Crisis Mode: Karen Kessler on Saving Reputations

Lost in Jersey Studio Interview with Karen J. Kessler

 

Janette (00:40) We’d like to welcome you, Karen. Thank you so much for coming on Lost in Jersey.

Karen J. Kessler (00:43) thank you for inviting me.

Rachel (00:44) We’re very excited to have you. We were lucky enough to meet—we saw you on a panel at the Indie Fest at Red Bank, I guess it was, as you are on the New Jersey Film and Television Commission.

Karen J. Kessler (00:54) Right? Right. Yes.

Karen J. Kessler (01:00) very appreciative that I was appointed a commissioner by the governor. It was a was a very nice surprise.

Janette (01:06) every time you spoke, Rachel and I were like, what? You were.

Rachel (01:08) We kept writing down, we need to talk to her.

Karen J. Kessler (01:11) That’s all very kind. I came on, you’re very kind. You don’t have to make up a story, yeah.

Rachel (01:16) Ha ha.

Janette (01:17) No, it’s really, it’s true. It’s true. you gave very valuable and to the point tips about public relations and how people should conduct themselves or things to do to help increase their publicity and PR.

Rachel (01:23) Mm-hmm.

Karen J. Kessler (01:30) Listen, you can have the greatest idea, but if you can’t sell it, it’s not gonna go too far, right? And so sometimes in a room of people that are filmmakers, they are so intent on their art and on their casting and on their script that they forget the fact that it’s only gonna go so far if they can’t sell this concept and sell their film to an audience, to funders, to a broader group. So I was happy to be asked.

Rachel (01:53) Yeah, I mean, it’s so true. It’s not just about film too. It’s about anything that you need a pitch.

Janette (01:58) the founder of your own PR firm. And you represent corporations, high profile people and celebrities. you’re so high profile that I believe Donald Trump suggested that Roger Ailes use you. when the Gretchen Carlson case broke.

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2:10 — What happened with Roger Ailes?

 

Karen J. Kessler (02:15) Well, I did get referred by one of Donald Trump’s attorneys the day that the Gretchen Carlson case was filed. And we did go and sit with Roger Ailes and his attorneys and talent that day. I did that with my colleague, Warren Cooper. For about three weeks, they brought us into their inner circle, but we never had signed an agreement to represent him. And he told us his side of the saga.

I was not a regular Fox viewer, so I really didn’t know much about the ratings of the Carlson show. But it became increasingly apparent to us as the case, as we got into this, that people were not being honest with us, that they were going to try to have us swear to things that we were not aware of. In other words, I’m always happy to say that you say you’re innocent, but I’m not gonna say you’re innocent if I wasn’t there. And so they were asking us to say things that we weren’t comfortable with. And finally, after a few weeks, it became increasingly apparent that all was not as it was projected. So we withdrew and said we were not comfortable working with him. We kept quiet about the whole arrangement for probably six months or so. And then one of the employees at Fox made a snotty comment about us.

Rachel (03:04) Right.

Karen J. Kessler (03:27) to a reporter who then outed that we had been brought in early and had left. And then we got called by the attorneys representing the women that were suing Roger Ailes and said, since you all were aware that he wasn’t being honest, would you be willing to work on behalf of the women that are suing him because we could use your help?

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4:00 — Why did she switch sides?

 

Karen J. Kessler (04:00) And we thought about it and we said, yes. And so we ended up on the side of many, many of the victims of his abuse. And we worked on that case and the related case with Bill O’Reilly for a couple of years. And in the end, hopefully, a lot of those people felt that they got justice when Roger was told that he had to leave the network. And then he died soon afterwards, right?

Janette (03:55) Wow. Wow.

Rachel (04:12) I ended up looking at the documentary that was made, Divide and Conquer, yes, so that I got to see you interviewed a bit in that. And I have to tell you, it was very hard to stomach that documentary. I mean, obviously, I remember when it was happening. But to see it so methodically laid out like that, it’s really upsetting.

Karen J. Kessler (04:15) did you? Yeah. You know, that documentarian, the person who did that, his name is Alex Gibney, and one of the most prolific documentary film producers. And he lives in New Jersey. it took him actually, a few months to convince us to be part of that. Because we generally, as you probably saw, we don’t generally talk about who our clients are and we don’t generally talk about our work because we’re not the kind of public relations firm that you hire if you want to promote a new salad dressing or announce that the gym has new hours or the dry cleaners open. Like that’s not our scene. Our scene really is crisis. So we don’t like to talk about our clients and clients don’t like to be spoken about that they had to hire from like ours. But after months and months of telling us that…

Rachel (04:48) No…

Karen J. Kessler (05:09) this documentary was gonna be important and big and that we were already in the public domain, because they had already talked about us in Vanity Fair and talked about us in the Washington Post. We finally agreed to be in it. And then when we went to the premiere of the film, it was great.

