Category: Articles

If you’re the CEO of a public company, you already know that your company’s reputation accounts for more than $1 in every $5 of shareholder value. You know that a company’s reputation is seen as the cornerstone of its corporate value. And, you’re probably familiar with Warren Buffet’s famous mantra: ‘we can afford to lose money ‘ even a lot of money. But we can’t afford to lose reputation ‘ even a shred of reputation.’

Your company’s reputation (and your personal reputation) should be managed like a priceless asset and protected as a matter of life or death. One survey found that 53 per cent of companies that experienced a crisis still hadn’t returned to their pre-crisis share prices a year after the incident. How a company responds to a crisis can make or break its reputation.

To help you prepare for the unthinkable, I’ve compiled this list of different high-profile crises. This list is in no particular order and isn’t intended to offer any definitive lessons. Rather, it’s to get you thinking. Things can go wrong (or right) in unexpected ways — is your team prepared?

PR Crises To Help You Prepare

1. Aggressive Media Relations

Uber provides a lesson in how not to handle media: In 2014 Uber executive, Emil Michael, suggested that Uber should consider hiring a team of opposition researchers to use the company’s customer data to dig up dirt and spread personal details about a journalist who had criticized the company. This was a serious threat — the app contains personal details like ride data, home addresses, work addresses, daily routines, and credit card information.

Michael thought he was commenting off-the-record. He would release a statement expressing regret for his comments and underscoring that they did not reflect the company’s views. It was unfortunate timing for Uber, as the comments came at a time when the company was trying to improve its media relations and its management team’s image.

2. Angry Consumers

In July 2011, Netflix emailed customers with news that it would unbundle its video streaming and DVD service to create two separate packages. The changes would increase the price for DVD customers. Under intense pressure, and in reaction to venomous consumer feedback, that separate DVD service, Qwikster, was cancelled within a month of its launch.

The company’s share price plunged and Hastings gave up 50 per cent of his stock option awards for the year. Netflix had to go on an apology tour. CEO Reed Hasting said, ‘I messed up. I owe everyone an explanation. Many members felt we lacked respect and humilityﾅ.That was certainly not our intent.’ Some reporters likened this mistake to New Coke. Ouch.

3. Angry shareholders

Aviva became the first blue chip company to receive a ‘No’ vote from it shareholders on matters of compensation after the credit crunch. Management at the insurance giant had their tails stuck between their legs after their multi-million dollar bonuses were rejected by investors at their annual general meeting.

In 2009, the company’s chairman, Lord Sharman, was also roasted by one shareholder for failing to fire chief executive Andrew Moss after an office affair was revealed. The AGM was seen as a turning point — shareholders were finally taking concrete measures to protest bad management.

4. Vendor failures

California-based Conal Footwear found itself in a tough spot after a Reddit thread erupted. A user shared an image of tread marks from the company’s new pair of boots. The problem? The soles left swastika imprints. This appeared to be an honest mistake made by one of the company’s manufacturers, but the pic went viral, with 116,000 votes and 5,100 comments appearing on the Reddit thread alone. Within days, the photo had more than four million views.

Things took a turn for the worse when neo-Nazi groups began endorsing the product. It didn’t help that the boot shared a name — Polar Fox — with a WWII military operation. The company responded as best it could, recalling the boots within 48 hours and issuing a statement on the homepage of its website rather than bury it in the media room.

5. Disgruntled employees

In March 2012, Goldman Sachs executive Greg Smith penned a damning resignation letter, which The New York Times published. In the letter he excoriates the firm’s culture: ‘When the history books are written about Goldman Sachs, they may reflect that the current chief executive officer, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and the president, Gary D. Cohn, lost hold of the firm’s culture on their watch. I truly believe that this decline in the firm’s moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.’

The problem, Smith added, was that the firm cared more about making money and less about taking care of its clients. ‘I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.’

The letter trended on Twitter the morning it was published and spawned at least one clever parody: ‘Why I’m Leaving the Empire, by Darth Vader.’ It was a bad day for the much-maligned firm. On top of Smith’s letter, stakeholders and investors chastised Goldman Sach’s response in the press for being ‘Too little, too late.’

6. Executive succession

The most skilled PR practitioners nip a crisis in the bud before it becomes one.

Normally, the unexpected death of a charismatic and successful CEO would send share prices reeling. Total, a French oil company, avoided the drop by announcing a new CEO the next day.

CEO Christophe de Margerie was killed when a drunk driver drove a snowplough into de Margerie’s corporate jet at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport. The plane was engulfed in flames and all four people onboard died. The new CEO, Patrick Pouyanne, had long been exposed to media and investors and was a respected entity. The transition was smooth, and the share price unaffected.

7. False accusations

In March 2005, a Wendy’s customer in San Jose claimed to have found a finger in her chili. One month later, a San Jose Police Department investigation revealed Wendy’s was not at fault and the district attorney charged the customer with attempted larceny.

