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February 26, 2025 17 mins

This is the only thing you have to fear in a crisis. Listen as crisis and reputation strategist Molly McPherson explains what is at the heart of every crisis.

Recorded late on a Friday— moments after her meeting with a client in crisis— Molly checked out the national news headlines looking for a Friday news dump. She wanted to find the common theme between what she heard on that client call and what that headline story revealed. 

She found it. 

Learn what the secret trigger of every client crisis. 

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Molly McPherson (00:06):
Do you want to know what is at the root of
every single crisis, everysingle crisis?
This is the silent triggerbehind bad choices, missteps and
cascading failures.
By the end of this episode, youare going to have my secret for

(00:27):
how I help every single clientget through their crisis.
Hey there, welcome to thisepisode of the PR Breakdown.
I am your host, molly McPherson, and this is a different
episode.
It is unscripted, it is raw, itis coming off the cuff from the
top of my head, because I hadvideo footage that I could share

(00:50):
with them of a consumer basethat was activating against the

(01:16):
client.
Many people hire me to helpthem through a crisis that has a
backlash element.
Their stakeholders areretaliating against them.
I help people work through that, but the only way I can do it
truly successfully is if theorganization or the person who's

(01:41):
hiring me you know at thecenter of it understands the
root cause of the crisis.
If they don't understand it,buy into it, believe in it, they
won't get through the crisisand, in fact, it will linger or
it will abruptly end along withtheir job.
That's what I find happens, andit's not because I'm some

(02:06):
brilliant strategist.
I'm just playing the odds andI'm playing human behavior.
I've worked in media my entirecareer.
I've worked in communication,I've worked in news, I've worked
in public affairs.
The funny thing is I've neverworked in PR, and everybody
knows me for PR.
I've never worked in PR ever.
I've worked in a segment of PR.

(02:27):
I mean, crisis management is PRand I considered, you know,
communication, jobs, pr.
But I've worked through many,many, many crises.
Now I consider myself a crisisand reputation management
strategist, because people hireme when they are going through a
crisis and I help them throughthis.

(02:49):
I'm going to reveal the secretthat is straight out of my
playbook too.
If you need a playbook, I'velaunched my Indestructible PR
Playbook.
Why Indestructible?
You can fill in the blank rightthere, but this is my secret
playbook.
You can fill in the blank rightthere, but this is my secret

(03:28):
playbook.
This is what I do to getthrough a crisis and what I'm
talking about today is in thatplaybook.
So we have some Friday newsdumps that I'm going to reveal
from the headlines today.
Before I reveal the secrettrigger behind every crisis.
I want to give you someexamples.
Today is Friday and technicallyit's Friday afternoon, so I
opened up the newspaper to seeif I can spot any Friday news
dumps, the stories, theinterviews, the drops that

(03:50):
happen on a Friday in the hopesthat the press doesn't pick up
on it.
Let a couple days go by so theydon't have to deal with it, and
then, hopefully by Monday,something else will happen to
distract the press.
Something else will happen todistract the press.
One big one is staring right atme.
It's also a topic that I talkedabout on a podcast a couple
weeks ago and that's the storyof LA Mayor Karen Bass.

(04:15):
In my podcast I talked aboutthe breakdown in leadership and
why it happened.
And this story, not only aFriday News dump, but also has
that silent trigger.
To bring you back to the LAwildfires.
I'm sure many of you rememberseeing stories about the LA

(04:42):
mayor.
Certainly there were questionsabout her severe, severe weather
alert.
The conditions were ripe for awildfire to happen.
Despite the warning, she got ona plane to go to Ghana to
attend a presidentialinauguration.
She knew what could happen inLos Angeles and that did happen.

(05:05):
While fires broke out around LosAngeles and certainly
throughout California, someonetook a photograph of Mayor Bass
at the inauguration at acocktail party.
At the same time, the fireswere out of control in Los
Angeles.
That's bad and that's bad PR.
That is a crisis, los Angeles,that's bad and that's bad PR.

(05:26):
That is a crisis she had toscuttle back home quick, quick
to get back to Los Angeles, tolead the city through this
crisis.
As she was flying back and Idon't remember, like I said,
this is off the top of my head,unscripted podcast I think it
was a 17-hour flight I, I thinkI remember doing the math and I
wrote that in the podcast.
It was a 17-hour flight.
She had 17 hours to come upwith a response.

