Stop the Presses: The Crisis Litigation PR Desk Reference

Don't buy this book for your PR department. Buy it for your attorneys. Levick bridges the gap between the need for an organization to speak publicly during a crisis and its legal department's desire to keep the corporate yap locked tight. An attorney himself, Levick understands perception trumps fact, and that at crisis time the real battle won't happen in a court of law; it's already happening in the court of public opinion. Filled with insights and strategies for short-circuiting a media assault from newspapers still in print to online bloggers, "Stop the Presses" is a must-read for those who think they know crisis communications. Levick also explains the critical need for advance preparation, on-going media awareness and outside legal and communications counsel in a crisis, three steps lacking in too many organizations. A clear winner. Dennis Dean The Dean Group

It's rare that a book can serve as an "insurance policy," but Stop The Presses comes as close as any I have read. Nobody relishes the idea of a crisis situation befalling them or their business--but crises do strike--and by definition, they are unexpected. If a company's management has read, or even browsed those neat little gray "So Don't Forget" boxes at the end of each chapter of Stop The Presses, it will have taken the first step on the road to preparedness. Ricard Levick and Larry Smith make this sometimes frightening topic eminently readable, and fill the pages with useful, do's, don't and "don't forgets." Their experience is evident all through the book. No book is a substitute for the right advisers and advice, but this one covers many of the crises and legal/regulatory troubles with just enough explanation to start readers on the path to the right kind of actions. As I stated at the start: it isn't quite an insurance policy, but for $30, it might just save your reputation or your company. And that's probably the best $30 you could spend. Buy it; read it; and hope you never need it. You'll sleep better at night.

Stop the Presses is a revealing surprise so far. I'm finding it a compelling work of reference, application and practical wisdom that's equally clever, smart and a popping good read! I hope the authors do for C-suites what Cluetrain Manifesto did for those who were once 'sheep.' In fact, I just ordered one for my favorite 'litigator' -- my dad. As an investigative reporter years ago, I would have delighted in this book -- it's quite enlightening in terms of how the media and its sources traditionally share a mutual perspective as 'frienemies' -- whether those sources are marketing chiefs, communications 'comptrollers,' information 'controllers' or the info-trolling public they can't control (and never did... not all of 'us' anyway). Though cliché, the authors' call to 'run to the crisis' isn't trite at all. It's no less trite for chiefdom, occupational journalists and their citizen counterparts dawning 3.0 than it was to the friendlier, subtle but perhaps more adversarial 'oneupmanship' that marked information exchange and reputations of the 1.0 generation. Our corporate 'friends' and counsel wore white-collar T-shirts beneath their expensive vests; we wore our coffee-stained cottons and camisoles straight up to the copy desk. (We dressed them up for boardrooms with khakis and a blazer ....) As I recall, the press corps' most popular T quoted Richard Nixon: "... The media always have the last word." Levick and Smith 'get it,' and they also seem to get the power of integrity and today's new media powerbrokers, as well as the fuller message of Nixon's full quotation: "The media are far more powerful than the President in creating public awareness and shaping public opinion, for the simple reason that the media always have the last word." Today's media often have the first word, too, which STP underscores well -- crisis or not. And for that, Levick and Smith deserve a T-shirt ... with matching SOX to boot. Or maybe they'll brand some sox for the C-suite that offer the real wisdom of this book: "Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching." -- Stop the Presses

What a wonderful surprise to receive a copy recently of your excellent book Stop The Presses! It's a great read and filled with insights that are illuminating and will prove invaluable to me. As a leading consultant for emerging technology start ups, I would say that the advice that you've shared underscores the importance of staying three steps ahead in the new "nano" world. Congratulations!

The title of this book invokes a sense of urgency and indeed the book is a must-read for anyone who has to navigate their way through the increasingly complex world of public relations. It is clearly written, well-organized and easy to read. Richard Levick and Larry Smith include many real-world examples that provide fascinating context for the information covered in the book. The checklists of best practices that the authors include have made this book my "go-to" resource when I'm developing a PR plan for an issue or a case in which my firm is involved. I will keep this book close at hand along with my already dog-eared copy of the first edition.