Celebrity Crisis Mode Five Years Later.... 

Growing up in the media has been struggle for several teen celebrities. Justin Bieber, Christina Aguilera, Lindsey Lohan, Britany Spears, and Miley Cyrus have all been in lime light while going through their teen years. Unfortunately for Lindsey, the rest of the crew has found a way to bounce back from there childish mistakes. By continuing their careers, we have seen these teen idols grow, learn, and change. On the other hand for Miss Britney Spears, her crisis hit her one more time.

A lot of us might remember Britney Spears as the pop princess of the 90s, but in 2007 all our perceptions changed of her sweet innocent persona. In 2007, Britney Spears shaved her head and flipped out on a car during her madness amid struggle for custody of her children. That was the only the response that came up at the time. On the other hand, she was admitted to a rehab center which did show how she wanted to change. Although five years later, Britney started from the same point she left off with her explanation of her out rage.  

Although we thought this crisis was over in 2007, it came back into the media five years later. In 2012 New York Post came up with these allegations, "Spears didn’t shave her head in a fit of rage. She did it so there would be no way to trace her drug use, a lawyer for her former manager claimed in court." Joseph Schleimer, a lawyer representing her former manager Sam Lutfi, suggested to the LA jury that Spears was afraid a judge would order a test of her hair. If drugs were found in Spears hair, the judge could give custody of her two children to ex-husband Kevin Federline.

As a result of the allegations, Spears won’t testify because she remains under a conservator-ship overseen by a judge who has ordered her not to appear for trial or a deposition. Although it was interesting that Spears’ parents, Jamie and Lynne, both sat in the audience.

According to our text, there are ten crucial guidelines to follow during a crisis. They include:

1. Make sure everyone knows who is in charge
2. Know who has the information
3. Know who will speak on behalf of the organization
4. Understand the feeding needs of the media
5. Understand that "first beats better"
6. Monitor the media
7. Make a plan for using a website wisely during the crisis
8. Communicate with employees
9. Be accessible
10. Recognize the incomplete and sometimes inaccurate media coverage is inevitable

The book also gives six steps for a perfect apology which include ongoing expressions of regret and empathy, continuous expression of how behavior will change, and third party oversight of new behavior just name a few. Although Britney used a few of these is her first go around with her crisis, was it effective? Could she have done more to seek forgiveness?

My questions for you are do you think her these new allegations? Would they have been brought up if she would have used these strategies in the first go around? How could she have dealt with this crisis differently? Do you think this was a successful crisis response?

 http://nypost.com/2012/10/20/britney-spears-shaved-her-hair-off-in-2007-to-cover-up-drug-use-ex-aide/

Chapter 6: Ethics

Punishment of Plagiarism

The Incident:

Plagiarism: ironically means "kiddnapping"

Chapter 6, discusses the importance of ethics in a journalistic manner. Since about the 5th grade its been drilled into every young writers head that plagiarism is bad. The word is often associated with the word cheating, copying, other peoples words, stealing, and academic dishonesty. All negative works. In the text, it gives a short simple answer for the definition of the word.

 "Plagiarism means taking material from other sources and not giving them credit for it (Howard and Mathews)." 

The book gives two examples of plagiarism incidents that happened recently in the New York Times, CNN, and Times Magazine. The incidents involved two men by the names of Fareed Zakaria and Jayson Blair. Both journalists were review and fired and will most likely not have a future in writing.

Although plagiarism happens to professional, what is the effect it has students?

ASU student: Raquel Velasco

According to an online news source, Raquel Velasco was said to have plagiarized several articles she wrote for the ASU’s student newspaper called the State Press. At the time, Velasco was also an intern for the East Valley Tribune where it is said that she also plagiarized her work.

  I found it interesting because Velasco was compared to the incident in the book by Fareed Zakaria in the article. Was her act of plagiarism even comparable? or does it matter?   
 http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/article/2012/09/asu-students-plagiarism-risks-more-than-her-own-career

 Consequences:

 After not only being publicly humiliated for her mistake, Raquel Velasco lost her internship at the State Press, The East Valley Tribune has removed all articles under her name from its website, and the State Press is reviewing all of her material to see what else she plagiarized.It is also also unsaid at the time of the article if she would still receive her degree. 

Losing trust and creditability for your writing is one of the worst situations that could happen as a PR professional. In my mind, this is why I feel the word plagiarism has been grained into our heads since we were 12 year old and why it has such a negative connotation. 

As senior journalism student, I feel like it was a poor mistake on her fault. On the other hand, on the amount of media and press this receive it definitely ruined her career as a journalist. Being in my senior year of my undergrad as well, I would be devastated if  the career i choose was over before it even started!! Although, as a senior journalist student she should have known better.   

As the article states, Velasco repeatedly plagiarized other peoples work.

In my opinion, I think the punishment was fair because she committed the crime of plagiarize repeatedly! She knew what she was doing and got caught in someone elses words! 

I wonder if the outcome of her story would be different if it was told from her point of view? 

Maybe she would have got away with it?

 

 References:

 DOMINGUEZ, ANDRES. "ASU Student's Plagiarism Risks More than Her Own Career." Arizona 
 Daily Wildcat. Daily Wild Cat, 11 Sept. 2012. Web. 02 Oct. 2013.

 Howard, Carole, and Wilma Mathews. On Deadline: Managing Media Relations. 5th ed. New York: Longman, 1985. Print. 2013.