Rachel (05:24) With that example, I love that you ended up, flipping to the other side once you learned more. I’m sure you did. But that initial assessment of a crisis, I mean, every company makes mistakes, all humans make mistakes…

Karen J. Kessler (05:28) So did we.

Rachel (05:36) We’ve all been in crisis ourselves. How do you determine as your company when you assess a crisis, what you will take on and what you won’t?

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6:00 — How does she choose clients?

 

Karen J. Kessler (05:45) first of all, it’s a very collegial environment here at Kelser PR. So when new business comes in, we sit around the conference table and we talk about it, particularly for something that has some concerns or something that we’re not sure. So like we don’t do any cases of child sexual abuse. We’re not taking those on. I mean, there’s like, there’s things that we just won’t touch. I don’t care how compelling you are or how important you are or any story that you have.

Rachel (05:48) Mm-hmm.

Karen J. Kessler (06:12) you know, we won’t do things like that. We’ve had kooky requests all the time. We get referred by lawyers all the time. We had one guy who called up and said, he had this client who was unbelievably wonderful, but he had been involved in a very ugly sort of sexual abuse case. And he had a problem. And I said, what’s the problem? They said, whenever he goes on Match.com, people find out about his background. And I thought, well, thank God. Thank God. Like we’re not doing right. We’re not doing stuff like that guys. We don’t try to like mask that for what other with for unsuspecting women victims, right? You know, so no, but seriously even when we’re for big ugly cases, We discuss it as a group. That’s first of all.

Rachel (06:38) actually not a problem. No.

Karen J. Kessler (06:51) Second of all, we think about sort of who’s a damaged party. If it’s a corporation, are their jobs at stake? If by helping the company, even if the CEO did something bad, we’re saving jobs, we’re saving the company, they’re gonna maybe separate from the CEO, but the company needs to go on. That’s very compelling to us, so that’s different. It depends on what the issue is, what the person was accused of, individual. If there’s contrition, that’s always great. If…

Rachel (07:07) Mm-hmm.

Karen J. Kessler (07:15) They lie to us, that’s not great. That’s when we draw a line too. If we feel like they’re not being honest or they’re not taking some accountability, that’s a problem. But most of our work comes to us from the attorneys that they hire, which is usually the first call, usually the first call to an attorney. Sometimes it’s to us and then we find the attorney.

Rachel (07:17) Mm-hmm.

Janette (07:31) Right.

Rachel (07:32) Have you had always had a good gut feeling since you were a kid? Like what made you feel like you wanted to go into this and feel like you could trust when somebody’s telling you a story that’s maybe not totally?

Karen J. Kessler (07:44) You know, I think everybody has sort of the sense that like, if I could go back now to myself when I had no clue what I wanted to do and tell them, you know, these are the skills you’re going to use. I mean, I had no idea what I was going to do. I went to a liberal arts school, things like public relations. I didn’t know what that was. They didn’t offer that where I went. I was an economics major for whatever that meant in the world, which is nothing.

Rachel (08:05) Right.

Karen J. Kessler (08:10) I knew what I didn’t want to do. You know, I didn’t want to be a banker. I knew that I didn’t want to go into insurance. I didn’t want to go into a lot of things people were doing. but I always had as a sort of advanced social skills. I liked being in a crowded room. I liked meeting people. I liked hearing people’s stories. I was always curious. I always asked a lot of questions. I just had no idea that I could turn that into a job or that would pay me and make my rent and all those things. But it took a couple of moves before I figured it out, like everybody. And one move leads to the next move and all of that. But now I would say, yes, I have an advanced gut. I can read a room pretty well. I can read people pretty well. But I think half the time, if you ask the right questions, they’re going to tell you, maybe not directly, but they’re going to tell you enough information for you to figure it out.

Rachel (08:41) Yes. Yep.

Janette (08:57) curious your skills and your how you formed your ability to be a good consultant to people that are in crisis. you work with the Today Show and some other television programs where you’re a consultant for them.

Karen J. Kessler (09:10) I get a fair amount of media interest because first of all, it’s a nichey field that we’re in. There’s not a lot of people that do what we do, but we get a lot of phone calls from television shows, from news programs, from magazines to say things like, it depends on what the crisis of the moment is. So it can be, you know, what do you think about the Sydney Sweeney situation with American Eagle? It could be, what do you think about this athlete who just got in trouble for doing this? everybody’s got a stable of a few people that…

Rachel (09:15) Mm-hmm.