Despite this result, Wendy’s was left with the unenviable task of rebuilding trust with its consumers, without reminding them of the finger. To compound matters, the finger itself stayed in the news: yes, the accuser would face criminal charges for trying to defraud Wendy’s, but the source of the finger she placed in the chili was never revealed.

8. Natural disasters

In March 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit Japan’s northeastern shore. It’s the most powerful recorded earthquake to ever hit Japan. The subsequent tsunamis wreaked additional devastation across three coastal prefectures, wiped two towns off the map, claimed thousands of lives and displaced more than half a million people.

The Cosmo oil refinery in Ichihara city was one of many business hit by the quake. Throughout the 10 days the refinery was engulfed in flames the company provided regular updates, expressing ‘the sincerest apologies for the problems and unease caused to the nearby residents and to all those concerned.’ They ensured residents that ‘every action will continue to be taken to resume normal operations as soon as possible.’

9. Fraud

In 1998, Henry Silverman, a private equity investor at Hospitality Franchise Systems, led his company into a disastrous merger. The $14 billion deal with CUC International formed Cendant Corporation, but the honeymoon was short-lived. Shortly after the merger, Cendant uncovered a massive, decade-long accounting fraud at CUC International. CUC’s top executives had been preparing false business statements. The total estimated cost to investors was over $19 billion, making it one of the largest financial scandals of the 1990s.

10. Government investigation

In 1998, Bridgestone began receiving complaints about its Firestone tire treads’ tendency to separate, often resulting in horrible accidents. For two years, the company refused to admit there was a real problem. Instead, Bridgestone attempted to blame customers and pointed the finger at Ford. Motor Co. (which used many of the tires). The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched a large-scale investigation, and finally, on August 9, 2000, the company issued a recall.

Bridgestone issued a recall for 6.5 million tires — the second largest in U.S. history at the time. The NHTSA eventually announced that the faulty tires resulted in nearly 200 deaths and more than 700 injuries.

11. Cyberattack

In 2014, Sony Pictures was the victim of a cyber attack that leaked emails and forced the electronic release of upcoming films. The government of North Korea spearheaded the hack in response to Sony’s upcoming movie, The Interview, which included the assassination of North Korea’s leader. Apparently dictators don’t like being made fun of. In any case, as the leaks continued, and the gravity of the breach became apparent — largely through leaked emails in which senior executives insulted Hollywood stars — the company remained mostly quiet. It took Sony more than a week to issue substantive comments on the matter. The breach was humiliating, exposing, pay disparities and personal feuds.

Sony followed-up by firing its senior communications executive and threatened reporters against using the information from the hack with legal action. The studio drew President Obama’s ire for cancelling the release of The Interview: “We cannot have a society in which some dictators some place can start imposing censorship here in the United States,” Obama said. “Because if somebody is able to intimidate us out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing once they see a documentary that they don’t like or news reports that they don’t like. That’s not who we are. That’s not what America is about.” Sony insisted that ‘we have not caved, we have not given in, we have persevered, we will not back down,’ before releasing the movie on various digital platforms.

12. Product tampering

In 2010, a couple from Suffolk County, NY, decided they did not want to pay $1.40 for a pack of Jell-O. The couple developed a scheme in which they bought the pudding, replaced the Jell-O powder with a mixture of sand and salt, and then returned the package to the grocery store for a refund. They managed to hit up four stores with 50 fraudulent packages of pudding before getting caught. A customer who bought one of the fraudulent packages complained to the grocery story and surveillance video led police to the criminals. While the story received national attention, the issue was mostly seen as an isolated incident and Jell-O managed to avoid becoming the story.

13. Proxy contests

Billionaire investor Nelson Peltz launched a high-profile proxy campaign against DuPont in 2015, painting the chemical company as an underachiever (even though DuPont had a total shareholder return of 266 per cent over the previous six-year period). Within three months of his campaign launch, Peltz’ narrative appeared to be gaining traction. DuPont’s share price rose five per cent after the Institutional Shareholder Services advised DuPont shareholders to vote for Peltz to join the board, leading to speculation that Peltz’ presence would boost the company’s value.

In the end, Peltz lost, which came as a surprise to most observers and analysts. Despite his winning record as an activist shareholder, Peltz failed to secure the backing of a sufficient number of institutional investors and retail investors. Investors came to the conclusion that DuPont’s CEO was already making the type of pro-shareholder moves that activists try once they get on the board.

14. Rumours

In 1993, Pepsi had to deal with a scary rumour: a syringe was found in a can of Diet Pepsi in Washington State. Within one week, there were more than 50 reports of tampered Diet Pepsi cans across the country.

Both Pepsi the FDA were confident the reports were outright lies (they were). The company came out hard, staunchly defending itself to kill the rumour. This approach only works when you know the facts are completely in your favour. Pepsi produced four videos throughout the crisis, including a detailed review of its canning process, and eventually, security footage of a Colorado woman putting a syringe into a can of Diet Pepsi behind the store clerk’s back.

