Social Networking in the Spotlight

If there's one thing to be said about this issue is that if you're going to say something even remotely offensive in public, you'd better have a pretty (excuse my language) badass public relations team.

Think about when a celebrity gets in trouble for driving under the influence or got into a fight at a club. What do you see at the bottom of the article? "So-and-so's publicist did not return any requests for comment". PR teams are around for just this very reason.

Just recently, a member of the Baltimore Orioles' PR team, Monica Pence-Barlow, passed away. One of the players, Adam Jones, was quoted in a Baltimore Sun article saying, "'She just helped me a lot with making the right decisions and doing things that not just helped me but helped the team, instead of just doing things just for the sake of doing them,'" Even just having that thought in the back of your mind, "Don't say that, you may make some people mad", could be a career-saving move.

Despite that, some people don't listen to the angel on their shoulder. I think people in the spotlight need to remember that ALWAYS. I wouldn't want to be like Levar Burton and lose all those Twitter followers...

Not to mention, why would you insinuate something bad about Phillip Seymour Hoffman? If you'll excuse me, I'll be in the west wing...

Monica Pence-Barlow article