Time to cut out our Busch Light love affair

jbindm

Well-Known Member
Dec 2, 2010
13,073
7,605
113
Des Moines
National news and hits. Once they fire these people in a public way, in 3 weeks no one will remember this, just like everything else in this world.

But will everybody who has canceled their subscription in the last 24 hours come back and re-subscribe? It's one thing to say this will blow over. It's another to ignore the damage being done in the meantime.
 

BillBrasky4Cy

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Dec 10, 2013
17,525
31,866
113
National news and hits. Once they fire these people in a public way, in 3 weeks no one will remember this, just like everything else in this world.

Yeah... I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you there. I would love to know the number of subscribers they lose today by noon. I would be willing to bet that they are losing major advertisers too...
 

Walden4Prez

Well-Known Member
Jul 8, 2014
4,192
3,937
113
Yeah... I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you there. I would love to know the number of subscribers they lose today by noon. I would be willing to bet that they are losing major advertisers too...
That's what makes forums great, everyone gets to have their opinion.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: cygrads

Gunnerclone

Well-Known Member
Jul 16, 2010
75,682
80,074
113
DSM
But will everybody who has canceled their subscription in the last 24 hours come back and re-subscribe? It's one thing to say this will blow over. It's another to ignore the damage being done in the meantime.

That’s why it’s important to hit this hard and fast.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FinalFourCy

FinalFourCy

Well-Known Member
Mar 5, 2017
10,449
10,166
113
41
That’s why it’s important to hit this hard and fast.
I support this platform.

Do you remember when you dropped your subscription? I can’t. The DMR can’t afford to motivate people to drop their subscription, as a decent portion of those paying are likely just out of habit or essentially donations. It’s a parasitic charge that’s easier to keep paying than cancel.
 

jbindm

Well-Known Member
Dec 2, 2010
13,073
7,605
113
Des Moines
Moral of the story is to not post stuff on social media.

Kidding....kind of

Either that or never do anything good that's noteworthy, because the next step will be to unearth some dirt on you so everyone can be reminded that you're no better than the rest of us. Heaven forbid we ever have a positive human interest story without finding some angle from which to **** all over it.
 

k123

Well-Known Member
Sep 14, 2011
1,143
1,033
113
Iowa
I just can't get over the DMR's handling of this. Carson, whose crisis management team probably consists of his mom, handled it perfectly. Get out in front of the issue to the extent possible, make an unconditional apology, accept full responsible, and start turning the narrative back towards the positive.

The DMR, who is full of professionals who should have a clue how to handle something like this, tried to impute a justification on something unjustifiable. "Standard background checks" and "we have to make hard decisions about what is news" is utter nonsense in this case. Who in their right mind would read that and say "yep, this oughta nip this whole thing in the bud. People will surely see our side of it." Anyone with a brain knows that would not be well received.

Then, on top of all of it, you put the reporter's name out there without having the reporter and all available staff scour his social media for offensive posts. It literally took the internet sleuths all of 2 minutes to find all this stuff on him. How in the world do you not have the foresight to know the moment the reporter's name is mentioned that everyone would be trying to find something similar to what was dug up on Carson.

Pure idiocy.

I'm in-between on how the DMReg handled it. As stupid as this whole "milkshake duck" trope is, the DMReg knew if they didn't review his old tweets someone else would (OTOH, it is amazing no one already had). The Aaron Calvin profile was nicely done, and they included the tweet issue at the end and let King respond, which he did very gracefully. So that could have been the end of it!

Since it was inevitable (the cancer is in our social media culture for 10-yr old tweets, not only DMReg), it made sense to address and wrap it up. If anything, they could have used his response to frame a larger story (which has been written 100x since the airplane aids south africa lady) about this issue BUT then could have said "you are judged for your actions now not your 10 year old needle-in-a-haystack tweets, and so we (the DMReg) are moving on just like Mr King".

So I think the real fail here is by Anheuser-Busch. They know they are dealing with real people not corporate PR #CurrentYear PC perfectionists. So either stay out of such things and give up the "our values" and "Wow this #Brand is so funny and friendly" crap, or just expect something imperfect for everyone's past and roll with it. If he was a rabid member of Stormfront or Antifa, maybe that is a bit hot, but if he RTs a comedy central guy's tweets 10 years ago...move along. How did "cutting ties" help? Who did AB impress by that? You're (again, 'you' = an f-ing Brand) just supporting his current decision to donate a big windfall to the hospital, anyone with common sense knows that is as far as it goes, AB is not endorsing his 9th grade attempt to be edgy and impress his friends.
 

TXCyclones

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Sep 13, 2011
11,415
12,628
113
TX
National news and hits. Once they fire these people in a public way, in 3 weeks no one will remember this, just like everything else in this world.

Busch Light sales in Iowa after this:

sand-dunes-1.jpg
 
  • Funny
Reactions: capitalcityguy

BillBrasky4Cy

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Dec 10, 2013
17,525
31,866
113
I'm in-between on how the DMReg handled it. As stupid as this whole "milkshake duck" trope is, the DMReg knew if they didn't review his old tweets someone else would (OTOH, it is amazing no one already had). The Aaron Calvin profile was nicely done, and they included the tweet issue at the end and let King respond, which he did very gracefully. So that could have been the end of it!