CEO Craig Weatherup took that evidence to the airways, appearing on news stations — with the explicit support of the FDA — to assure the public that Diet Pepsi was safe for consumption. Within two weeks, the rumours fizzled out and the FDA made multiple arrests for false reports. While sales dipped two per cent during the crisis, Pepsi recovered within one month.

15. Sexual harassment

David Davidar left Penguin in 2010. The company announced that Davidar was leaving to pursue ‘his successful writing career and other projects.’ The real reason for his exit remained a mystery for a couple days until new facts came out: a recently-dismissed Penguin employee had filed a $423,000 lawsuit against the company, and a separate $100,000 suit against Davidar. The employee alleged that she was fired after complaining of sexual harassment from her boss. She claimed damages from Penguin for wrongful dismissal and the ‘harsh, vindictive and malicious’ way the company treated her after she complained about Davidar. Penguin said the employee resigned from her position after ‘having declined to pursue other career opportunities within the organization.’ The lawsuits were settled quickly thereafter.

16. Special interest groups

In early 2010, Greenpeace launched a campaign criticizing Nestl’s palm oil sourcing practices. It rolled out a ‘Take a Break’ ad campaign that went viral. It featured an office worker gnawing on an Orangutan’s finger instead of a Kit Kat Bar. The tagline? Kit Kat Killer. The response? After its Facebook page was overrun with comments about its palm oil sourcing practices, the company posted the following message:

‘To repeat: we welcome your comments, but don’t post using an altered version of any of our logos as your profile pic—they will be deleted.’

According to Greenpeace, Neslt’ also successfully had YouTube remove the ad campaign from its platform, citing copyright concerns. Nestl’ denied the claim, but said ‘we notified YouTube about the campaign video’s infringement of the visual identity of our Kit Kat brand. The video is now back up and we will not submit the form again,” a Nestl’ spokesperson told CNN.

Within 10 weeks, Nestl’ announced it would stop sourcing unsustainable palm oil.

17. Trademark infringement

In 1999, the Washington Redskins lost their trademark protection because the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled the name was disparaging to Native Americans. While the football club was under no obligation to change its name, it lost the ability to prevent counterfeit Redskins merchandise from being sold in the country. The team has since spent the better part of two decades appealing various court decisions on related matters. In October 2016, the Supreme Court declined to hear the Team’s legal challenge.

18. Unethical behavior

Once the poster-child of the post-financial crisis banking world, Wells Fargo’s relied on its ability to cross-sell more profitable products to its customer base. This would prove to be bit of a mistake. Executives sought to drive growth by putting undue pressure on its employees to hit sales quotas. Many employees took to the challenge by fraudulently opening customer accounts. Most of these accounts were closed before customers noticed, but in other cases consumers were hit with associated fees or took hits to their credit ratings.

Wells Fargo fired about 5,300 employees who engaged in illegal tactics, and was forced to return $2.6 million in ill-gotten fees, and pay $186 million in fines. But the biggest hit Wells Fargo will take is to its reputation, as the media and government officials spent much of the year slamming the bank for its fraud. CEO John Strumpf stepped down—with a $130 million payout.

19. Whistleblowers

In 2013, a whistleblower exposed a practice whereby Princess Cruises would discharge gallons of polluted bilge waste along the British coast. The cruise company used a device known as a ‘magic pipe’ to bypass on-ship water treatment systems and unloaded wastewater directly into the ocean. The company was fined $40 million dollars—the largest of its kind. Investigators also discovered that employees covered-up these illegal practices before investigators could get on board.

The cruise line published a written statement, as well as a YouTube video from its president. The company said it was ‘extremely disappointed’ that employees had violated company policy and federal law regarding discharge of pollutants. The cruise line added that it cooperated with investigators after the magic pipe was unveiled in 2013 and had taken numerous steps to fix the problem.

‘Although we had policies and procedures in place it became apparent they were not fully effective,’ the statement said. ‘We are very sorry that this happened and have taken additional steps to ensure we meet or exceed all environmental requirements.’

20. Organizational misdeeds

We can look to the Wounded Warrior Project for this example. This big U.S. charity fired its top executives after an investigation into accusations of lavish spending on parties, travel, and hotels, as well as exorbitant salaries. Over the course of a four-year period, CEO Steven Nardizzi and COO Al Giordano spent more than $800 million in donations on these lavish expenses. As one former employee (and veteran) put it ‘Going to a nice fancy restaurant is not team building. Staying at a lavish hotel at the beach here in Jacksonville, and requiring staff that lives in the area to stay at the hotel is not team building.’

WWP would subsequently close nine offices, fire half of its executive team and redirect millions in spending to mental health care programs and partnerships as part of an organizational overhaul.

21. Corporate misbehaviour

Tesco has a bad habit of getting into corporate misdeeds. In 2014, it was mired in an accounting scandal which coincided with food safety scares and chronic financial underperformance. It has become the poster-child of corporate misbehaviour, dealing with high executive turnover. In 2016, the company faced legal action by a group of investors seeking ﾣ150m for losses related to the 2014 accounting scandal. This, in the same year the Serious Fraud Office charged three former Tesco executives over the same accounting scandal. And that was before the FCA investigation ever concluded.

