Social Media and Crisis Situations

This past weekend, when watching football on Sunday night with my roommate, I was turned onto a piece of knowledge I’m sure many people are not aware of.  This particular incident occurred in 1996 and has relevancy to some ongoing events in football today. 

Peyton Manning is one of the most beloved football players of the past 15 years and one of the most well respected by players, fans and coaches of all time.  However, back when he was in knowledge, the great Peyton (who I am admittedly a big fan of) was actually accused of sexual assault. 

Most people don’t even know this happened.  I was shocked myself and couldn’t believe one of the most high profile athletes in the world has something like this unknown about him.  Now, it must be said the incident with Manning was not nearly as bad as some cases.  It seemed like more of an ill-judged, irresponsible prank by a young man who thought he was on top of the world.  You can read about it here.

So, the question I began to ask was exactly how I didn’t know about this.  There are really multiple answers, but the development and rise of real-time media and social media especially have contributed negatively to the public perception of some athletes.  Granted, it has also helped shed light on some disturbing issues which otherwise would have gone unnoticed.  However, for a person like Manning, he benefited greatly from the absence of social media.

Social Media, where anyone can post anything at any time, makes it extremely difficult to manage a situation like this from a crisis standpoint.  It’s become nearly impossible to keep things quiet.  Perhaps some problems that the public has been exposed to recently in sports, such as steroid abuse in baseball and domestic violence problems in football, really have been problems for much longer.  Let’s just say some people have been very lucky social media wasn’t around in the 1990s, otherwise the public may have a very different perception of them.