Karen J. Kessler (09:37) can comment on high profile reputational issues. And I’ve been very fortunate that I’m one of them that some people reach out to.

Janette (09:44) And we’ll specifically with the Sydney Sweeney thing, you know, there’s a, what do you say? What do you say when they contact you?

Rachel (09:45) Speaking of the Sydney Sweeney thing.

Karen J. Kessler (09:48) I shouldn’t have opened my mouth, right? No.

Rachel (09:50) No, it’s okay, we’re curious.

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10:00 — What about the Sydney Sweeney case?

 

Karen J. Kessler (09:55) that one, I think we were asked, is this good for her career, bad for her career? What does this mean? What does this mean for the brand? I mean, all of that. I mean, in the end, it was not bad. It was good for the brand. And the brand’s sales show that it was good for the brand. you know, the one of the many changes that’s happened in the time in which I’ve been in business is to understand that almost nothing lasts more than 48 hours unless it’s truly earth shattering. So even that crisis for that moment was good for about two and a half days and then the world moves on. And that’s what you have to remember with all of that. I think for her business, I think what we’ve seen is that she’s been a pretty savvy businesswoman in terms of the deals she’s taken. and she’s you know she’s an in-demand spokesperson and good for her good for her.

Janette (10:39) there been a such as the Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively case, which just seems to feed upon itself for almost a year or two years and on? how would you advise…

Rachel (10:45) drag.

Karen J. Kessler (10:50) The situation with that case in particular is there’s so much collateral damage and there’s so many voices in that one. And that’s part of why it’s lasted so long. It’s not just about one actress and one It’s an actress, it’s a director, it’s PR firms, it’s ad agencies, it’s managers. I mean, there’s so many people that are part of that, that are getting deposed by that, that have risk in that, that have financial risks, that have to hire lawyers. So…

Janette (11:02) Mm-hmm.

Rachel (11:02) Right.

Karen J. Kessler (11:17) And everybody wants to put their version of the truth out there right before they get to a jury trial, because everyone thinks they’re going to influence a jury and influence a judge. So that’s why cases like that are so sticky, because everybody’s trying to get ahead of what they see is what could be a very ugly, drawn out kind of court case. And nobody wants to see themselves sitting in the witness stand without a sympathetic jury. So they’re all trying to influence people that might be in a jury and or influence the public.

Rachel (11:28) Mmm. so it’s influencing the court of opinion before you get there. Got you. Mm-hmm.

Karen J. Kessler (11:46) Without a doubt, because it’s going to be a trial because they can’t, you know, they can’t seem to settle things. So yeah.

Janette (11:52) It seems like you also might be dealing a lot with an emotional clients. Your clients must be, you know, a lot of people are in a devastated state. it how do you handle the emotional part of these PR crisis?

Karen J. Kessler (12:06) So our job is probably two-thirds therapist and one-third communications professionals in almost every case. Our clients all are on monthly retainers when you hire us. And we say that because we want you to call us as much as you want, talk to us as much as you want, unload on us as much as you want, find us at odd hours if you need to. We get it. We have written comments and scripts for husbands having to tell their wives that they’re having affairs. We have written scripts for sons having to tell their parents that they, you know, put their business in bankruptcy. We’ve had, I mean, the things that you would not think you would have to hire someone for, we have worked on all of those kinds of things. And then some people having to tell their significant other that they’ve drug problems. People have been saying that they’re going to be arrested. you know, it’s sometimes it’s the most daunting when it gets the…

Janette (12:43) Yeah.

Karen J. Kessler (12:55) the inner most inner most circle to you is how do I tell those people that love me, that trust me, that I counted on, that counted on me, that I kept saying I didn’t do this or it’s not me and now how do I fess up to them because it’s all about to come out in the press because there were telltale signs and that can be, you know, we have to get ourselves into their voice. We have to get ourselves because it has to sound authentic to them, you know, so it can’t be.

Rachel (12:58) Mm-hmm.

Karen J. Kessler (13:20) very scripty, it can’t come off some central casting kind of thing. I mean, it has to sound unique to them. It has to be authentic to them. And it has to show a level of empathy that most of these people are not used to showing to the people around them. Because usually if you get in a position of power, you’ve lost a lot of those skills. And all of a sudden, you have to now try to find it and express a level of remorse that you probably haven’t done ever in your life.

Janette (13:23) Mm-hmm. Mm.

Rachel (13:33) Mmm.

Janette (13:38) Right.

Karen J. Kessler (13:46) Particularly with all the Me Too stuff we were doing, it was one man after another, frankly, that oftentimes had to fess up to their boards of directors, to their spouses, to their staff, that they had their hands where they didn’t belong. And a lot of them had a really hard time doing it.

