Mel Should Have Gone Straight to Mortification.

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images.jpgAP reports:

Mel Gibson’s Tuesday apology for an anti-Semitic rant after his drunken driving arrest came several days too late, celebrity crisis management experts say. …

“In the first 24 hours, people start forming opinions,” said Richard Levick, whose Washington firm represents several celebrity clients. “He has constantly been behind the story and needs to get out front. What he’s done through actions is turned perception into reality. People presume he is anti-Semitic.”

Mel, come on! This is Image Restoration Strategies 101! Get out in front! You should have gone straight to mortification.

Previous research has provided a list of image restoration strategies that celebrities may employ. They are: denial, evasion of responsibility, reducing offensiveness of event, corrective action, and mortification (Benoit, 1997). [Mortification, literally “putting the flesh to death,” is defined here as full admission of guilt and apology for the event.]

For more on mortification, see here.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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