I've been applying for some communications openings lately. I tend to emphasize my 15 years of experience in the news media when talking about how businesses (or public agencies like school districts) should respond when some controversy turns the public's and the news media's attention on them.

This is something that went through my mind in the wake of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk's assassination last month. I've been asked in interviews many times to describe how I would handle crisis communications and controversial topics.

The strategies are a little different whether we're talking about a private business versus a government entity that is required to respond to Freedom of Information Act inquiries.

As I mentioned in my previous post on Kirk's assassination, step #1 is to simply shut up. Yes, I understand that your political opponent's death is the perfect time to virtue-signal to your fellow travelers that you are one of the people on the right side of history. From a communications standpoint the primary concern is protecting the reputation of the company or, for this example, the school district.

The former isn't subject to FOIA, so a good, proactive move to make in the immediate aftermath of Kirk's assassination would be to send out a companywide email warning employees not to give into the devil on their shoulder on TikTok, Facebook, X/Twitter. Because a private company doesn't have to respect First Amendment rights—as so many on both sides of the political divide have pointed out when it was politically expedient—there can be consequences for bringing the online mob down on your employer.

A school district and substandard journalism

For how a school district should respond, let's look at how one did when confronted with this situation. (This example was of interest to me because my wife and I both worked there years ago, she as an English teacher, and myself as a substitute teacher.)

Paso Robles Joint Unified School District is a K-12 district on California's Central Coast. I was alerted to the controversy when this story from the local NBC affiliate, KSBY, showed up on my feed. Unsurprisingly, some community members—and apparently at least one board member—were outraged by comments made by someone who is identified only as an "athletic coach."

From a journalistic standpoint, KSBY's failure to name the coach—whose name was already in public thanks to reports from both Cal Coast News and the San Luis Obispo Tribune. That's the first reason why this was a journalistic mistake: You're not actually protecting the coach. What you're doing—for people that are dependent on only your reporting, is casting a pall of suspicion over every athletic coach in the district. That's an unfair thing to do when you know who the coach in question is.

Second, the KSBY reporter, Makayla Richardson, doesn't tell watchers what statements were made on social media by the coach—and they aren't so vulgar that any FCC action would come down on their heads. The report leaves viewers with more questions than answers.

For people who sought out other news sources, they would discover that the coach in question is Juanetta "Netta" Perkins, the assistant varsity girls' basketball coach. Perkins appears to be in her early 50s, is a Paso Robles High School graduate and a member of the school's athletic hall of fame.

In a couple of Facebook posts, Perkins wrote: "God does not like ugly. Charlie Kirk reap wat u [sic] sow" and "White on white crime let them sit in it!"

These sentiments seem out of place for Perkins who was quoted by the school's Crimson Newsmagazine, just two years ago speaking at a Martin Luther King Jr.-day event in 2023 saying:

“(We need) to see one another as human beings who suffer together, bleed the same blood, and, in the end, just want love and to be seen, heard, and cared for,” Perkins said. “It takes one person to start a chain reaction and that can be all of us.”

One can debate the sincerity of her 2023 comments when it comes to her political foes.

Crisis communications for the school district

In the wake of Kirk's assassination, I would have made an effort to communicate the same sentiment and advice that the hypothetical company communicated but without the paper trail. Instead of an email, it would be better to communicate verbally or by phone. Why? Because you're going to say some things that aren't going to make you popular with everyone.

What KSBY described as a "statement released" by the school district, Cal Coast News seemingly described something similar (or identical) as an email sent to district trustees.

Cal Coast News described it this way:

District Superintendent Jennifer Loftus sent trustees an email on Sept. 11 regarding the “primary question,” Can Perkins be disciplined or dismissed?

“Generally teachers and other employees retain free speech rights where they are speaking as a private citizen on a matter of public concern,” Loftus wrote. “There are limited circumstances where the district may regulate and even discipline teachers or staff for comments on social media and it must be related and/or have a direct impacts on their ability to teach/do their job.”

The Tribune added some additional text from the released statement that should've received the most emphasis.

“That doesn’t mean the District agrees with or condones the posts,” it wrote, “but it does mean the District is legally obligated to handle these situations differently than what many might expect.”

Of course, Perkins may not be saved by any of this, because it doesn't appear that she is a teacher (with tenure) at the district. She may be getting a small stipend as an assistant coach, but I cannot even verify that. In other words: She may just be a volunteer.

If she is, that changes some things, because she may not be worth the headache she's causing for district administrators.

A better statement—that could be used by both a public agency and a business with the appropriate changes where necessary—would've been something along the lines of:

We have been made aware of some controversial statements made on social media by an assistant coach at Paso Robles High School. These statements were made on the individual's own time and do not represent the district's views. PRJUSD is committed to creating an environment where faculty, staff, and students feel safe, respected and accepted.

We are investigating the situation and have no further information at this time.

Part of crisis communications is not saying everything

You don't have to go out of your way to make statements that appear to bemoan how your hands are tied from a legal standpoint. Sometimes your best bet is to say no more than is absolutely necessary and allow for the passage of time to help lower the temperature.

Perkins may end up keeping her assistant coaching job. She may end up losing it; the district can likely make a colorable case that Perkins statements created an environment where some of her players feel unsafe—especially if those players share Kirk's politics.

But one thing is clear: There are far too many Americans who are too online and are revealing their inner selves to be ugly people.