22. Management Deception

Companies face a crisis of management misconduct and deception when management indulges in deliberate acts of illegality, concealing or misrepresenting information about itself and its products. The Satyam scandal—’India’s Enron’— serves as a poignant example. In 2009, the company’s chairman resigned, confessing that he had manipulated account’s to the tune of $1.47 billion. In the immediate aftermath, investors lost as much as $2.2 billion as the company’s shares tanked. Six years later, the former chairman was convicted with 10 others. The Indian arm of PwC was fined $6 million by the SEC for not following auditing standards in their duties related to the accounts at Satyam.

23. Racism

One of the more famous cases dates back to the mid-1990s. Six of Texaco’s African-American employees sued the oil company for racial discrimination after damning conversations between executives revealed a propensity to belittle minority employees in racist terms. As the news broke, Reverend Jesse Jackson became Texaco’s most vocal opponent, calling for a boycott. CEO Peter Biljur issued a public apology, deploring the insensitivity of the taped remarks and placed the company’s equal-opportunity programs under review. He also commissioned an investigation by an outside lawyer. The executives in question were suspended pending the result of the investigation. He and his team then went on tour, visiting all branches and company offices to apologize to employees. The company then hired Uniworld Group to run an ad campaign to douse the flames. Jesse Jackson would soften his view in light of the company’s proactive handling of the crisis. Texaco settled the suit, agreeing to pay $176 million and Biljur implemented additional discrimination checks for executives and managers.

24. Bankruptcy

2001 was not a good year for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. With soaring wholesale power costs outpacing retails prices (the result of California’s 1996 deregulation law preventing higher costs from being passed on to consumers), and a drought that reduced the amount of hydroelectric power combined with delays in new power plant approvals, the company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. The crisis cost the company $40-$45 billion. It would emerge from bankruptcy three years later after paying $10.2 billion to its creditors. As part of the restructuring, the company’s customers had to begin paying above-market prices for several years, to pay off the debt.

25. Workplace violence

In 1986, Patrick Henry Sherrill, a 44-year-old mail carrier from Edmond, Oklahoma who was known as a troublesome employee showed up to the post office in his uniform with three pistols and a bag of ammunition. For 15 minutes, he went on a murderous rampage, killing 14 coworkers. In the two decades since Sherill’s rampage, the U.S. Postal Service has tried to prevent worker violence, but there have been other attacks. Nearly 50 people have died in post office violence since the 1980s.

26. Environmental disaster

This list wouldn’t be complete without mention of the Exxon Valdez tanker spill of 1989. The ship ran aground, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound. The oil damaged more than 1,300 miles of some of the most remote and pristine shoreline in the U.S.

The company was very slow to contain the spill, refusing to communicate openly about the incident. Exxon Chairman Lawrence Rawl was immensely suspicious of the media, and reacted accordingly. Media coverage escalated while Exxon dodged the media. The Chairman refused TV interviews, saying he had no time for ‘that kind of thing’. A company spokesperson misrepresented the extent of the spill and clean-up efforts. More than a week later, the company eventually held a press conference. Small pieces of good news claimed by the company were immediately contradicted by the eyewitness accounts of the present journalists and fishermen. Rawl gave a live interview and when asked about the plans for the cleanup, said it was not his job to read such reports, placing blame for the crisis at the feet of the world’s media.

Nearly three decades later, the sound’s coastal ecosystem is permanently damaged—thousands of gallons of oil still pollute the beaches.

27. Product Safety

In 1996, Odwalla juice experienced an e-coli outbreak. One child died and more than 60 people in the Western U.S. and Canada became sick after drinking the contaminated juice. Sales plummeted 90% and Odwalla’s stock price fell 24%. Customers filed more than 20 personal-injury lawsuits, and it looked as though the company would never recover. But Odwalla provides a case study on how companies can rebound if they handle the crisis effectively.

CEO Stephen Williamson ordered a complete recall of all (potentially) contaminated products from 4,600 retail outlets, forming internal task forces to execute the recall within 48 hours, and at a cost of $6.5 million.

In all his media interviews, Williamson expressed sympathy and regret for all those affected, immediately promising to pay medical bills. He conducted daily company-wide conference calls to give employees the chance to ask questions and get the latest information. Within 24 hours, the company launched a website (remember, this is 1996), which received 20,000 hits within 48 hours. The company spoke openly and frequently with media to provide updates. These proactive communications efforts, in conjunction with the swift recall went a long way to building goodwill.

28. Mysterious circumstances

In March 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared, carrying 239 passengers onboard. Given the nature of the crisis, the airline struggled to effectively manage the crisis. It took the airline 16 days to send a text message to relatives of the passengers on board. The message was received as inappropriate, impersonal and detached. However, to the airlines credit, it established daily media briefings, published daily statements, and provided a focal point for the public to get the latest information.

From October 2014 through January 2017, a comprehensive survey of 120,000 km2 (46,000 sq mi) of sea floor about 1,800 km (1,100 mi) south-west of Perth, Western Australia, yielded no evidence of the aircraft.

