Governmental authorities and celebrities in the media are starting a new trend. An increase in immoral, unethical and illegal behavior has manifested a new paradigm within the United States. Despite being caught in the act, many celebrities and politicians have avoided the blowback associated with their actions through a form of spin and plausible deniability that even many PR professionals are amazed by.
The line between guilty and not guilty is not as clear as it used to be. For the first time ever one can be sorta kinda guilty. Gone are the days in which a person would admit they were wrong, accept responsibility for their actions and petition for forgiveness. Today a person needs only to apologize to those he or she has offended as well as anybody they “might have” let down because of their actions and it is considered to be an apology.
Rosie O’Donnell - At the time of her being a co-host on on The View attempted to imitate people in China that were talking about celebrity gossip. She was quoted as saying "You know, you can imagine in China it's like, “Ching-chong, ching-chong. Danny DeVito. Ching-chong, ching-chong-chong. Drunk.” She later gave a public apology that seems to follow the same format as many celebrities, "To anyone who was offended at my Chinese, Asian, pseudo-Japanese, sounded-a-little-Yiddish accent that I was doing, you know, it was never [my] intent to mock, and I'm sorry for those who felt hurt or were teased on the playground." Can this be considered an apology? Rosie gave neither an admittance of wrongdoing or a statement that these words were wrong. Her apology didn’t even reflect some remorse or regret for her actions.
Pacifico And Springfield Ford Dealerships- Despite settling out $363,166 and $94,565 with interest to African-Americans whom the dealers charged higher rates to, Springfield and Pacifico Ford never officially apologized or admitted to any guilt. According to the consent order both dealerships were quoted as saying “We deny that we have violated ECOA or engaged in any discriminatory practices against African-Americans or other consumers.” So I guess they just felt like handing out over $400,000 to their African American customers for fun.” I hope I get a phone call the next time they decide to have a fun “free money day”. I wonder if it will be advertised? Ford’s annual free money hand-out sales event, for a limited time only African Americans can receive thousands of dollars for no good reason.
Michael Vick- It seemed that only after Vick realized that there was no way out of being punished that he admitted to being guilty of financing the dog fighting operation and killing numerous dogs. He said his actions were immature. This phrasing really takes away from the gravity of his crimes. I think hiding someone’s lunch at the office on April fool’s day would be an example of acting immature. Setting up an illegal dog-fighting ring and killing dogs is just plain wrong. Vick was also quoted as saying that the dogs “all died as a result of collective efforts” of himself as well as the other co-defendants. Not only did he not admit to guilt initially but after being caught he deflected some of the blow by indirectly admitting to killing the dogs. I wonder if you can apply this reasoning to other things. For instance he might say that he makes millions of dollars a year due to collective efforts or he is the father of his children due to collective efforts.
President George W. Bush – The president was quoted as saying “that mistakes had been made in the course of the Iraq war” and although mistakes were made "our troops are seeing progress on the ground!" Many questions arise after hearing his speech. For instance what mistakes were made, who made them and what is being done to ensure that they will not happen again? It seems the audience focus was shifted toward the progress and not toward the many mistakes that the president kind of glazed over in his speech.
It’s interesting how in most of these examples the definition of what was the right thing to do was never clearly defined. To be honest it was all a bit gray.
These celebs, politicians and authorities are encouraging this new era of plausible deniability. They admit to a sorta kinda guilt and expect everyone to accept it and move on. One can imagine the repercussions of a person following their examples. Picture the irresponsible taxi cab driver that hits a bunch of pedestrians on Broad street and says, “I apologize to anyone I let down at the depot, mistakes were made and due to a collection of efforts people got hit. It wasn’t my intention and I deny that I hurt anyone.”
There are so many other examples in the media of people that never admit to guilt and have a remarkable new ability to spin the situation. We advise those people to leave the spinning to the professionals and learn when to fess up.
The line between guilty and not guilty is not as clear as it used to be. For the first time ever one can be sorta kinda guilty. Gone are the days in which a person would admit they were wrong, accept responsibility for their actions and petition for forgiveness. Today a person needs only to apologize to those he or she has offended as well as anybody they “might have” let down because of their actions and it is considered to be an apology.
Rosie O’Donnell - At the time of her being a co-host on on The View attempted to imitate people in China that were talking about celebrity gossip. She was quoted as saying "You know, you can imagine in China it's like, “Ching-chong, ching-chong. Danny DeVito. Ching-chong, ching-chong-chong. Drunk.” She later gave a public apology that seems to follow the same format as many celebrities, "To anyone who was offended at my Chinese, Asian, pseudo-Japanese, sounded-a-little-Yiddish accent that I was doing, you know, it was never [my] intent to mock, and I'm sorry for those who felt hurt or were teased on the playground." Can this be considered an apology? Rosie gave neither an admittance of wrongdoing or a statement that these words were wrong. Her apology didn’t even reflect some remorse or regret for her actions.Pacifico And Springfield Ford Dealerships- Despite settling out $363,166 and $94,565 with interest to African-Americans whom the dealers charged higher rates to, Springfield and Pacifico Ford never officially apologized or admitted to any guilt. According to the consent order both dealerships were quoted as saying “We deny that we have violated ECOA or engaged in any discriminatory practices against African-Americans or other consumers.” So I guess they just felt like handing out over $400,000 to their African American customers for fun.” I hope I get a phone call the next time they decide to have a fun “free money day”. I wonder if it will be advertised? Ford’s annual free money hand-out sales event, for a limited time only African Americans can receive thousands of dollars for no good reason.
Michael Vick- It seemed that only after Vick realized that there was no way out of being punished that he admitted to being guilty of financing the dog fighting operation and killing numerous dogs. He said his actions were immature. This phrasing really takes away from the gravity of his crimes. I think hiding someone’s lunch at the office on April fool’s day would be an example of acting immature. Setting up an illegal dog-fighting ring and killing dogs is just plain wrong. Vick was also quoted as saying that the dogs “all died as a result of collective efforts” of himself as well as the other co-defendants. Not only did he not admit to guilt initially but after being caught he deflected some of the blow by indirectly admitting to killing the dogs. I wonder if you can apply this reasoning to other things. For instance he might say that he makes millions of dollars a year due to collective efforts or he is the father of his children due to collective efforts.President George W. Bush – The president was quoted as saying “that mistakes had been made in the course of the Iraq war” and although mistakes were made "our troops are seeing progress on the ground!" Many questions arise after hearing his speech. For instance what mistakes were made, who made them and what is being done to ensure that they will not happen again? It seems the audience focus was shifted toward the progress and not toward the many mistakes that the president kind of glazed over in his speech.
It’s interesting how in most of these examples the definition of what was the right thing to do was never clearly defined. To be honest it was all a bit gray.
These celebs, politicians and authorities are encouraging this new era of plausible deniability. They admit to a sorta kinda guilt and expect everyone to accept it and move on. One can imagine the repercussions of a person following their examples. Picture the irresponsible taxi cab driver that hits a bunch of pedestrians on Broad street and says, “I apologize to anyone I let down at the depot, mistakes were made and due to a collection of efforts people got hit. It wasn’t my intention and I deny that I hurt anyone.”
There are so many other examples in the media of people that never admit to guilt and have a remarkable new ability to spin the situation. We advise those people to leave the spinning to the professionals and learn when to fess up.
