When bad publicity strikes: what we can learn from the Michael Jackson Case The pictures looked bad. Michael Jackson, the "King of Pop," who gave a soundtrack to the entire MTV generation, was being led into the Santa Barbara, CA sheriff’s office Thursday, Nov. 20 in handcuffs, accused of the unspeakable crime of child molestation. It made international headlines, and suddenly, P.T. Barnum’s maxim, "I don’t care what they say about me in the newspapers, as long as they spell my name right," didn’t look like such good advice after all. Perhaps it wasn’t very good advice in the first place. Smart people have long known that a good reputation doesn’t remain good – and a damaged reputation doesn’t get better – without thought, time and effort. Michael Jackson is smart, or at least his attorney Mark Geragos is. Geragos has been a pit bull on behalf of his client, and has been the brains behind implementing a near-perfect crisis management plan. (And this is honest, non-partisan praise. A strong Democrat, he got alcohol charges against Bill Clinton’s brother Roger dropped.) Despite this, here’s what he’s done right in THIS case: He set himself up as the only public spokesman for Jackson’s legal issues (Jackson also has a "media spokesman", Stuart Backerman) and decried others who were speaking for him or "in his name" on cable news shows in the hours after the arrest. That narrowed the message to the one that HE wanted to get out to the media. He said he would aggressively combat the charges. In 1993, similar charges languished for weeks before Jackson made a video to denounce them, leaving the negative messages and images unanswered. Geragos went after publicity-seekers and those who were trying to tape conversations of him and Jackson on a plane. Playing legal hardball is probably working better than we’ll ever know to control the damage of hundreds of "bad" and likely half-true stories from making it to CNN. You can bet Geragos is carefully crafting statements Jackson is releasing under his own name, ensuring they conform to an overall publicity theme and legal strategy. Just four days after the arrest, Geragos set up a Website, www.mjnews.us, to combat the case in the media. Now, thousands of media outlets check there every day for the latest statements from Geragos and Jackson, although Geragos is careful not to respond willy-nilly to every charge and negative news story. While Jackson’s reputation has clearly not been helped by the latest accusations, it’s not necessarily in free-fall, either. Geragos’ aggressive tactics are exactly what companies, individuals and politicians who are in trouble need to emulate. Here’s hoping you don’t need to do the same, but if you do, Stephen Abbott Communications can help design and implement a crisis management Action Plan at a reasonable price that can help bring your reputation back from the brink.