The problem with that move, McPherson said, is that it made years of commitments look hollow, especially in the case of Target, which cited an “evolving external landscape” as its reasoning for the retreat. But that decision prompted a boycott by Black consumers that did real damage to the company.
“DEI is not a tactic—it’s the infrastructure that builds the foundation of your company,” McPherson said. “You do not do it because of what the media thinks, or what your followers think; you do it because it’s the right thing. What Target lost there is opportunity.”
Target’s new CEO Michael Fiddelke, appointed in February, has met with Black activists including Women’s March co-organizer Tamika Mallory, and reportedly conceded that the company had lost the community’s trust.
When ‘laughable’ photos aren’t funny
Earlier this month, New York Post gossip section Page Six got its hands on photos of Dianna Russini, a reporter for The New York Times’ The Athletic, hanging out at an Arizona resort with New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel. The problem? The pair were shown holding hands, embracing, and lounging by a hot tub in bathing suits.
“That is not a scandal story about two people possibly having an affair—it’s a brand story, it’s a trust story,” McPherson said. “It’s about the New England Patriots, and it’s about The New York Times.”
But the crisis responses from the organizations were very different.
Russini resigned shortly after the Times began an investigation—just the appearance of impropriety is a violation of the paper’s code of conduct—but The Athletic editor Steven Ginsberg stated that the paper “has taken the matter seriously from the moment we learned about it.”
And the Patriots? Executive VP of player personnel Eliot Wolf skirted the matter by stating that Vrabel’s involvement with the team was “business as usual.” Vrabel himself was dismissive. “These photos show a completely innocent interaction and any suggestion otherwise is laughable,” he told the Post. “This doesn’t deserve any further response.”
Except that it does, McPherson said. Russini “needed to resign because she breached ethical standards, and now the New England Patriots as a brand have a problem,” she said.
“Vrabel said it’s laughable that anyone would think anything was there. Well, here we are a week later, and she resigned, so obviously the joke is on them. When the brand loses trust, that’s when you’re in crisis.”
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