Michigan releasing the “highlights” of the Jenner & Block report is a massive communications failure by the university. Here’s why:
Believe it or not, Maize n Brew is not my full-time job. I am also a public relations professional, so I’d like to think I know how to get ahead of a story, control a narrative and make a bad story a one-day story instead of a week-long one.
Well, what the University of Michigan has done with the Jenner & Block investigations is one of the worst crisis communications strategies I have seen from a major institution in recent memory. And yesterday’s release of what the university is calling the “principal facts” of the investigation — a carefully curated FAQ document that reads more like a press release than a genuine accounting of what happened — is the latest example of a school that continues to shoot itself in the foot while screaming “LEADERS AND BEST!”…