If you don't tell your story, someone else will.

This morning started like any other. I got to work, painfully made my way to our office Keurig to get a cup of coffee (since I slept through my alarm and didn't have time to make any at home) and then slowly made my way back to my desk. I pulled up my email, replied to a few work inquiries and then, naturally, hit new tab and typed in Facebook.com to see what the latest buzz was. (For the record, I manage my company's social media and am expected to post on recent events so this is totally a work requirement..... ). 

Within seconds, I see my alma mater, Old Dominion University, as the very first "Trending" topic. Normally, I would be surprised. Yes, ODU is a decent size, public university here in Virginia, but most people outside of the state have no idea who we are. Okay, let's be honest... not even everyone in Virginia knows who we are. My sister, an avid Hokie fan/alumni, is going to laugh at me for saying this... but we're no Virginia Tech in the eyes of the greater American public.

(p.s. Jen, spellcheck definitely just told me that Hokie is not a word so...)

Today though, I was not surprised in the slightest to see ODU trending, considering the events that have transposed in the last 72 hours. 

In addition to countless news articles, I have seen posts from numerous friends that attended or still attend ODU. The more I see this story flood my newsfeed, the more it bothers me. Not necessarily because of what those banner said, but because of the public response I am seeing, particularly from both peers and strangers that say that ODU is making "too big of deal" out of this. 

Personally, yes, I think it is a big deal. I think what this group of individuals did was crude and immature.  Those banners are suggestive and inappropriate, and showed extremely poor judgement and lack of respect. 

But I'm not writing this blog to get into that topic. Anyone who has watched the news in the past year knows that sexual harassment/violence is a hot topic amongst college campuses. We all know the name Hannah Graham and we all read the Rolling Stones article about UVA. So no, I don't need to inundate anyone with another commentary because chances are, at this point, we have all made up our minds. You either think it is a big deal or you don't.

I'm writing this purely from a communication perspective, aside from the actual morality of the issue. 

ODU is not the one who made this a "big deal." 

The Norfolk police officer that first posted the photo on Facebook, the 300+ people that shared his photo on Saturday and the local news stations that picked up on the sensationalism of this "story" are.

As someone who spent the last five years studying communication/public relations, I completely understand why ODU took such a proactive approach on this. As soon as that photo hit social media, it was a ticking time bomb. It was a matter of hours before it snowballed into a much bigger story, as seen by the fact that Old Dominion University is now trending on Facebook. It is also a top story, not only at every local and state news station, but nationally with articles on NBC, ABC, CNN, Fox News, the Today Show, USA Today, Huntington Post, Buzzfeed and at least a dozen more. 

Oh geeeeez is right because I know I'm not the only one who spends entirely too much time reading Buzzfeed...

With just six words and a touch of sass, my friend Lydia sums up the significance of this kind of coverage. 

The bottom line is that social media can be the best or worst thing to happen to an individual, company or organization, and this situation is no exception. Sensational headlines spread faster than California wildfires because anyone is who anyone in media want their share of the clicks that will inevitably come from said headlines. The old adage, "if it bleeds, it leads" has never been more true. I'm sure if you looked at the Google Analytics of FoxNews' home page, that story has more traffic than any others because on some level, the American public seems to like being offended. 

The original photograph was posted Friday afternoon. By Saturday, the office of Student Engagement and Enrollment Services (SEES) at ODU release a statement and video of student leaders speaking out against sexual violence. 

While this video was most certainly created in response to the banner, I would like to note that the photograph nor any details were shared. The statement simply said an incident occurred and then proceeded to express the university's stance on issue of sexual violence as a whole. I commend SEES for this, because it was a very tactful way to address the issue without calling anyone out and limited additional exposure of the incident itself. At this point, the local news stations hadn't yet gotten word of the banner so it wasn't a google-able story, so to speak. The statement from SEES was shared by numerous offices within ODU including Student Government Association (SGA), Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL) and Panhellenic Council (PHC). By 9am Sunday, President John Broderick released a statement, seen in full here.

Throughout the rest of the day Sunday, and well into Monday, every news station and their uncle got wind of the banners and ran with it.

Together, SEES, the many student offices of ODU (SGA, FSL, PHC, etc) and President Broderick made a very smart decision by reacting to the media crisis that was about to explode with their swift, assertive and consistent responses. Otherwise, when ODU was typed into a Google search bar for the next however many weeks, those banners were going to show and silence on the University's behalf would have looked ten times worse than the photo itself. 

Every single one of us can remember a time in our lives that we had to engage in a hard conversation. You know, the conversation that you put off for days because there was a knot in your stomach about how it was going to go. Sometimes, you have to ask tough questions even though you know you aren't going to like the answer. But we can all also remember a time when we asked one of those tough questions, and the person we were speaking to refused to answer. The lack of a response spoke louder than any answer ever could... 

That photo was a "tough question" and ODU had no choice but to respond. 

I titled this blog "if you don't tell your story, someone else will" because even if ODU had made the decision to not "make a big deal" out of this, the news station still would have. I mean, really.... it was about sex, college students and Greek life. Talk about a trifecta. Now, at least when people read about it, ODU is speaking for themselves and not simply the scapegoat of some tens of thousand anonymous internet users' taking full advantage of their first amendment rights by giving their (oh so educated) opinions.

Honestly, if you consider the video to be it's own entity, then ODU made three public statements; SEES statement, the student leaders' video and President Broderick's address. Everything since then? That's been the news entities making it a "big deal" because they won't stop talking about it. They've been repetitively spewing the same story and the general public is playing right into it. And yes, me writing this blog also adds to the propaganda but I'm totally okay with that because it needed to be said.

So no, ODU is not making too big of deal out of it because 1) they aren't the ones making it a big deal, and 2) they did nothing wrong by proactively trying to avoid the reputation blow that was about to knock them square in the face.

At the end of the day, until you actually study media relations and crisis communication, it's probably best to keep commentary to a minimum. 

...kind of like how it's probably best not to judge how "offensive" something is until you've actually been the victim of sexual harassment or assault.