University of Southern California President C.L. Max Nikias agreed to step down late last month, just over a week after allegations were made public that a longtime gynecologist at the school’s student-health center had sexually abused patients.
.. Alan Hilburg, President and CEO, HilburgMalan: “It’s been said, the most dangerous lies are the ones you tell yourself. There was an internal investigation, which in additional to contradicting USC’s public statement, revealed the truth about the sexual allegations and [that] the results of this investigation were hidden from the students, their families and even the California State Medical Board.
“Crises are never about the crisis. No one is judged by what caused the crisis, but rather how they respond. USC’s board and former president tried to hide the ball and now they are experiencing the high cost of low trust.
.. USC’s formal responses…ring curiously hollow. One of the worst aspects of some crisis responses being edited by lawyers is they can have a pulled-back, wordsmithed, bloodless quality, borne from fear of being quoted in future lawsuits. They appear to defend when they should apologize and make common cause with victims. So at the very moment USC needed to show itself to be trustworthy, honest and authentic and devastated, its statements made them appear otherwise.
Fox News Names 2 Insiders to Top Posts
The inquiry has expanded into whether other executives knew of any improper behavior and failed to act on it.
On Friday, Fox also announced that its longtime chief financial officer, Mark Kranz, would retire. His departure was linked to his oversight of the network’s finances during a period when financial settlements were made with women who had complained of harassment
.. Mr. Shine, 53, has been with Fox since shortly after the channel debuted in 1996. He is a favored figure among some veteran anchors, including Mr. Hannity, who first recommended him to Mr. Ailes for a job. A Long Island native, Mr. Shine cut his teeth at the network producing Mr. Hannity’s program and working closely with personalities like Bill O’Reilly.
.. “I could not be happier with the new management team at Fox News Channel,” the anchor Greta Van Susteren, who also worked closely with Mr. Shine, wrote on Twitter on Friday. “Each is well liked and well respected; Thank you Rupert!”
..Still, Mr. Shine was considered one of Mr. Ailes’s most loyal lieutenants. And his name, along with those of other executives, surfaced in recent accounts by two women who came forward to describe difficult experiences at Fox News.
Andrea Tantaros, a daytime host, told The New York Times that when she complained to Mr. Shine about being harassed by Mr. Ailes, he told her, “Don’t fight this.” Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Shine said that Ms. Tantaros never complained to him about Mr. Ailes harassing her.
Ten Reasons Why Melania Trump’s Speech Will Have a Lasting Impact
The blunder by the Republican nominee’s wife underscores a campaign rife with problems.
.. Now at last the script writes itself: Trump as doofus, the guy who went broke running a casino—and can’t even find someone to write an ordinarily competent speech for his wife’s big self-introduction to the American public.
.. Trump has just vividly demonstrated that his campaign—never mind the campaign, he himself—have zero skill at crisis management. Confronted with this comically absurd failure, their instinct is not only to lie, shift blame, and refuse responsibility, but to do so in laughably unbelievable ways.
.. The incident throws a harpoon into the heart of the Trump campaign’s racial politics. Trump’s message: Non-white people are ripping off hard-working white Americans who play by the rules. “They” cheat; “we” lose. Could there be a sharper reversal of that racialized complaint than Melania Trump in her designer dress stealing Michelle Obama’s heartfelt words?
.. A capable spouse effectively doubles the candidate’s own campaigning hours—more than doubles them, because she or he can relieve the candidate of speaking to party loyalists, whose votes are not in question, to free time for reaching swing voters and persuadables
.. Donald Trump epically does not tell the truth, does not keep his promises, and does not treat others with dignity and respect. A plagiarized speech (and the failure to detect the plagiarism) pretty strongly confirms that the Trumps do not much care about hard work, either. “Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I: yea, thine own lips testify against thee.”