{"id":25056,"date":"2006-04-30T22:17:13","date_gmt":"2006-04-30T22:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/publicityhound.com\/blog\/?p=589"},"modified":"2025-06-12T16:23:54","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T16:23:54","slug":"dole-shrivels-by-not-responding-to-dateline-story-on-bagged-lettuce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/marketing\/public-relations\/dole-shrivels-by-not-responding-to-dateline-story-on-bagged-lettuce\/","title":{"rendered":"Dole shrivels by not responding to ‘Dateline’ story on bagged lettuce"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dole,<\/a> the world’s largest producer and marketer of fresh vegetables, is hiding behind its attorneys, while\u00a0a scathing report <\/a>on tonight’s “Dateline”<\/a> most likely will send\u00a0sales of its bagged lettuce\u00a0heading\u00a0south.<\/p>\n

Attorneys apparently told the company\u00a0not to\u00a0allow\u00a0executives to be interviewed for the\u00a0story\u00a0on\u00a0how at least 26 people in three states have gotten sick after eating Dole bagged lettuce tainted with E.coli.<\/p>\n

After\u00a0numerous interviews with victims,\u00a0health officials and\u00a0produce industry spokesmen, I kept waiting for somebody from Dole to come on camera.<\/p>\n

Certainly\u00a0a company honcho would\u00a0apologize,\u00a0show a little sympathy for the\u00a0sick consumers, and talk about how Dole is\u00a0cooperating to solve the problem. If they’re smart, they’ll even set up a\u00a0hotline for consumer questions and tell viewers what number to call.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead, in a\u00a0letter to “Dateline,” Dole says it is \u201cunable to comment\u201d because of the pending lawsuits, and adds \u201cfood safety always has and will be our top priority.\u201d The company says it is working \u201cclosely with government…to provide the freshest, cleanest fruits and vegetables possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

That’s when I walked over to the fridge, removed the half-eaten bag of\u00a0lettuce from the vegetable bin, and tossed it into the trash.<\/p>\n

These clueless companies just don’t get it. When something like this happens, and lawsuits result, the very worst thing executives can do is run for cover.\u00a0They make it sound like there’s a law prohibiting them from commenting if somebody files a lawsuit against them.<\/p>\n

Well, there isn’t.<\/p>\n

Clarence Jones<\/a>, a former TV\u00a0investigative reporter and crisis counseler, says too many companies like Dole make this mistake.\u00a0When I interviewed him last year\u00a0during a teleseminar called “In a Media Crisis, Your Lawyer Will be Wrong,”<\/a>\u00a0Jones said\u00a0that by the time\u00a0lawsuits wind their way through the legal system, a company’s\u00a0reputation could be tarnished and its sales destroyed.<\/p>\n

Jones says ninety-nine percent of the attorneys he deals with in situations like this one tell their clients not to talk.\u00a0The other 1 percent\u00a0understand, like Johnson & Johnson<\/a> did in the 1980s during the Tylenol murders, that if you are honest and open with consumers and with the media, you can\u00a0successfully defend any lawsuits and\u00a0win back the public’s trust.<\/p>\n

Johnson & Johnson followed\u00a0its simple credo that guided the company through the Tylenol murders. Withinin a year, its sales\u00a0surpassed where they had been when the crisis hit, all because of the company cooperated fully\u00a0with investigators and the media.<\/p>\n

The company even\u00a0invited\u00a0reporters into strategy sessions in which executives tried to figure out how to handle the crisis.<\/p>\n

If it can work for aspirin, why can’t it work for lettuce?\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dole, the world’s largest producer and marketer of fresh vegetables, is hiding behind its attorneys, while\u00a0a scathing report on tonight’s “Dateline” most likely will send\u00a0sales of its bagged lettuce\u00a0heading\u00a0south. Attorneys apparently told the company\u00a0not to\u00a0allow\u00a0executives to be interviewed for the\u00a0story\u00a0on\u00a0how at least 26 people in three states have gotten sick after eating Dole bagged lettuce\u2026 Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","iawp_total_views":5,"wds_primary_category":606,"footnotes":""},"categories":[606],"tags":[168,620],"class_list":{"0":"post-25056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-public-relations","7":"tag-crisis-communications","8":"tag-how-to-interview","9":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Joan Stewart","author_link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/author\/jstewart\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25056"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40931,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25056\/revisions\/40931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}