Here’s a brief summary to bring you up to speed if you haven’t heard already:

“NASA grudgingly released some results Monday from an $11.3 million federal air safety study it previously withheld from the public over concerns it would upset travelers and hurt airline profits. The data reflects hundreds of cases where pilots flew too close to other planes, plunged from altitude or landed at airports without clearance.”

“NASA published the findings — contained in 16,208 pages — but did not provide a roadmap to understand them, making it cumbersome for any thorough analysis by outsiders. Released on New Year’s Eve, the unprecedented research conducted over nearly four years relates to safety problems identified by some 25,000 commercial pilots and more than 4,000 private pilots interviewed by telephone.”

“NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said the survey was poorly managed and told reporters the traveling public shouldn’t care about the data.”

“Rejecting an AP request under the Freedom of Information Act, NASA explained that it did not want to undermine public confidence in the airlines or hurt airline fortunes.”

People have a right to be deeply disturbed by this news. This is a PR nightmare for NASA, especially since they’ve become under harsher scrutiny in recent years. Let’s glean some learnings from how this has been mishandled.

• Don’t tell people what they should care about. It only make you look like you’re trying to hide something from them.
• Don’t withhold information because it will affect confidence, trust or profitability. Truth needs to be evaluated and acted upon. Otherwise you destroy your credibility and truthiness.
• Don’t disrespect the survey participants by claiming some were not credible.
• Don’t release anticipated information late on a holiday when people are distracted and news coverage is slow; and then claim it wasn’t intentional.
• Don’t release information in ways that it is unusable. Critics claim that NASA has still withheld information to decipher cryptic data and did not provide the data in file formats that can be used. (Okay, I’ll conceed this is a touchy point. If you give the raw data, critics can skew the data anyway they’d like to interpret, which could fuel false claims.)
• Don’t try to make excuses, such as the survey methodology was poor. Shifting blame will only enrage your employees and marketing partners that worked on it.
• “It’s your space agency” is a quote from NASAWatch.com and makes a good point: If you fund something with $11.3 million tax payer dollars, be prepared to provide a full accounting of how it was spent.

I hope you find this useful. Please share your comments.
-Roland

Related Links:

• NASA Gives Glimpse of Air Safety Survey
• NASA National Aviation Operational Monitoring Service (NAOMS) Information Release

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There must be some text book that every publicist uses called How to get your high-profile client out of the crapper.

Those PR professionals really know how to take on a firestorm of controversey.

Chapter 1: Keep your mouth shut and see if the storm blows over.

Chapter 2: Talk show circuit – Appear on Larry King, The View, Jon Stewart, Dave Letterman.

Chapter 3: Cu-de-gras – Consult Barbara Walters, Oprah, Rev. Al Sharpton (or all).

Chapter 4: Absolution – Get chewed out in person on a very special episode of Dr. Phil.

But don’t worry, the Blogosphere never forgets.

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