Never have a war of words with anyone who buys ink in barrels

This is one of my all-time favourite quotes from the public relations world.

Despite the fact that social media and public journalism are ever more important in our world, the media has a lot of influence… and I believe that no matter how far down the path of self-reporting we go, we’ll always value the opinion of media.

That’s why you never, ever attack the media. No matter what, they wield power. That’s why you work with them, help them and give them information to do their jobs. Because they’re still a conduit of information to your public. Your public will listen to them no matter what reputation you have. You can’t presume that if your public likes you that they’ll ignore what media has to say about you… so you can’t blame the media for reporting negatively about you.

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Unfortunately, Steve Jobs and Apple have slipped afoul of this cardinal rule in their press conference today about the iphone4 signal strength issue. Read this awful quote… it makes me cringe:

Jobs also lashed out at the media for making a big deal of the reception issue, which some have dubbed “Antenna-gate.”

He said that since Apple has been around for 34 years, “haven’t we earned the credibility and the trust of the press? I think we have that from our users. I didn’t see it exhibited by some of the press as this was blown so far out of proportion.”

“Maybe it’s human nature — when you’re doing well, people want to tear you down. I see it happening with Google, people trying to tear them down,” he said.

“And I don’t understand it … what would you prefer? That we were a Korean company, that we were here in America leading the world with these products … maybe it’s just that people want to get eyeballs on their sites.” (via CBC News… read the full article)

This is arrogant to the extreme, to presume that media will ignore things you’ve done wrong just because “you’re awesome and media should be nice to you.”

Apple has a major risk here, and I don’t believe they’re playing it well. They’re taking their public good will for granted and squandering it. Instead of using their adoration as an opportunity to show their customers the full extent of their care (i.e. even growing their loyalty by taking full ownership of their product error, which I’m sure everyone would applaud them for); Apple is betting that their goodwill means that customers will forgive them. Why would you even want to play that bet when the potential of increasing the goodwill is so huge?

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But, at least upset consumers can now get a free iphone case (at least Consumer Reports confirms the case fixes reception issues). <sarcasm>That should sweep everything under the rug… </sarcasm>