procedures accurately. The day after the story appeared, the super-
intendent called the newspaper’s editor and adviser to his office
and told them that the student’s mother was threatening to sue the
school for “washing my family’s dirty laundry on the front page of
your *!#*#! newspaper!” The superintendent asked the editor and
adviser what they suggested should be done to avoid a lawsuit. “We
don’t need any more bad PR, so do something,” he commanded.
What do you think the newspaper should do? What should the
superintendent do? What should the editor or adviser do?- Students elected the first minority homecoming queen in your
school’s history this year. The staff only got one good color photo-
graph of the queen. The homecoming page in the yearbook is in
black and white, but the opening pages are in color. Up against a
deadline, the staff moves the color picture of the queen to the open-
ing section and substitutes a picture of the first runner-up on the
homecoming page. When the book comes out, the queen and her
family are angry. They say it appears that the runner-up is the queen,
because she is featured in the dominant photo on the homecoming
page. You explain the circumstances, but they are not satisfied. A
local committee for the protection of minority interests comes to the
school board and demands that the book be reprinted. The commit-
tee threatens to take the issue to the media. It also threatens to take
the school, the yearbook staff and the adviser to court. Most of the
staff members who worked on that yearbook have graduated by now.
It falls to you, the present staff, to find a solution. Could you or the
school be sued for what the previous staff did? What do you recom-
mend the school do? What do you suggest the yearbook staff do? - In 1993, Disney released a movie called The Program, which was
the twelfth most popular box office draw when it opened. The
Program contained a scene in which drunken college football players
lie prone in the middle of a busy highway to prove they are tough.
They escape unharmed, of course, but a Pennsylvania teenager
who tried the stunt after watching the movie wasn’t so lucky. He was
killed when a pickup truck ran over him. Within days of the movie’s
premiere, three more teens were critically injured while lying on high-
ways. All had just seen The Program.
Disney quickly decided to delete the scene from the movie. At the
time of the decision, the movie was playing in more than 1,000 the-
aters. The Program was rereleased without the offending scene, but
it failed to resume its strong showing at the box office.
The name Disney equals family entertainment. Disneyland.
Disneyworld. The Disney Channel. Disney movies. Parents trust
Disney, and Disney has always guarded that trust carefully.
What would you have advised Disney to do in this situation? How
do you think this incident affected Disney’s public relations? Did
Disney misjudge its product? Its effect on viewers? The public’s
response?
PUBLIC RELATIONS 501
OPEN FORUM, continued