Since it was inevitable (the cancer is in our social media culture for 10-yr old tweets, not only DMReg), it made sense to address and wrap it up. If anything, they could have used his response to frame a larger story (which has been written 100x since the airplane aids south africa lady) about this issue BUT then could have said "you are judged for your actions now not your 10 year old needle-in-a-haystack tweets, and so we (the DMReg) are moving on just like Mr King".

So I think the real fail here is by Anheuser-Busch. They know they are dealing with real people not corporate PR #CurrentYear PC perfectionists. So either stay out of such things and give up the "our values" and "Wow this #Brand is so funny and friendly" crap, or just expect something imperfect for everyone's past and roll with it. If he was a rabid member of Stormfront or Antifa, maybe that is a bit hot, but if he RTs a comedy central guy's tweets 10 years ago...move along. How did "cutting ties" help? Who did AB impress by that? You're (again, 'you' = an f-ing Brand) just supporting his current decision to donate a big windfall to the hospital, anyone with common sense knows that is as far as it goes, AB is not endorsing his 9th grade attempt to be edgy and impress his friends.

Not sure how to respond...
 

jbindm

Well-Known Member
Dec 2, 2010
13,073
7,605
113
Des Moines
I'm in-between on how the DMReg handled it. As stupid as this whole "milkshake duck" trope is, the DMReg knew if they didn't review his old tweets someone else would (OTOH, it is amazing no one already had). The Aaron Calvin profile was nicely done, and they included the tweet issue at the end and let King respond, which he did very gracefully. So that could have been the end of it!

But so what if someone else had? It doesn't matter who unearthed the tweets - the Reg, reddit sleuths, another news outlet - it's irrelevant to the story no matter what. That's the bar for journalists, right - is it news?
 

cycloneworld

Facebook Knows All
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Mar 20, 2006
30,190
22,541
113
Urbandale, IA
I'm in-between on how the DMReg handled it. As stupid as this whole "milkshake duck" trope is, the DMReg knew if they didn't review his old tweets someone else would (OTOH, it is amazing no one already had). The Aaron Calvin profile was nicely done, and they included the tweet issue at the end and let King respond, which he did very gracefully. So that could have been the end of it!

Since it was inevitable (the cancer is in our social media culture for 10-yr old tweets, not only DMReg), it made sense to address and wrap it up. If anything, they could have used his response to frame a larger story (which has been written 100x since the airplane aids south africa lady) about this issue BUT then could have said "you are judged for your actions now not your 10 year old needle-in-a-haystack tweets, and so we (the DMReg) are moving on just like Mr King".

Couldn't disagree more with this about DMR's handling. They fell into the culture of "better try and dig up dirt on someone because it will get more clicks" mindset (how's that working out for them this morning - check the subscription cancellation hotline).

Then they basically put out a statement saying "we did our job, its Carson's fault he had a press conference".

And now they've gone radio silent.

If that's not the definition of how NOT to handle a PR crisis in this day and age, I don't know what is.
 

mj4cy

Asst. Regional Manager
Staff member
Mar 28, 2006
31,850
14,807
113
Iowa
Couldn't disagree more with this about DMR's handling. They fell into the culture of "better try and dig up dirt on someone because it will get more clicks" mindset (how's that working out for them this morning - check the subscription cancellation hotline).

Then they basically put out a statement saying "we did our job, its Carson's fault he had a press conference".

And now they've gone radio silent.

If that's not the definition of how NOT to handle a PR crisis in this day and age, I don't know what is.


Yep. They have absolutely no business in the whole thing and had to insert themselves in it.
 

CloneinWDSM

Well-Known Member
Aug 9, 2013
16,779
11,478
113
I wonder how long Birch will not tweet for?

I’m missing out by not knowing what the Mystery Mousketool of the day is from his twitter.
 

k123

Well-Known Member
Sep 14, 2011
1,143
1,033
113
Iowa
But so what if someone else had? It doesn't matter who unearthed the tweets - the Reg, reddit sleuths, another news outlet - it's irrelevant to the story no matter what. That's the bar for journalists, right - is it news?

Yep. They have absolutely no business in the whole thing and had to insert themselves in it.

Yeah I generally agree with those, especially that it was irrelevant. Just that they had to decide since it might have been inevitable, but yes - since it apparently wasn't inevitable (two weeks without an issue) then they should've waited for it to become a deal and then reported then if it did.

Couldn't disagree more with this about DMR's handling. They fell into the culture of "better try and dig up dirt on someone because it will get more clicks" mindset (how's that working out for them this morning - check the subscription cancellation hotline).

Then they basically put out a statement saying "we did our job, its Carson's fault he had a press conference".

And now they've gone radio silent.

If that's not the definition of how NOT to handle a PR crisis in this day and age, I don't know what is.

Same as above - I think you're right. They're kind of saying "Sorry - sort of - for lighting this flammable thing on fire, but it was flammable, so was going to happen anyway"

This one does a decent job of zoomed out issue and also very fully acknowledges the negative feedback for DMReg:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...al-busch-light-star-old-iowa-reporter-tweets/