Own the oops

Hopefully, your speed bumps recover as quickly as mine have to date (I know Mr. Karma, and I’m watching him extra closely this week).

Crises, as you’ve read here in the past, are mostly human-made. They didn’t need to happen.

Sometimes you simply trip, though.

Like me, as a first-year Division I conference communications staffer telling one of my broadcast buddies I was glad a particular basketball team was upset in the year-end tournament because it meant there’d be a new name in the winner’s circle. (The losing team’s assistant coach was walking on the broadcaster’s other side. 🤦🏻‍♀️) 

Another, as it turns out, I’m far from alone per a LinkedIn chat, but a bruise remains: I forgot the “l” in public. What makes me remember this one like it was yesterday was that my omission was in a double-page spread headline — in a tabloid-sized publication. 

Trips and milk spills are oopes

No matter how many races we run, there will always be the proverbial stepping stone sticking out of the ground that trips you (there’s a real story with that, too). The best way to fix your messaging is to own the oops and vow to do better — and do better, of course.

This strategy of responsibility goes for true crises, too, but you have to know real ones from manufactured ones (a lot of marketers are crying wolf these days — more on that another time).

Just know that when you’ve built respect through PR and earned media, the public and your peers will grant you the benefit of the doubt. Quick recovery comes when you own your oops, laugh at it when it’s appropriate and move on.

Just so you know …

Example (Oops): Your social team posts the wrong score of a rivalry game or misses a word in your book title. Creators are called out on it, they correct it, own the oops and move on.

Example (Crisis): Your app, once a go-to for breaking news and a place where people shared thoughts in a chill atmosphere, spits artificial, sexually explicit nudes and lets them linger. Doing nothing or tweaking the algorithm days later demonstrates ignorance and carelessness. It screams, “Welcome to this social media app where our reputation and full-blown crises pop each day.”

One is a mistake. The other exposes values, behavior and risk. 

Don’t let your trips become triggers for something bigger.

©2026 Gail Sideman; gpublicity.com; SIDEbar

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👇🏼

📺 Happy Trails, Kelley Dorner and Clarion Chicago — One of the best TV production crewers, ever. You proved that niche expertise attracts the best partners.

I’ll forever be grateful for your kindness, especially when I was stranded on a frozen road halfway to an assignment. You showed grace when I freaked. … And we remember scheduling before texts! Enjoy what’s next, Dorner family.

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🎼And we bid you goodnight, Bobby Weir, who the planet lost last week. I once told a boy that I was Bob texting. I wanted him to be as excited to see me as he was seeing the Grateful Dead for the 2,500th time. 😎 I got it, though.