(05:50):
When she left the plane, as shewas disembarking the plane onto
the jetway, a reporter came upto her with a camera microphone
and started asking her questionswhen were you?
What are you doing?
The mayor stood there, deer inheadlights, deer in headlights,

(06:16):
literally and figurativelycornered, and it showed.
It's devastating footage,absolutely devastating.
So the mayor goes to Los Angelesand appeared press conferences,
interviews.
The target was on her back.
An adjacent story that came outabout this, because in a crisis
, people are always looking forwell, why did we get here?
People were starting toscrutinize the fire department
and it was revealed that therewas budget cuts to the fire

(06:39):
department and other sectorswithin the city, but the fire
department took a big hit.
The fire chief, kristen Crowley, pushed back, you know, against
those cuts and today, friday,february 21st news, the fire
chief was fired.
Mayor Bass said see you toKristen Crowley.

(07:04):
Now she did interviews with Fox11, mayor Bass.
So now we have the reputationaltour where she is trying to
reclaim her reputation.
This is the part where she'strying to restore trust, which I
don't know how she's ever goingto do that.
She's essentially pinning theblame for her being in Ghana

(07:25):
Well, not only to PresidentBiden.
She's claiming that PresidentBiden asked her to go to Ghana
at his behest I don't know whyan LA mayor, he's the president,
not sure why, but that's whatshe's saying.
But she's clearly deflectingblame for this trip.
But she's clearly deflectingblame for this trip.

Mayor Karen Bass (07:43):
And so she said, quote I felt absolutely
terrible not being here for mycity.
When I say it was a mistake,absolutely, the idea that I was
not present was very painful.

Molly McPherson (07:56):
That's ambiguous, right?
It's ambiguous because it'spainful to the people of Los
Angeles when your mayor is goneand she's at a cocktail party,
but what she's revealing thereis that it was painful to her.

(08:17):
It was painful that she wasn'tthere, so you can tell that
she's deflecting.

Mayor Karen Bass (08:22):
When the White House called and asked me if I
would represent the president, Isaid yes, it was going to be a
very, very short trip over aweekend and two business days.
It didn't reach that level tome to say something terrible
could happen and maybe youshouldn't have gone on the trip.

Molly McPherson (08:40):
She's deflecting by blaming other
people for not telling her thatshe shouldn't go on that trip,
that the city wasn't prepared,and who did she pin that on?
She pinned it on the person whowas speaking out against her.
It doesn't wash at all.
Okay, here's another story.
I don't even want to spend thatmuch time on it because I've

(09:02):
talked about it ad nauseum, ashave many, many others.
The Hollywood Reporter came outwith this week, I think today,
a cover story illustration ofBaldoni and Blake Lively, using
a David versus Goliath theme.
I used the same theme in, Ithink, my very first interview

(09:23):
about this back in December.
I said it's a David and Goliathstory.
However, I had Justin Baldonias David.
It appears that HollywoodReporter had Blake as David, if
I'm getting that right, becauseshe had the slingshot right.
That's supposed to be David.
The silent trigger is all overthat story as well.
Silent trigger is all over thatstory as well, even though the

(09:47):
civil complaint filed on aFriday news note Blake Lively
filing it against Justin Baldoniand Justin Baldoni being
absolutely thrashed all weekend.
He felt he was being takenadvantage of by Blake Lively and
we come to find out later, herhusband.
Now why?
The silent root of the crisis.
I would say the reason why allthis happened is because Blake

(10:16):
Lively's husband was filming amovie in Canada and other places
and he was away while his wifewas filming a movie with a very,
very handsome co-star.
So there again the silenttrigger.
Here's a quote from theHollywood.
So there again the silenttrigger.
Here's a quote from theHollywood Reporter that also
shows the silent trigger.
As a veteran personal rep putsit, what was an industry of
helping and protecting andelevating people is going to
change.
The whole sheen has beentarnished in a way that's not

(10:37):
justified because there are alot of great publicists doing a
lot of great work out there.
Okay, we're getting closer tothe silent trigger.
And when I did interviews forBlake around the Blake Lively
Justin Baldoni story, I didn'twant to.
I was busy.
Also, it was the holidays.
I didn't want to do any pressat all.
But what was starting to gnawat me was the narrative of the

(11:02):
story being anti-publicist,anti-pr, anti-crisis managers
and also saying that publicistsare crisis managers when they're
very, very different.
But it bothered me.
I was worried for my industry.
That's a hint.
Let me do one more story.