29. Terrorist attacks

Months later, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukrainian territory, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew onboard. The plane was brought down in an area controlled by pro-Russian separatists. The attack received enormous media attention due to the nature of the previous crisis, the geo-political issues between Ukraine and Russia, and the violent nature of the crisis.

Within one hour of the crash, Malaysia Airlines tweeted confirmation that the flight had lost contact over Ukrainian airspace. The response was speedy, and included a statement with greater detail on the exact waypoint when Ukrainian air traffic control lost contact with the Boeing-777. It also hired a PR agency to handle crisis communications, taking care to communicate its financial assistance for each victim’s next-of-kin, offering to fly relatives to ‘Amsterdam or wherever appropriate to be able to continue the grieving process.’ Learning from the MH370 experience, the airline stayed in daily contact with relatives and provided 100 caregivers to help with support and counseling. It’s just too bad the company followed this up with an ill-advised ‘Bucket List‘ campaign.

30. Offensive Commentary

Air China’s editorial team published an article in its inflight magazine that warned passengers about visiting certain areas of London. ‘Precautions are needed when entering areas mainly populated by Indians, Pakistanis and black people.’ The editorial naturally prompted derision and outcry among London MPs and residents.

‘I am shocked and appalled that even today some people would see it as acceptable to write such blatantly untrue and racist statements,’ said Mr Sharma, the Labour MP for Ealing Southall. She invited Air China reps to visit her constituency ‘to see that a very multicultural area is safe, and would be of great value for those visiting London to see.’

It took Air China a couple of d

Have you listened to S-Town? S-Town is a new podcast from This American Life and Serial. It starts off teasing a potential murder mystery but quickly becomes an exploration of one man’s life and his complicated relationship with the small Alabama town in which he lives. The show is beautiful and literary, steeped in metaphors and southern gothic comparisons, both implied and direct. The man in question, John B. Macklemore himself, is a Faulkner fan and gives Brian Reed — the narrator and journalist behind the series — a copy of A Rose for Emily.

To avoid spoilers, I’ll try and keep this as high-level as possible. However, if you’ve just started the series and you’re worried about it, now is the exit point.

S-Town is not a true crime story, but it is a tragedy. There is a death and details of the deceased are investigated, plumbed, revealed, and eventually exposed. It is a fascinating story about a fascinating person. It’s also an interesting exploration of what we consider private and the narratives we create for ourselves and other people. S-Town is a rumination on loss, grief, memories, and storytelling itself. As Sarah Larson for The New Yorker puts it, ‘it also edges us closer to a discomfiting realm of well-intentioned voyeurism on a scale we haven’t quite experienced before.’ We all participate in voyeuristic exercises on a regular basis, although never quite at this scale or quality.

People scope potential crushes and partners on social media. Dating apps let you link your profiles so that you can show more of yourself, and provide more of a gallery than a snapshot of your life. We peak into each other’s lives all the time, and frequently, it’s to revisit or preserve an old feeling. Breakups, for example, can be that much harder when you still have your ex on Instagram or Snapchat. You see snippets of their life — but of course, not just snippets. The best snippets. Their presence on your feeds can be a constant reminder of a different time, and whether happier or sadder, a time that has passed.

We often think of social media tools as innovations that separate us from the past — we rarely consider the ways in which they help us stay hopelessly tethered. Jenna Wortham’s most recent article for The New York Times Magazine discusses why it is so difficult to tackle online harassment. Examining the origins of the net, its founding principles and the fact that online society reflects the people created it, she ends on a dark note:

‘As I talked to Cohen, another story of the internet began to take shape, one that looked more like a dystopia. It is entirely possible that these men never imagined the internet would free us from our earthly limitations. Instead they strove to create a world like the one we already know — one that never had equality to begin with.’

As Wortham reminds us, we often forget that our actions are not the product of the Internet, but that the Internet is a product of us. With its birth, there was much worrying and hand-wringing over the temporality of information and interactions. But the question of permanence is one that has come to plague us more often, not less, since the web was created. Browsing data, search results, buying history — it all amounts to a permanent collection of behaviour. In our line of business, screenshots afflict companies and individuals alike. Although we’ve all experienced it repeatedly, as a collective we still like to deny the indelibility of the net.

The digital age has awarded a kind of immortality to the everyday citizen that used to be reserved for celebrities, athletes and politicians: people with some sort of name recognition. Now, we can live forever on the Internet through our different social accounts. Facebook can turn your page into a memorial after you die. Instagram doesn’t have an official policy besides how to contact the company about a deceased user, but since they were acquired by Facebook in 2013, they may have a similar policy to Facebook that is not posted online.

