CNET Networks: Reacting on cue

Smooth and thorough integration of the website into news management.

The Site

CNET Networks, a US-based online publisher and provider of interactive content, makes biographies of its Leadership and Board of Directors easily available from several sections of its website, including About Us, Press and Investors. Yesterday (Wednesday) these rapidly mirrored the simultaneous resignation of one chief executive, Shelby Bonnie, in an options backdating scandal, and his replacement by another, Neil Ashe.

In the Leadership collection, Ashe was credited as Chief Executive Officer, with Bonnie no longer in evidence; in Directors, Ashe was again profiled as CEO and Bonnie, who remains a director, cast as “Co-founder and Former Chief Executive Officer”.

The Takeaway

CNET Networks may have had a few months to plan for the eventuality of a change of CEO under duress (an internal investigation was launched back in May), but the smooth and comprehensive way it has been handled on the company’s website still provides a good example of integrated reputation management.

From the slant of the company’s press releases on Wednesday morning (US time) it had clearly decided to play the ‘new CEO’ angle (“CNET Networks Names Neil Ashe as New Chief Executive Officer and Director”). The biographical content on the website was edited and amended in line with this so that CNET’s response was consistent across media from the outset. That reveals both a mature attitude to the web as part of a communications strategy, and joined up management to have things click into place the minute the scandal hit the fan.

First published on 12 October, 2006