(11:22):
Oh gosh, elon Musk cutting 9-11survivors fund.
Republicans joined Democrats inrebuke the World Trade Center
health program.
A 90 member staff was reducedabout 20 percent, about 20%.

(11:47):
So they cut the 9-11 SurvivorsFund.
What does that create?
What does it create for you?
Are you someone who sees whatthe Department of Government
Efficiency is doing to nationalparks, to departments, to so
many agencies out there?
Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.
What is happening to a lot ofpeople in the federal government

(12:07):
right now?
They're losing their jobs.
How does that make them feel?
That is at the heart of what Isay.
If you understand this oneelement of a crisis, of when I
say if you understand this oneelement of a crisis, it explains

(12:28):
why people make these fatefuldecisions.
It is because of this reasonand that reason is because
they're scared.
It's fear.
They're scared of exposure,they're scared of loss, they're
scared of failure.
Almost every crisis comes fromthose feelings.
It just depends on the sector.

(12:49):
My client today who indulged me.
I was so grateful to thisclient that they allowed me to
show footage of their consumersvery upset and coming together
and there was video footage ofthem explaining why they were
upset.
My client and senior leadership.

(13:11):
They were looking at this groupin the same way that almost
every client I deal with.
When they hire me, people hireme for backlash.
They all look at that group whoactivates the same way.
They're the opponent.
Sometimes they're the enemy.
They're often labeled ashorrible people.
My client wasn't doing that,but was definitely labeling them
as a mob that they were causinga lot of disorganized chaos, if

(13:37):
you will, understandable.
I played clips of the consumerstalking and I said listen to
what this person's saying.
What about this person?
What about this person?
They allowed me to go throughall these clips and I asked what
do you hear?
What do you hear?
And it took a while to getthere.
And this is a very, very smartperson and a very thoughtful

(13:57):
person and empathetic person.
That's why I knew I could do itwith this person.
It took a while.
They're worried, they'refrustrated, they're angry.
All the words I went no, no, no.
We're getting closer.
And then they said it they'reafraid.
I said if someone's afraid,what's that emotion?
And they said it fear.
That's it.
It's fear.

(14:19):
Fear is at the heart of everysingle crisis.
I've been doing this for a longtime.
Every single client who hiresme.
They're hiring me out of fear,no matter what position they
have.
Someone is scared and someoneis scared of something.
Decision makers are oftenafraid of being exposed and

(14:44):
sometimes it's wrongdoing,definitely but sometimes they
don't want to be exposed asvulnerable, or they don't want
to be exposed as incompetent, orthey don't want to expose why
they made the decision that theydid, because it's just going to
raise more questions Again.
At the heart of it fear, fear,fear.
Why did Mayor Bass fire herfire chief?
Because that fire chief,kristen Crowley, was speaking

(15:06):
out against her.
She was fearful of losing herposition as mayor.
She had the power to get rid ofthat fear, though I don't think
it's going to work.
I don't think it's going towork at all.
What do you do with the citythat's under the threat?
Fire, oh, I know you fire theirfire chief.
If there's any lesson and thisis for anyone who works in comms

(15:27):
PR crisis, but also anyone inlife, anyone listening to this
in the sound of my voice thatcan hear me talk about this in a
very unscripted, raw kind ofunorganized way and my apologies
for that unscripted, raw kindof unorganized way and my
apologies for that but whetherit's a reputational or an
operational crisis, the sourceis always the same, and that is
fear.
Find the fear and you find thepath to resolving the crisis.

(15:52):
That's my hack.
It's straight out of myplaybook.
At the beginning of theplaybook, I always set the stage
when are we going?
What's our mindset?
How are we thinking?
Who are our stakeholders?
We do stakeholder mapping, thenwe do a little empathy mapping.
I want to know who has influence.
Who has power?
Who has high power, lowinfluence?
Who has all the power, all theinfluence?

(16:13):
Who can make things happen tothe client?
Remember, if you view groupsand people as adversaries,
beneath that, many times it'sjust fear.
And even if you're dealing withbig advocacy groups and they

(16:33):
could be incredibly disruptiveand they can be incredibly
frustrating too like awell-organized advocacy group,
they could be fearful of whatcould happen to animals, what
could happen to the environment,what could happen to the planet
.
Find the insecurity, find thefear and you're finding your way
through the crisis.

(16:54):
That's all for this week on thePR Breakdown podcast, where I
break down the crisis and thesituation to reveal the root
cause, to help you protect yourreputation in a crisis.
Thanks so much for listening.

Mayor Karen Bass (17:12):
Bye for now.
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