Now We Know 'Who Dat?'

What a great game! There have been Superbowls that have been snoozers -- blowouts int he first quarter and the other team never caught up. The Colts made it look like that might happen, but the Saints wouldn't let them.

The final quarter kept everyone awake with exciting plays, lots of completions and first downs, but the Colts had some bad breaks or the Saints had some great opportunities. Depends on your point of view.

We were a divided audience. Cathy liked the Colts because they were in blue; and I picked the Saints because ... that's who was left and I have a friend who was at the game rooting for the New Orleans team.

Can't wait to see who the winner was among the ads. We'll find out on the Monday morning shows.

The Bureaucracy of Health Care

I visited the hospital Friday for what I thought would be a cardiac procedure to shock my heart back into normal rhythm; a cardioversion.

The short story is that I got there and my heart was in normal sinus rhythm, so nor procedure. Does this mean I'm cured? No, just that at 11:45 a.m. my heart was not acting up as it had been for two weeks previously.

But on to the subject. I arrived at 11 a.m. for a procedure scheduled for 1:30 p.m. The lady on the phone suggested getting there 15 minutes early to register. There's registration for the hospital then registration and prep in the cardio unit. A suggested wait time of 2.75 hours.

I'm not complaining, but what happens if government health care goes through? Do I have to arrive on Tuesday for the Friday afternoon procedure, waiting in chairs while they check with the IRS, HCFA (the Health Care Financing Agency), Medicaid II and my second grade teacher to check off all the boxes that need to be on the form?

Everyone who believes that government-run health care will make things better obviously has not been to a hospital or doctor's office recently.

On Demand Health Insurance

Remember the coin-operated flight insurance machines you used to find in airport terminals?

You might find something similar soon in hospital emergency rooms.

Under the Health-Care reform plan now being pushed through the U.S. Senate, insurance companies will be required to cover individuals on-demand with no pre-existing conditions. Sounds like a great concept for those who need insurance.

But it just means that young and healthy Americans who currently don't have health insurance coverage can just wait to purchase until they need coverage.

But wait, the government health insurance proponents say, if they are not covered they will have to pay a fine. The fine, estimated at $2,000 a year, is still less than the cost of any current health coverage plan.

So what's to stop someone from waiting until they need the insurance to just pay the fine and buy the insurance when catastrophic coverage is needed?

After a car wreck just have the EMTs wheel you past the health insurance kiosk in the ER where you swipe your card and you are covered for the hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical procedures you are about to undergo.

That can’t possibly drive up the cost of health insurance to everyone else can it?

The Swine Flu Crisis Is Real

You hear an "ah-choo" from across the depths of office cubicles. Do you think "Gesundheit" or "Oh no, we have a crisis?"

According to CBS, children in a New York school are being stigmatized if they show symptoms of the H1N1 virus, commonly known as the Swine Flu.

"People are being treated differently by everyone else because one person is sick and the other one is just normal. And because that person is sick they make fun of them," a student said.

Parents involved with Little League teams have tried to postpone games or even tell kids "not to touch the ball after the other team had touched it ... and at the end of the game not to shake hands with the opposing team," said Steven Crimando, a Crisis Management Specialist.

In the workplace, swine flu is also a new and scary face on a familiar problem.

Businesses and school have dealt with flu season for decades; wash hands, drink plenty of liquids, and ask the sick person to stay home until it passes.

The family of the assistant principal who was New York City's first swine flu victim filed a $40 million wrongful death lawsuit, claiming the city failed to quickly report the outbreak and to warn him that he'd been exposed to the virus. It also claims the city didn't do its best to control the outbreak.

According to federal experts the H1N1 flu virus could cause as many as 30,000 to 90,000 deaths in the U.S., and "poses a serious health threat." The deaths would mainly be concentrated among children and young adults. In contrast, the regular seasonal flu kills some 36,000 each year, mostly among those over 65.

Most people sickened from the swine flu, or the H1N1 virus, have complained of mild, seasonal flu-like symptoms such as fever, cough, sore throat, body aches and fatigue. Does this sound different from the flu that comes around every winter with various mutations? Is it now an employer's job to protect employees (and customers) from the flu?

It's the ignorance and fear that is creating the crisis. Just the name has caused in the pork industry. Alsothe fact that younger people are being affected, a more noticeable population than the elderly.

What should business and government do to protect itself from the fallout of swine flu?

The first step in any crisis situation is to review your crisis plan and make it specific to swine flu. (If you don't have a plan, now is the time to start one.)

Your crisis plan should include:

Planning - Gather your management team with the mandate that there must be a coordinated response to this real threat to productivity, employee morale and reputation. Set specific sick leave policy, travel policy and closure guidelines.

Keep working - Develop teleworking policies and alternate ways for employees to keep in touch with the office even if they are recovering.
Communicate - Let your employees and stakeholders know that you are concerned and taking action. Provide training in prevention and put tips and information on your company website.
Develop a sick leave policy with specific emphasis on H1N1 - It may be indistinguishable to other influenza and colds, but the fear factor makes it more threatening. Your staff will not be as productive while worrying about this new threat.
Take it seriously - Despite deadlines, reports and quotas managers must take action to send an employee home if they are sick. Allowing a sick person to infect an entire office is an opening to civil liability.

Educate the leadership -- Learn more about swine flu at the CDC website www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/ or Flu.gov www.pandemicflu.gov/. Offer wellness workshops and staff immunizations.

Whether it's the regular annual flu or H1N1, take the disease seriously in your crisis communication strategy.

