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It's not every day that I get quoted in the Wall Street Journal.

In fact, there was just the one day.

It happened about a year after the company I worked for fired a guy on Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.

You might have heard about this. It was in all the papers and the networks and on Paul Harvey and even Armed Forces Radio. While the guy was being sacked behind closed doors, his little girl was outside those same doors, being minded by a pair of dismayed secretaries.

In addition to worldwide publicity, the company also won an award for the second worst PR blunder of the year. (I think the company that won first prize had a guy shot or something.) When the Journal contacted the company PR department for a comment, I made the mistake of answering the phone. My quote was "this was an honor we did not seek."

On another occasion, I once organized a news conference and not one member of the media showed up.

I set the whole thing up, bringing together high level business executives, representatives from the Aviation Hall of Fame, a couple of Air Force generals, and other heavyweights whose names I've repressed. They all showed up at the designated 2 p.m. time at the Air Force Museum and we all waited for the media to arrive.
And waited. And waited. And waited.

The assorted biggies looked at their watches and then at me. One by one, they asked me things like: "Where are they?" and "Did you tell them there was going to be a news conference today?" To which I replied. "I don't know," and "Yes. In fact, I called them all yesterday to confirm they were planning to attend."

As it turned out, a "breaking story," the murder of a public official, was happening at precisely the same time. The media chose to cover the story instead of attending a news conference. Go figure.

Years later, I was involved in several projects designed to help publicize the upcoming birth of a baby Sumatran rhino at the Cincinnati Zoo. This was a pretty big deal, inasmuch as this is a highly endangered species with only 300 known to exist in the wild. Also, there had been no Sumatran rhino births in captivity in more than a century.

After considerable effort by zoo scientists (not to mention the efforts of the rhinos), the birth of a calf appeared imminent. So, we had prepared a complete news kit with printed and video background materials. There was nothing to do but wait.
Finally, the baby came. Two days after September 11, 2001.

And then there was a considerably less public incident that occurred when I was working for a university. My boss was escorting a newspaper reporter during an endless board of trustees meeting. After several hours of blah, blah, and blah, we broke for dinner.

My boss and the reporter were looking over the rest of the agenda, which included an innocuous looking item about a presentation by the dean of the college of nursing. What the reporter didn't know is that the dean was absolutely furious at the college of medicine and had come loaded for bear with a litany of documented problems that would make for a juicy and exclusive story for the lone reporter who had attended that trustees meeting.

When the reporter asked about the nursing presentation, my boss launched into promotional overdrive, noting that it would include plenty of slides and tons of information. He was so enthusiastic that he drove the reporter away and the controversy did not become public.

This reminds me of another pretty slick move by another boss back during the Bring Your Daughter to Work day fiasco. A New York morning radio talk show host kept leaving voice mail messages with my boss every morning, trying to get an on-air interview.

My boss answered every call late each afternoon.

Learn more about this author, Bruce Pilgrim.
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