There’s a very clear moment in S-Town when you wonder if a line is being crossed. There’s an ethical decision that Reed confronts and explains for the listener — but the entire production builds up to disclose very personal and intimate information. The story was three years in the making, meaning, for one thing, there was much more audio content than what we’re presented with within the framework of seven episodes. It slowly exposes the full picture of the man we’re left with at the end, but not all of that picture was expressly sanctioned by the subject. Personal social media use is selective exposure, but we are in control of what we’re producing. Through the photos and filters we choose, to the articles we share, and the videos we capture, we’re creating our own narrative. It’s us, but our curated selves. Whether we’re Valencia or Clarendon-filtered or trimmed down to an eight-second snap, it’s not raw.

Our terms of privacy, whether it’s through the disappearing messages of snapchat or a public Twitter account, is one that we’re constantly negotiating with a vast number of things: convenience, ignorance, and connection. Generally, we are fine with the trade-off, if what we’re forfeiting is portrayed in a positive light. Voyeurism is fine, until we have to ask ourselves what we get out of it. Tacit compliance is different than express consent, and in terms of our privacy, we seem to have a difficult time drawing a hard line until we feel it has been crossed.

Binging on S-Town leaves you exhausted because you delve deeply into one man’s life, but also into our society’s preoccupations. History and memory are the major themes of S-Town. One of the chief side explorations, threaded throughout, is time. John Macklemore loved sundials and he restored antique clocks. The man and the story seem of a different era, one that existed before the Internet age, which is part of its appeal. John Macklemore reached out to Brian Reed, a reporter, and over a number of months, told him about his life.

Facebook’s ‘memories’ function frequently encourages you to remember, preserve, and celebrate the past. Perhaps it’s because I’m part of the original Facebook generation that has now been using the platform for over a decade, but the shared memories, anniversary reminders, and insistence at nostalgia seems to be coming at me at an alarming rate. You can choose whether you want to keep these things to yourself or share them with your network. John gave Brian a copy of A Rose for Emily to try to help Brian understand the context of his Alabama town, of people who can’t let go of the past, a portrait of decay and stagnation. A Rose for Emily is a story about a private woman, intensely observed by the townspeople, who refused to share the details of her life and died secluded and alone.

‘There is a spectre haunting Europe’and all the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise it.’

When Karl Marx wrote those words in 1848, he was warning the powers-that-be the growing influence of communism. Later that year, anti-establishment and left wing forces led revolutions across the continent. Now, in 2017, a new spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of populism.

Support for populist parties in Europe and across the Western world have been increasing. Spurred on by the success of Brexit in Britain and Donald Trump’s victory in the United States, the battles between established parties and populist insurgents have become the centerpieces of recent elections.

In France, Marine Le Pen, the presidential candidate for the far-right Front National, is the top choice for almost half of the voting public. In Germany, support for the anti-EU Alternative for Germany has been growing consistently and is trying to prevent Angela Merkel from forming government in the next election. High polling numbers are the norm for far-right parties across Europe.

Most establishment parties fear that these populist parties — which are anti-EU, anti-globalization, and anti-immigration — will gain power and upend the existing global order. Radical and without a history of democratic service, populist parties in Europe could wreak havoc on the continent’s political institutions and way of life.

The question, then, is how to deal with these parties. In the U.S. the Democrats lambasted Trump for nonsensical policy statements, outright lies, and sexist and racist remarks. He still won. In Britain, all major parties campaigned in favour of continued EU membership, while UKIP, which had only one member of parliament, succeeded in its campaign to leave the EU.

Recently, Sweden undertook a more drastic attempt to stop the rise of a populist party. The 2014 elections left Sweden with a minority centre-left Social Democratic government led by Stefan Lofven. However, the populist insurgent party, the Sweden Democrats, more than doubled their seats and continued to rise in the polls. As Lofven’s government was unable to form an effective coalition or even pass a budget, everyone assumed there would be another election. However, in a shocking turn of events, the opposition centre-right parties agreed to support Lofven’s government (despite their continued dislike of Lofven’s budget) in order to stop the Sweden Democrats from winning a plurality of seats.

This decision appears to have backfired. Sweden faces many of the same issues plaguing Europe — high levels of public debt, a sluggish economy, and growing public discontent with the ongoing refugee crisis . When all parties on the left and right came together to stop the Sweden Democrats, it wasn’t seen as an act of solidarity to protect the nation; rather, it was seen as a self-serving act committed by widely unpopular politicians. Currently, the polls show that if the election was held today, the Sweden Democrats would, once again, double their share of the vote and become the largest party in parliament.

If intellectual criticism, public campaigns, and blocking electoral participation can’t stop populism, how then can establishment parties deal with the growing threat? Finland’s current prime minister Juha Sipil’ offers a potential roadmap.

After the 2015 elections, Sipil’, leader of the rural Centre party, formed a coalition with the conservative National Coalition and the populist True Finns. The True Finns had become the second largest party in parliament and, initially, looked like they would continue to grow year over year. However, two years after joining the government ‘ and two years of continued economic stagnation, high public debt, and a refugee crisis without a foreseeable solution ‘ the True Finns have lost half their public support.

The reason is that populist parties are inherently protest votes. Their membership is comprised of radicals and activists who have little or no experience in actually governing a country, let alone navigating the intricacies of a state bureaucracy. One could call them untested, but their supporters see them as untarnished by the mistakes made by the establishment parties.

