In other words, Pennsylvania State University, mystifyingly and to its great detriment, dropped the ball.
"I've seen crises where a client gets a call out of the blue and something's blown up, and those are around-the-clock, 24/7, in-the-heat-of-the-moment" response strategies, said Joe Crivelli, senior vice president of Gregory FCA, a public- and investor-relations firm in Ardmore. "But for something like this, where there's lead time to prepare for when this would be made public? Kind of mind-boggling."
Even with the dramatic firing Wednesday night of head football coach Joe Paterno and president Graham Spanier, Crivelli and others said, Penn State was far from gaining control of the raging abuse scandal and the alleged institutional-cover-up story line that has gripped the nation and sullied the university's once-sterling reputation.
There was no more compelling symbol of that than the violence in the streets of State College into Thursday morning, the experts said. Students toppled a news van and jostled with police in riot gear after John P. Surma, the U.S. Steel chief executive who is vice chairman of the Penn State board of trustees, announced the firings in a news conference marred by shouts from angry students.
"The news conference itself, I thought, was cold and corporate rather than recognizing the emotional impact to both sides of the story," said Hugh Braithwaite, who teaches crisis communications at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. "And as a result, they are left without a spokesperson, a leader, to deliver the news."
University officials did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
