in the collapse, or families who worried about someone they thought could be injured.

Minimizing what happened may make the company feel better about the situation, but it’s likely to come back and bite you.

If you haven’t seen South Carolina governor Mark Sanford’s news conference about his affair, you gotta take a listen. Calling it “rambling” is an understatement. He didn’t mention the reason for the news conference—”I’ve been unfaithful to my wife”—until 8 minutes into his statement. Up until then, and afterward, it was a mess of incoherent blather.

Obviously there was no preparation, no “messaging,” no clear goal, and while it was entertaining, I’m afraid he did himself more harm than good. Sometimes, the more you talk the bigger the hole you dig for yourself.

I know apologizing in public is the right thing to do to put bad news behind you. I’ve been preaching that for more than 20 years. But it’s getting awfully old. Especially since when most of these guys say “I’m sorry” what they really mean is “I’m sorry I got caught.”