A twist in the story of the infamous Twitter lawsuit, which went viral on Twitter Tuesday, shows why even if reporters have a sense of humor, trying to be funny doesn’t always come out in print the way you expected.

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?

What century does Nike think it’s living in?

LeBron James gets dunked on by a college kid (Xavier’s Jordan Crawford) at a pickup game and Nike confiscates the tape, thinking that would put an end to it.

Nike claimed they took the tape because it was against the basketball camp’s media policies to videotape an after hours game. Never mind that the videographers said they were given permission to tape and that the media policies never said anything about a ban on taping.

Of course, from as long ago as Richard Nixon days, we’ve all known the cover-up is worse than the crime, and in an era of instant media, it’s even more true.

The story of LeBron James’ wounded ego and Nike’s strong-arm tactics becomes headlines for several days. And, as anyone could have predicted, despite all of Nike’s efforts, a tape of the dunk ends up on the internet.

Once again, what could have been a one-day funny story becomes a week-long demonstration that LeBron is more of a prima donna and a baby than anyone ever thought.

ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews was the victim of another kind of videotape. Some creep covertly taped her naked in her hotel room through a peephole. The blurry images ended up on the internet.

Andrews’ attorney says she plans to seek criminal charges and file lawsuits against the person who shot the video (if the cops ever find him/her) and against anyone who publishes the material.

A disgusting event made even more disgusting when the NY Post published photos from the video on its front page (I’m not providing the link on purpose).

ESPN now says it won’t let any of the NY Post sports reporters appear on its shows. Too bad. I doubt it was the sports department that gave the go-ahead to the sleazy pictures.

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.

I am in awe of those who use powerful analogies in their writing and speaking. When done well, an analogy can take a complicated concept and make it understandable to a lay audience. It can change an abstract idea into a concrete, visual and sometimes humorous example.

Ben Stein did this wonderfully in a recent article in the New York Times. The premise of his argument is that the Obama administration is taking on too many issues at once. It’s a theory I’ve heard often in the last few months.

But Stein brought it alive with the analogy of a plump man hit by a truck while crossing the street. Hospitalized in critical condition, the man has severe internal bleeding. The doctor, rather than just stabilizing the patient, decides that since the man is unconscious, he might as well also do a face lift, a couple heart bypasses, and stomach-stapling. Why waste a good crisis?

A good analogy never fails to bring for me an “ah-hah” moment. Back in my school days, I wondered why, in preparing for the SATs, I had to learn things like “idea is to crux as apple is to _______?”

Now I know: analogies rule!

You probably heard that a parking garage collapsed in Atlanta this week. Soon afterward, a spokeswoman for Hardin Construction, the company that built the structure, emailed a statement that included these two sentences:

“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.

A linebacker from the University of Texas, Sergio Kindle, crashed his car into an apartment building in Austin. His attorney, Brian Roark, admitted Kindle lost control while sending or receiving a text message.

“It was probably something he should not have been doing,” Roark said.

Gee, ya think so? Hope Roark is better in the court room than he is with the media.

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.”

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.

We’ve all heard the old saw “practice makes perfect.” What it really should say is “the right kind of practice makes perfect (or at least pretty good).”

When talking about presentations or media interviews, the right kind of practice means saying the words out loud, not just in your head. If you’re getting ready for a media interview, pose yourself possible questions from the reporter, then answer them out loud.

The idea is not to memorize what you’re going to say, but hearing yourself say the words out loud helps you critique them and ultimately “own” them. Ideally, you could even tape yourself on a audio recorder or camera.

It’s the same with presentations. Some people talk into a mirror. That doesn’t work for me—it’s too distracting (Hmmm…my eyebrow sure looks weird when I talk). But at least stand up and deliver your presentation out loud, ideally with the slides you’ll be using, if any.

Again the idea isn’t to memorize your speech. It’s to let yourself actually hear how the words will sound when strung together so you can make adjustments if necessary.

David Letterman struck exactly the right note last night in his sort of apology/explanation for the jokes he made the previous night about Sarah Palin’s daughter.

The jokes implied that during the Palin family’s New York visit, daughter Bristol (the one who had a baby with Levi) had had sex with Elliot Spitzer and Alex Rodriguez. The Palin’s—both Todd and Sarah—responded angrily, suggesting that Letterman was talking about their younger, 14-year-old daughter and blasting him for contributing to the sexual exploitation of minors.

I have to say I thought the jokes were funny. On the other hand, if I were the Palins, I’d probably be upset as well.

I think Letterman hit just the right note in his explanation—self-deprecating, somewhat remorseful, and almost, but not quite, apologetic. He invited Sarah to come on his show.

That’s exactly what she should do. It’s the old “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” idea. Trying to win a war of words in the media with someone who has his own TV show and millions of loyal followers is pointless.