News From Across The Country

Get ready to take a trip around the country by leafing through the front pages of daily newspapers at Washington’s Newseum. The physical location is at DC’s Pennsylvania Avenue and 6th Street between the Capitol and White House, but it can be found from your easy chair at www.newseum.org.

It’s here that you can read the front pages of 575 daily newspapers from around the US, ranging from the major dailies to be small heartland newspapers that are the backbone of journalism in this country.

Some 30 years ago a TBS executive told editors at a Georgia Press Association meeting that their industry was dying and would be replaced by cable TV. Sure, and film killed vaudeville theater; T.V killed radio, the internet killed print media. Not yet, each of these have revamped and remade themselves to survive. That’s what newspapers are doing now.

A long standing debate in the newspaper community has been, will the merger and consolidation of papers with large corporations owned multiple titles across the country cause a USA Today type McNewspaper that shows a sameness of content despite varying local issue.

A look at the front pages shows that not to be the problem. There’s a story about logging in a California newspaper, a report on the state fair in Iowa and Miss Cobb County in the Marietta Daily Journal. President Obama made the front page on only a handful of papers – the Washington Post, but not the NY Times. The plane/helicopter crash was front page news on almost every paper but ranged I importance from the only story in NY and NJ editions to a “See page 3” reference on most others.

There are some themes that are seen on today’s front pages that reflect stories seen elsewhere: proposed legislation against texting while driving (Park City, KY); a tax free shopping weekend (Fayetteville, SC); and furloughing state workers (Springfield, IL).

We may bemoan the plight of the future of dead-tree journalism, but there is hope.

Sure there are days when a national news story will appear on almost every front page, but it’s great to know that there is a diversity of coverage reflecting local communities in hundreds of communities across this nation.

Timing Is Everything

In the political world Friday is known as "Take Out The Trash Day" because most politicos know better than to say or do anything important just prior to the weekend.

(SC Gov. Mark Sanford might have fared better if he waited until Friday to come back from his "hiking trip" and bare his infidelity. He would have done a whole lot better if he had just waited a day and had been overshadowed by Michael Jackson's demise.)

News coverage is a 24-hour continuous cycle and in politics you learn to "feed the beast" with information that you want showcased and learn to hide the tidbits you'd rather not see on page one.

In Episode 13 of "The West Wing" we learn about "Take Out The Trash Day." The title refers to the Friday press briefing wherein the White House releases information about several sensitive stories, thereby preventing discussion and reducing any probable impact in the media.
Donna: What's take out the trash day?
Josh: Friday.
Donna: I mean, what is it?
Josh: Any stories we have to give the press that we're not wild about, we give all in a lump on Friday.
Donna: Why do you do it in a lump?
Josh: Instead of one at a time?
Donna: I'd think you'd want to spread them out.
Josh: They've got X column inches to fill, right? They're going to fill them no matter what.
Donna: Yes.
Josh: So if we give them one story, that story's X column inches.
Donna: And if we give them five stories ...
Josh: They're a fifth the size.
Donna: Why do you do it on Friday?
Josh: Because no one reads the paper on Saturday.
Donna: You guys are real populists, aren't you?

There are exceptions to the rule.

It irked the press no end when Sarah Palin, presumptive presidential candidate announced - on a Friday - that she would step down as Governor of Alaska. The talking heads questioned her motives and reran her press conference throughout the weekend while providing background that you never make such an announcement on Friday because it would not be noticed. They were even saying this on Tuesday of the next week as they continued to ponder the motives of Gov. Palin.

You can't predict the time of your crisis, but you can adjust and refine your message depending on what part of the news cycle you are in:

• Morning - What is said at a morning press briefing will be reported all day long.

• Noon - If the story is big enough or ongoing, a press availability during the lunch hour might be aired live.

• 4 p.m. - The deadest time of day for a news story. Print reporters are writing their main story and TV reporters have footage packaged for the evening broadcast.

• 6 p.m. - This is the time that journalism does rewrites. New information and comments get added to the story either in print or on-air by the TV anchor.

Nothing in here suggests that there is a best time of day for a crisis to happen. As Murphy's Law states -- if anything can go wrong, it will -- a crisis will occur at the worst possible time. Be prepared and have a plan.

Memorial Day 2009

Today is Memorial Day, the day we honor those who died earning and protecting our freedoms. From the volunteer settlers on the fields of the Revolutionary War in their new homeland to the doughboys of WWI and the Greatest Generation of WWII. Men -- and women -- fought and died so that we can have the opportunity to live in freedom and liberty in America.

You can thank a veteran today for their service, but their day comes in November. Today is for those who gave all their tomorrows so that we would have today and tomorrow.

The barbecues, the fireworks, the day at the lake; it's all window dressing so that enjoy the day without thinking too hard about the reality. The names on the Vietnam Memorial wall, the crosses at Normandy, the graves at Arlington.

That's why it is distressing to hear the well meaning, but fact-challenged minions of the presidential administration issuing platitudes about veterans and their sacrifices in the President's weekly radio message and other comments. It's a sign that a group of government school-educated young people realize that "we have to do something" about Memorial Day and head off in the wrong direction.

I'll be attending the Smyrna Memorial Day observance. It's a solemn observance, punctuated by a flyover, an Army band and military crispness. It is attended by folks who have seen the horrors of war, friends and family and those who simply want to say thanks.

Veterans Day, Nov. 11, is for all who wore the uniform of our country. Even I qualify, for my service of protecting the IHOP in East Point from Vietnam-era revolutionaries.

Memorial Day is to honor the memory of those who gave their lives for you, for me, and for their fellow soldiers. Bless them all.