At a time when America’s infrastructure is suffering from federal budget cutbacks — bridges crumbling, layoffs, subprime scandal, financial pressures on Americans, skyrocketing gas prices — Air Force Major Stephen Goldfein steered $50-million to two of his cronies who hoped to set up a private company to … get this … “jazz up the Air Force’s Thunderbirds air show.” No company actually existed yet but they sure could have done something with the loot.

The Washington Post has the full story on Goldfein and his behavior, just another example of the level of corruption and profiteering. No word yet on how much he hoped to pocket.

The Pentagon inside dealings and scandals have been so incredible in recent years that Defense Secretary Gates should just hire a team of crisis communications pros to handle damage-control.

Washington, D.C., is conference city. Each day, there are countless conferences and forums held in the city. Seven days a week, year-around. People fly in, attend conferences and fly out. We don’t hear about most, even though many conference organizers hope the spotlight of media attention will shine brightly on their event, if only for a moment. Usually, it doesn’t, and everyone moves on, back to their own lives.

I was attending one such conference recently, a really terrific series of sessions on issues that could make a difference in the world. It doesn’t matter to identify the organization because you didn’t hear about it.

An organizer proudly told participants that their team of PR people would be sending out a press release to generate media coverage. The PR people probably did write up a release, use some useless blast email press contact service and the release is now sitting in spam filters at newsrooms around the country. Works that way, and it is too bad because many such conferences could make news … and make a difference.

In today’s world, press releases don’t generate news, and they certainly don’t make a difference. Sorry.

Here are some ideas for an alternative approach –

1. Make use of photos. Ask the photographer who covers your event to shoot several “news-style” photos. Quickly prepare a two-sentence caption and get those photos to the media where you hope to be seen. The media — mainstream and online — loves photos.
2. Streaming video. If you videotape an important speech, make excerpts available on your Web site.
3. Podcasts. Again, take recorded excerpts and make them available online with a short synopsis of the event.
4. Alert the media. Even if contacting the media is an after-thought, some journalists may be attracted to your story when they see photos and/or video.

Good luck.

I think we may be witnessing the death of American Airlines’ brand reputation, caused largely by self-inflicted poor corporate communications. Yes, the airline was faced with a real problem of fixing the aging wiring in their aging fleet of MD-80 jetliners, some that date back to the ’70s. Yes, the airline could have spread it out over months rather than being forced into action by the FAA.

It would have been so easy to get out ahead of this aggravating issue for the flying public, use more contemporary methods of communications and show some empathy. But, American created its own form of crisis communications by poor communications.

Ripping a page from 1970s-style corporate communications, American’s CEO, Gerald Arpey, said there was nothing to be alarmed about. “Irrespective of FAA oversight, no one would put a plane in service that wasn’t safe,” he told The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “I put my kids on these airplanes all the time.”

A lot of people today might be responding, “Gee, Mr. Arpey, I don’t really care about you or your kids … I just wanted to get home because my mom was ill or we wanted to attend a wedding tomorrow … but we can’t because you screwed up.”

Why didn’t Arpey call the nation’s media to the airline’s repair hubs and personally show them the nature of repairs and try to explain the problems? Why wasn’t he the “voice” of his airline, as Richard Branson would have done, rather than issue a series of statements through a spokesperson.

Why didn’t Arpey show up at key cities and personally apologize to passengers who got slammed by the airline with cancelled flights and spotty refunds? Why wasn’t he walking the ticket counters, interacting with customers, taking their names and making promises to make good on their inconvenience?

Why didn’t the airline make better use of the Web to reach out to the hundreds of thousands of passengers who got stuck and penalized when clearly it was American’s fault?

Check American’s Web site, and it appears to be business as normal … except for one little line, “Aircraft inspections affect some AA travel.” No kidding.

I think American Airlines has dug a hole so deep that it’s hard to fly out of.

I switched on the TV this morning only to see Phil Donahue on a cable news/talk show slamming America’s stance in Iraq. I thought, how odd to hear Donahue, who is no expert on the subject, making such statements. Then, I learned that he is promoting his involvement in a movie that criticizes the war.

Then, Bernard Goldberg, an expert on little, came on to yack about Democrats and Republicans, and why? To promote his new book.

On Sunday’s CBS “60 Minutes,” a former hard-hitting news show, there was Douglas Feith, a former Pentagon civilian executive who promoted the war in Iraq. Feith was saying that if they’d listened to him, everything would be rosy in Iraq. First, that’s outrageously untrue. But, why was he on “60 Minutes?” To promote his new book. “60 Minutes,” by the way, has turned into a weak former news program.

Last week, there was a panel discussion on Jim Lehrer’s NewsHour on PBS about the controversy over Barak Obama and his former pastor, and the loudest voice was a minister who … well, you guessed it. He promoted his new book in every other sentence he spoke.

Principles … ethics … integrity … true intelligence. Push ‘em aside and sell something.

It’s a hard lesson for companies and organizations to learn in today’s new world of intelligent communications but … here it is: No one cares ‘about’ you.

When an organization, for example, issues a news release and concludes with a puffy ‘about’ section, no one … and certainly no one in the news media … cares.

What people — customers, consumers, shareholders, the media, stakeholders, employees, vendors, etc — care about is the value to them of what a company or organization does. That’s what influences an organization’s brand value.

So, for Starbucks to hype a “04.08.08″ promotion with such gusto merely to announce a new roast of coffee, it’s … well (let me think of something polite) … it’s not only dull, predictable and boring but tarnishes Starbucks luster to announce something more authentically important in the future. Sorry, Starbucks … but your feeble attempt to right your listing ship is more ‘about’ you than the value of why we should care.

CBS News, once known as the “Tiffany” news operation because of leadership and excellence in the industry, has been self-destructing over the last 20 years through a continuous series of colossal and highly public missteps. CBS News has fallen to sixth place in a three way television network news race for audience ratings simply because of self-inflicted wounds (the hiring of Katie Couric, the firing of Dan Rather, the loss of John Roberts, denudered “60 Minutes” and on and on).

Now comes a report in The New York Times by Tim Agango that CBS News may outsource some of its news-gathering to another ratings laggard, CNN.

Well, why not?! CBS News has closed nearly every one of its news bureaus, whittled professional and experienced news staff to the bone and already relies on news stringers with unknown credentials.