Not surprisingly, MySpace has announced the layoff of hundreds of employees—30% of the workforce. In an email to employees, CEO Owen Van Natta hit all the right notes, explaining the reasons for the RIF, empathy for those affected, and hope for the future.

I especially liked this statement.

“These decisions are difficult for everyone, but especially for our friends and colleagues who contributed to MySpace’s success and are directly affected by the changes. Through no fault of theirs our company’s size became unsustainable.”

Then MySpace issued a press release. That nice statement about the company’s size being unsustainable turned into this quote: “Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company.”

Pretty poor choice of words. If I had been laid off after being a loyal, dedicated employee who helped put MySpace on the map, I would resent being characterized as “bloat”. Van Natta (or the PR team) should have stuck with his earlier description, “unsustainable”.

Yes, sticks and stones may break my bones…and…yes, words can hurt a lot.

The Obama administration wants to communicate to the American people (and the rest of the world) with clarity and transparency. Apparently the message hasn’t yet reached the Department of Defense.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, the DOD issued this statement in response to the ridiculous Air Force One flyover in New York City:

“In coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Presidential Airlift Group conducted a aerial photo mission in the New York City area on 27 Apr 2009. This mission, involving the VC-25 and an F-16, was conducted in conjunction with normally scheduled continuation training for assigned aircrew members. This mission was coordinated for the Upper New York Bay, south of the Holland Tunnel and in the Newark Bay north of the Staten Island Expressway between the hours of 1000L and 1030L.

Plain English gobbledygook.

Patrick Doyle, the President of Dominoes, issued a video apology/response to the disgusting video posted by two store employees in North Carolina. I’ve heard it criticized for being corporate speak. I disagree.

Yes, maybe it would have been better if he hadn’t read at all, but just talked to the camera like David Neeleman, the former CEO of JetBlue Airways, when he apologized for service problems in 2007. But actually, as reading goes, I thought Doyle did a good job of making the statement sound heart felt and real.

The major problem that undermined his sincerity was a lack of eye contact.  He appeared to be reading cue cards or a laptop to the left of the camera, instead of facing directly into the lens which a Teleprompter allows you to do. Gee, they don’t cost that much to rent, especially when your brand is at stake.

I think it’s encouraging that, according to the Wall Street Journal, the Federal Reserve and its chairman Ben Bernanke are working to become more open and communicative — not only with the media, but also with the American public. They may even decide to hold regular news conferences

Former Reserve chief Alan Greenspan prided himself on being as unclear as possible. In his 15 years on the job, he did only one on-the-record TV interview and rarely took questions after speeches. His hesitancy to communicate is understandable given that anything he said could cause a major earthquake in the markets.

But I wonder if this lack of clarity is also part of the problem. I doubt that very many people in this country, myself included, truly understand our economic system, let alone what caused the crisis we’re in and how the government plans to get us out of it. What people don’t understand they tend to distrust or ignore.

Earlier this year, lack of clear communication from the administration was one of the reasons President Obama had such a difficult time selling his recovery plans. Since then, the White House has been trying harder to keep us in the loop.

According the the WSJ, Bernanke said in an interview, “I think it’s important for the public to understand what is going on and to know that the government is trying to solve the problem. They should know we have a plan and a strategy.”

He’s right. The days of obfuscation are over. We need leaders who can explain to us in clear, simple terms — not economic gobbledygook — just what we’re in for.

It’s one thing for CEOs in the ivory tower to make PR blunders (for example, the big three automakers taking private jets to beg for money from Congress), but a CEO who is a former PR exec? What’s his excuse?

In January, 2008, Brian Tierney, CEO of The Philadelphia Inquirer demanded a 10% pay cut from employees. Meanwhile, four months later, his own salary went up 3% to $618,000. Then, around Christmas time, he got an even bigger boost — a 38% increase to $850,000.

Tierney spent 22 years in public relations and advertising before putting together the investment group that bought The Inquirer in 2006. For much of that time he ran his own firm. He represented high profile clients such as the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia. He was active in Republican politics, working on George Bush’s 2000 Presidential campaign and Sam Katz’s 2003 run for Philadelphia mayor. He even spoke at PRSAs International Conference in 2007.

Word got out about Tierney taking away money from his employees while lining his own pockets. How? His company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy over the weekend.

Now the not-so-savvy former PR exec has decided to give back his $232,000 pay raise. A spokesman said Tierney didn’t want the issue of his raise to become a “sideshow” to the filing.

Maybe that’s the kind of thing a so-called PR strategist should have thought about ahead of time.

Remember how hard reporters tried (to no avail) to get George Bush to admit he made mistakes in Iraq? Well, just two weeks into his administration, President Barack Obama has admitted that he “screwed up” by supporting nominees who had tax and lobbying problems.

