Dan Crowley of Gazettenet.com published an interview on November 12 with Judith Griggs, the editor of Cooks Source. Great article. Go read it. You can find about 510,000 hits if you search on “Cooks Source”. My contribution to the pile-on is here.
Additional lessons in the learn-from-others-so-you-don’t-do-the-same-thing category:
- When in a very embarrassing situation of your own making, a profuse apology would probably help. Apologies by the editor as quoted in Mr. Crowley’s article are a bit weaker than I would expect.
- While things are calm in your business, find some time to read a few articles on crisis PR management. The editor would have benefited greatly from any such reading.
- Understand the law in your field. The editor still does not quite seem to grasp the foundational concepts of copyright – granted there is fuzziness about what to do with just a recipe (i.e. a list of ingredients and specific cooking instructions). There is minimal confusion about what can and cannot be done with an entire article.
It was interesting to read the perspective of Sarah Lacy of TechCrunch in her piece, “Congrats, Self-Righteous Internet Mob. You Killed a Magazine.” Lacy, who has been on the receiving end of an Internet mob herself after a less-than-stellar interview with Mark Zuckerberg a couple of years ago, naturally feels empathy for Judith Griggs after her experience. While Lacy doesn’t agree with what Griggs did, she clearly doesn’t agree with what she classifies as the mob reaction.
However, Lacy does not really account for the fact that Griggs brought this upon herself. If Cooks Source ceases publication, it won’t be because of an Internet mob; it will be because of Griggs’ own mistakes and actions. If she had followed the advice above and issued a profuse apology, perhaps the mob would not have arisen, or at least it would have been less unruly.