You know how things can be defined by the negative — well media relations is a lot like that. In today’s class, I’ll share a timely lesson in what NOT do to, but first, the back story from CNN:

A Boston police officer is suing the city after he was suspended for referring to a black Harvard professor as a “banana-eating jungle monkey” in an e-mail. Boston police Officer Justin Barrett apologized for his e-mail about Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

“The choice of words were poor; but they weren’t meant to characterize professor Gates as a banana-eating jungle monkey,” attorney Peter Marano said. “They were meant in a response to behavior and characterizing the behavior. Not the person as a whole.”

Although this dude is now a documented idiot; the good news for us is that we have yet another fantastic teachable moment for PR newbies:

1. If you don’t want the media to write about how you are a racist one who chooses words poorly, avoid sending a pitifully written, self-incriminating tirade to the The Boston Globe and then circulating it among your friends.
2. Always get a pal to lay eyes on your angry, grammar-torturing draft before you hit send. Even if you are “a former English teacher” and “writer,” we could all use a little peer review.
3. Anything you say/write/tweet/text to a reporter can and will be used against you in a story AND by your friendly Human Resources staffer – especially when it’s the most rambling, ridiculous, hate-filled, asinine email E V E R.
4. When defending one’s non-racist views, be sure to avoid sentences like: “That paragraph was as pathetic as jungle monkey gibberish – I might as well ax you the question” and “He indeed has transcended back to a bumbling jungle monkey, thus he forever tremains (sic) amid this nation’s great social/racial divide that makes it a free and great nation mixed with crazy and awkward differences. Go ahead, ax me what I think.”
5. Oh, and sound media relations works best when one avoids calling reporters names, criticizing their writing and suggesting they re-tool their headlines to things like: CONDUCT UNBECOMING A JUNGLE MONKEY – BACK TO ONE’S ROOTS.”

Fortunately, the Mayor called this moron a “cancer” and had him promptly removed. Still, just thinking about the fact that there are folks out there like this dude – whose brains truly process the world like this – makes me want to throw up.

(sigh)

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• E-mail Bigot Sues City (bostonist.com)
• Gates’ case dropped, blame debate goes on (msnbc.msn.com)
• ‘Jungle monkey’ e-mail jeopardizes Boston officer’s job (cnn.com)