However, this untarnished persona disappears quickly when brought into government. When insurgent parties are forced to address the realities of government — and all the deal-making, broken promises, and disappointed constituents that entails — they lose their sheen because they were supposed to be different. They promised a politics that would deal with the ‘real problems’ facing the public (whatever they claim those to be). When this doesn’t happen, the public is faced with the reality that populist parties are not a magic wand that can wipe away the existing problems in the system. In practice, populist parties are no different than establishment parties when they are forced to govern.

Electoral success for populist parties might be viewed as an apocalyptic outcome by establishment parties, but it may only be a pyrrhic victory for populism. As Juha Sipil’ and his dealings with the True Finns show, the most disastrous outcome for populist parties and their charismatic leaders might be forming government in the first place. You can’t be anti-establishment if you are the establishment.

It’s March, which may seem consequential for things like daylight savings time (unless you live in Saskatchewan), something or other about an equinox, or even, perhaps, the fact that March is the best month to have a birthday (I may be biased). But, my birthday notwithstanding, these are all wrong. March is March because March is March Madness.

What is March Madness? You might ask, as you realize something incredibly important has passed you by every spring and lean in closer to learn what could possibly be better than the celestial alignment of the Earth with the sun returning daylight, and therefore, meaning, to your life. Well, dear neophyte, March Madness is the drama, the pathos, the excitement you didn’t know you were desperately missing. If you ever wondered if you were lacking in unhealthy attachments, the answer is a definitive yes.

Let me explain: every year the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) holds a Division I basketball tournament for men and women’s basketball. I say women’s basketball, but unfortunately, I’m really just referring to the men’s side. Like in most things, the women’s side is largely shunted into obscurity, relegated to secondary network channels. But the gendered politics of sport are for another time. Anyway, this tournament is called March Madness. To win March Madness, your team must be perfect. Sixty-eight teams are invited to play, then seeded (ranked) to determine who they play in the first round in their respective conferences (East, West, Midwest and South). Top-seeded teams play lower-seeded teams in early rounds to make sure better teams make it to the finals. It’s a single elimination tournament. You lose once and you’re out. Naturally this leads to enjoyable upsets and Cinderella stories when lower-seeded teams go on a hot streak and knock out tournament favourites — here’s looking at you Wisconsin. You don’t need to know anything about college basketball to get unhealthily invested in this tournament , although it helps. But, you can get caught up on long-standing grudges, the teams everyone hates (everyone hates Duke, if Duke wins, everyone loses. Thankfully, Duke has already been eliminated) and players to watch, pretty quickly.

And now you’re asking why — why does this matter at all, you’re reading stuff from Navigator not TSN or ESPN. Here’s why: the other fun part of March Madness — I would argue it’s as fun as actually watching the games themselves — is reading the coverage. Because this tournament is elimination, because the players are incredibly young (I mean kids, I mean born in the late 90s, I mean really young, okay), because they still have to go to CLASS the day after a devastating loss (again, Duke), March Madness is as much about the storylines, the narratives that get developed, as it is about the basketball. Let’s all bask in the glory of exciting long-form sports journalism. And also, because the NCAA is actually pretty evil and all of these kids are exploited under the guise of amateur sports. See? Drama.

The entire NCAA hinges on the fact that athletes are ‘student-athletes’. The hyphen is very important because it lets the NCAA determine that intercollegiate sports are ‘avocational’, aka not a job, aka, you shouldn’t get paid. Which would be fine if we were operating in a world where the righteousness of sport and opportunity was what this was all about and not the fact that the commercialization of college sport has led to a billion-dollar industry. March Madness alone is expected to rake in $900 million for 2017 in revenue. Conferences get some of this payout, and the conferences are supposed to divide the money amongst their schools, but they have to cover the expenses of the tournament as well. There’s a lot of accounting and explaining away that happens with the NCAA and its profits (also the fact that it’s considered a nonprofit), but none of it goes to the players. There’s also a lot of criticism about a model that relies on players whose scholarships (which only account for about 5-7% of the revenue) can be revoked if they’re injured and includes players complaining about being unable to afford food when the NCAA is raking in the dollars. Coaches also make an obscene amount of money, bringing in between $2-$6 million a year. On top of that, according to the NCCA’s own stats, the likelihood of playing pro basketball is 1.1%, leading many to question the ‘student’ part of ‘student-athlete’, saying NCAA players receive inflated grades to ensure eligibility, and because quite frankly, many don’t have time to compete in both an incredibly demanding athletic program and academics.

Now let’s go back to the coverage. Besides diving into the actual games, each March, you can delve into the intricacies of the funding models and see how the NCAA keeps trying to spin itself out of the annual exploitation muck. The NCAA reflects the world we live in, and there is a racialized element to this whole thing, that is pointed out more and more frequently. The vast majority of the top brass of the NCAA are old white men and NCAA players are predominantly young black men, and that’s not just an optics thing, it can also play out in people’s attitudes on paying these players.