“I’m here on television saying I screwed up and that’s part of the era of responsibility, is not never making mistakes; it’s owning up to them and trying to make sure you never repeat them and that’s what we intend to do.”

If only all politicians and business people understood and practiced this pretty much fail safe PR rule: admit your mistakes and move on. (I always wonder what would have happened to Richard Nixon if he had admitted and apologized about the Watergate debacle.)

For Obama, fessing up was even more important because he campaigned on “change” in government. The soundbite, “I screwed up,” is bound to haunt him some time in the future. (I can see it played in a Republican commercial when Obama is running for re-election.)

Even so, it was the right thing to do and earns him the respect of all of us humble humans who make mistakes — despite our best efforts — and try not to repeat them.

You’ve got to hand it to Governor Rod Blagojevich. This guy is either a total loon, or the smartest person in the universe. Either way, you have to admit he has chutzpah. Instead of fighting against his impeachment in the Illinois Senate (or even attending his own trial), he mounted a massive PR campaign, doing a media tour of the country’s top news and talk shows.

The best article I saw appeared in the Denver Post. Columnist Al Lewis wrote, tongue in cheek, that he sees Blagojevich as a “one-of-a-kind American innovator in the field of crisis management,” and that the governor should write a book on the subject.

Blagojevich apparently has written off his chances of keeping his job and is laying the groundwork for his defense in his criminal trial by trying to win in the court of public opinion.

But here’s the important question: Will the American people see him as a charming “everyman” fighting injustice, or a shameless manipulator?

No industry understands and prepares for crises more than the airlines. They know it’s not whether an accident will happen, it’s when.

They conduct practice drills. They develop messages and statements ahead of time. They have emergency teams ready to go the moment anything happens.

So why was US Airways CEO Doug Parker so wooden and passionless in his news conference in Tempe, AZ, after one of his planes landed in the Hudson River Thursday?

Not only did he look uncaring, but he also never verbally expressed one bit of empathy about the forced landing. And if a plane accident can be “good,” this was one of them. Not one of the 155 people aboard was killed! Boats immediately came to the rescue. The pilot was already being called a hero for his expert water landing.

Yet, amidst all this emotion, there was Parker reading his dull statement in a constant monotone. In contrast, a short time later, New York governor David Paterson summed up what everyone was feeling in one powerful soundbite.

“There was a heroic pilot who saved himself and approximately 154 other passengers this afternoon. We had the miracle on 34th Street. I believe we now have the miracle on the Hudson.”

Also in his statement, Parker asked the media not to speculate on the cause of the accident, which is like asking a dog not to eat steak that falls on the floor. Besides, it was already being reported that birds likely caused both engines to fail.

If this is how Parker handles a relatively “good” crash, imagine how he’d handle a real catastrophe.

The word is out everywhere from blogs and message boards to Computer World and the Wall Street Journal. Oracle has had a major layoff, but the company refuses to comment. Because of the lack of communication, rumors are filling the vacuum.

Some reports claim the layoffs amount to 8000 people, or about 10% of the workforce. Others say the figure is in the hundreds or low thousands

But why the “no comment,” allowing unbridled speculation to continue. It’s not like Oracle is alone in facing the economic downswing. They aren’t the first to lay off staff and they won’t be the last.

To me the company’s decision to keep quiet is a major mistake, and likely to make employee morale even lower than it already is.

Where is the outrage?

One week ago, an estimated 1.1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash and water burst through a retaining wall at a TVA coal plant in Tennessee. Of the 15 homes damaged by sludge as high as 6 feet, at least three have been called uninhabitable. Much of the ash flowed into the Clinch River, a tributary of the Tennessee. Environmental damage to the area will likely be severe and long term.

Some experts are calling this catastrophe the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the US. Others say that the 10.9 million gallons of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez in Alaska pales in comparison.

Remember those days in March, 1989, when the national media pounced on Exxon, criticizing the company for its arrogance and slow reaction to the spill? The story went on for weeks, with the public and the media continually attacking the company. Exxon’s reputation still bears the scars of the crisis.

But this latest disaster in Tennessee has hardly registered on the importance scale of the national media. There were a few stories initially, but little ongoing reporting as people continue to be homeless, dead fish line the banks of the river, and area residents worry about ongoing health effects.

Where are the investigations into how something of this magnitude could have happened? Where are the questions about how the early estimates of the spill could have been so wrong? Where are the reports about why the TVA wasn’t more prepared to handle a crisis of this size?

What is the difference? Are we becoming so used to disasters that it’s old news? Are media organizations so bare bones these days they can’t cover anything beyond the presidential transition, Governor Blagojevich’s latest press conference, and Sarah Palin’s daughter? Or is because this disaster happened in Appalachia, a poor area not worth reporting on?