Public Relations Expert Says Penn State Fumbled Paterno Announcement
JENKINTOWN, Pa. (CBS) -- Could the rioting at Penn State last night have been prevented?
A local crisis communications expert believes the Penn State board of trustees could have done things differently to help the situation.
Minutes after the board announced the firing of Joe Paterno, students started streaming out of their dorms to protest the decision (see related story).
Leza Raffel, president of the Communication Solutions Group in Jenkintown, believes the board should have worked with Paterno to deliver a shared statement that he wasn't going to be coaching anymore. She says that would have sent a different message to the students.
"But just seeing that very stoic, anxious presentation by the board and then later the interviews with Joe Paterno completely separately, it just created this disconnect," she tells KYW Newsradio.
Raffel also questions the timing of the board's actions -- delivering the news for the 11 o'clock news cycle when most of the students were in their dorms, rather than earlier when they were in class, where reactions could have been contained.
Reported by Brad Segall, KYW Newsradio 1060