Plus, there’s the fact that many of these kids are living their glory days right in front of you, in front of an audience. Although we all know meritocracies don’t exist anymore, sometimes it really feels like they do when some freshman showcases undeniable and promising talent and is instrumental in taking his team to the Sweet Sixteen. So all things considered, dreams are actually being made and broken here, and March 19, the first Sunday of the tournament, was the most-watched first Sunday in 24 years. The stakes on this thing are ratcheted up to 12, and I haven’t even talked about the gambling. Fans create tournament brackets predicting winners for each round, and bet on the outcome. For 2017, The American Gaming Association expects Americans to bet $10.4 billion on March Madness.

Those of us who are fans are complicit in this whole exploitation factor, and to be clear, I’m not advocating for the exploitation even if I can’t seem to remove myself. My point is that the NCAA makes you care and it makes you care a lot. My point is that the more I know about the sketchy structure of this whole thing, the more I care about these players. My point is that I have a hard time watching a 6’11 ambidextrous German teen single-handedly dismantle the defence of one my final four picks and not read everything about him.

My point is that if you want to see seven different layers of how a story can get told and how far it can go, and how quickly the tides can change for or against you in the span of three weeks, how unlikely teams and players rise to the top and how old storylines (Tom! Izzo! In! March!) get rehashed whenever it’s appropriate to rehash them, then follow the tournament. My point is this is both terrible and great, it’s sometimes serious and sometimes incredibly ridiculous and funny. My point is that this is every kind of coverage all rolled into one month.

Look, I’m not saying this is going to revolutionize your communications or reinvent the way you do business, but this is a real-life sports movie that plays out every year. Let it wash over you and accept that yes, you can in fact care this much about a nineteen-year-old from Bentonville Arkansas (where??) for reasons as arbitrary as the fact that he wears your old jersey number to ones as concrete as the fact that 95 per cent of the time he wants to win more than anyone else on the floor. I’m saying accept that it’s March, and accept that it’s Madness, and read all about it.

The internet is going to be a lot less annoying soon. Headlines like ‘Google has finally killed the CAPTCHA‘ give us a hint as to why. But these headlines don’t tell the full story — which is a shame, because the full story is kind of cool.

Yes, there is reason to celebrate. CAPTCHAs those boxes that force you to prove you’re human by clicking three pictures of an umbrella or typing out grainy text — are going away. But CAPTCHA is not dead — it just evolved. The latest version is completely invisible, but very much still there.

CAPTCHA, an acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart will finally realize its original design, automating a test that determines if we’re human beings. CAPTCHA has learned from human behaviour so well, it no longer needs us to confirm our humanity, it assumes it. The latest version only serves the annoying quizzes to suspected bots.

Now that CAPTCHA automatically detects human interaction, the bot intended to protect against simulated human behavior is, in a way, closer to that perfect human simulation than the bots it was originally created to protect against, who are themselves trying to achieve an undetectable human simulation.

See? Kind of cool.

But why does this matter? And how does it work?

Unfortunately we can’t really know the how the new CAPTCHA works.. It doesn’t make sense for Google or any company making widely-used security programs to publicize how those programs work. Captcha exists because spam, virus, and all the ugly parts of the internet exist. Whether its preventing fake accounts from voting in online polls or blocking malware, there has been incentive to filter out unnatural website behaviour from genuine interactions, as long as the internet has been around.

All we know about this new phase of CAPTCHA is in this video. The latest version of rechaptcha, aptly named ‘Invisible Recaptcha’ uses ‘a combination of machine learning and advanced risk analysis that adapt to new and emerging threats’. My personal theory is that this has something to do with a recent search-engine algorithm update, nicknamed Fred. It’s too coincidental that the same week Google adjusts its criteria to penalize or reduce the search authority of blog-style sites with ‘low content value‘, it also unveils a breakthrough in separating genuine human interest from robotic simulation. Fred hit content farms, the places where black hat or unnatural linking techniques live. Basically, until a few days ago, it was possible to manufacture conditions that search search engines would mistake for actual user interest in a site, so that the site could eventually improve its position on results pages. Like with the new CAPTCHA, end-users never see search-engine algorithm updates when they happen, the search engine results just change. If Google can distinguish between human and bot behavior in links or searches, it is a small leap for the company to extend the technology to cover general browsing.

Many have also speculated that this would not be possible without the piles of data Google has been mining through its other projects. That’s also probably true. The company needs some kind of a baseline for how people really act online to pull something like this off. Of course this development probably brings us closer to that inevitable robot uprising, but why not give Google the benefit of the doubt for once? Sure, it’s a little bit suspicious that it blatantly repurposed the scanning technology it originally acquired to help digitize books for security or consumer research that borders on surveillance. But, CAPTCHAs were also really irritating; now they’re going away. Google keeps repeating ‘what’s good for the internet is good for Google’. This time, I’m inclined to agree with them. Not having to enter CAPTCHAs will make browsing better, which will indirectly encourage people to use Google services more often. Internet security supposedly improved. Everybody wins.