Comments on: Kansas Gov. Brownback sucks at apologies; media coverage was lame, too

By: 2011 on my blog: Digital First, Twitter, branding, TBD and other themes « The Buttry Diary

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:34:47 +0000

[...] value, flaws in the Navigating News Online study, Warren Buffett buying the Omaha World-Herald and lame media coverage of Sam Brownback’s overreaction to a student’s tweet, making money from a blog, tips for search-engine optimization, a columnist’s role and [...]

By: bradmcelhinny

bradmcelhinny — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:48:26 +0000

It’s OK. I was only mock indignant anyway.

By: Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:29:35 +0000

Oops, sorry. My mind thought “link” and my fingers typed “like”. That happens more and more with age.

Any way, my fingers over-reacted and for that I apologize.

By: bradmcelhinny

bradmcelhinny — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:16:26 +0000

Hey! I didn’t say I liked it. I didn’t even click a ‘like’ button.

I just provided the link, called parenting columnist John Rosemond a name and followed up with the information that Ruth Marcus had a bunch of toilet paper in her tree a few months ago.

By: bradmcelhinny

bradmcelhinny — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:01:56 +0000

You know, you mentioned that and I remembered that just a few months ago Ruth Marcus wrote about having the tree outside her home tee-peed by teenagers and had a good laugh about it:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/the-good-news-in-a-toilet-paper-prank/2011/06/16/AG1phdXH_blog.html

Maybe it just depends on your mood — or the proximity of the teenager.

By: Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 22:37:41 +0000

Oh my word! “Potty-mouthed tweet”? It appears that Ruth Marcus hasn’t been around a real, live American teenager in decades.

Why has a person with such delicate ears been given space in a major national newspaper?

By: Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 22:29:37 +0000

Hey, thanks Mike. It also struck me that they lost a wonderful opportunity to make lemonade here, had the “apology” been issued no later than Friday.

I’m from KC, and there has been a rather concentrated effort here to spin the story into “the girl was rude.” And that seems to be meeting with some degree of success, judging by brad’s like to Ruth Marcus’ idiotic column.

I do agree with your dad that the issue of the timing of the apology is down on the list of important things learned from this episode, and it is certainly “inside baseball” for people in the communications field.

But if that is down on the list, where does the “girl was rude” rank? About 843rd?

By the way, I am on the other side of the political fence, but Chuck Hagel certainly had my respect. Too bad we don’t have more grownups like him around in government any more.

By: Steve Buttry

Steve Buttry — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:59:57 +0000

Sounds accurate to me. Perhaps Emma Sullivan could suggest a hashtag for you to use.

By: Steve Buttry

Steve Buttry — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:16:47 +0000

Thanks for your insight, Mike. I still think the buck stops with Brownback. He signed off on the apology, and should have had the good sense to cut out the gratuitous whining about civility and simply take the heat, even if staffers were willing to fall on the sword.

By: Mike Buttry

Mike Buttry — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 20:27:48 +0000

Hey Kevin,

This is Steve’s son Mike. They probably did take too long to realize this thing was going sideways on them. The fact that it was a holiday weekend made it a great time to apologize.

Yes, the apology was lame, but it was probably written by staff who had to have a painful conversation with the Governor about why he was getting all this negative attention for something he had nothing to do with and probably didn’t understand. I think they probably threw themselves under the bus. I’d note that aside from the attention my Dad paid to it, the apology did its job (and let’s be clear…the objective of the apology was to make this go away, not express contrition). They managed to avoid making this story worse.

Obviously, they should have ignored it. I’m sure there are more important things for the Governor’s staff to be working on than increasing the twitter followship of a rude teenager.

Enjoyed the post Dad.