Rachel (14:02) I am sure they had a hard time. I mean, did you feel that you could help them find that empathy in themselves or was that not? I mean, to help them find the words is one thing to help them actually access that empathy is another.

Janette (14:19) Right. Because you know, the apologies that are now given online, they’re critiqued so carefully, like, that wasn’t a real apology or something like that.

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8:00 — What makes a real apology?

 

Karen J. Kessler (14:27) Or they didn’t write it. That was written by a PR firm. yeah. I.

Rachel (14:29) Yeah.

Karen J. Kessler (14:30) mean, listen, we always say in this office, we had one person once who said, I was just a total asshole. And we all said, I mean, he didn’t say that in public, but he said it to us. And I wanted to embrace him and say, thank you. Because at least it means you get it.

Janette (14:37) Yeah.

Rachel (14:37) I’d prefer that. Hearing that. So.

Karen J. Kessler (14:47) But we have a lot of people who’ve said things like, everyone does it, I just got caught. A lot of she wanted, she flirted, she this, she that. And you wanna say, she’s 26, you’re 66, please tell me a story I can believe. it was hard to not be cynical having heard so many of these cases. And we would have to sit there and say, let’s really talk about this. I get that you think that she found you fascinating and exciting. But in reality, in reality, you signed her paycheck, you supervised her work, perhaps she wasn’t as fascinated as you were, blah, blah, blah. Yes, your family is going to find out. No, there’s no way we can keep it from them. Or yes, you are being asked to leave the company. We have to come up with what you’re going to say to your colleagues when they ask why you’re leaving.

Rachel (15:18) Hmm.

Karen J. Kessler (15:32) all of those things. We call those executive transitions. There were a lot of executive transitions during that period. But the times had changed because when we started, it would have been, how much could I have to pay this woman to get out of my life? And then it became, we have to get rid of this CEO. How much can, what’s it gonna take for us to get him out of our office? So that was.

Janette (15:38) Well, I’m curious.

Rachel (15:38) Yeah. Right. That is, we started to see that change in the news and even with the Roger Ailes and then finally, like Bill O’Reilly having settled before because of Roger Ailes helping him out, those gross tactics. Well, finally he was out after Roger Ailes, but like, yeah. Yeah. And they can never speak again, right?

Karen J. Kessler (16:02) Right. Right. But that was a real sea change because it never used to be. It used to always be how much do we have to pay these women to get them out of our offices? Right.

Janette (16:12) Mm-hmm.

Karen J. Kessler (16:14) And even that’s changed, you know, because now there is no such thing.

Janette (16:16) Well, do you do that a lot? Do you do a lot of that, you know, settling, help people settle before it comes out and…

Rachel (16:19) NDA.

Karen J. Kessler (16:23) Sometimes in these cases, people will agree to a mutual statement. And so we will help to draft that, you know, that comes out from both parties about why they’re settling a matter. And that doesn’t just have to be sexual. can be any kind of dispute. You know, there’s sometimes when it’s been a high profile one and the press is asking, sometimes everybody agrees what’s best off if we have one joint statement and we both walk away. But, you know, the laws have changed around non-disclosure agreements in part due to Gretchen Carlson and our friend Julie Roginsky. And so, you know, people are free to be able to talk about these things if they choose to. The truth is for most of them, they don’t choose to. And for most of them, they don’t want this to be, you know, what they’re known for. And for most of them, they want to have careers after this. even if you can talk about it, there’s not a lot of employers who say, please let me hire that woman that sued the company for all this money. You know, that’s not always…

Rachel (16:47) Yes.

Karen J. Kessler (17:09) best thing to have on your resume is your calling card. So most people still don’t talk about it, even if they do. I mean, they may talk to their friends and family. But it’s not as, no one really wants to be known as the person that stood up and took on company X, CEO X, whatever it is.

Rachel (17:25) Hmm. That’s so tricky when you think about it, you know, it’s personally tricky your career your livelihood your family life. Yeah, it’s a lot. yes.

Karen J. Kessler (17:33) Especially now with doxing and people coming after you in person and on the internet. I mean, yeah, it’s crazy.

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17:00 — How has outrage culture changed crisis PR?

 

Janette (17:41) What is it that you’re seeing now being the kind of tactics that are happening that are needing to be managed online because I’m assuming like you said it’s not so much me too anymore maybe it’s not so much doxing anymore is it something new that’s happening?

Karen J. Kessler (17:55) What’s the strategy or what are the issues that are getting people there? Anything about the Mideast?

Janette (17:56) Well, what are the issues that you’re seeing that are appearing now? Okay, the Middle East,

Karen J. Kessler (18:02) we’ve gotten a load of these. People who comment on what’s going on in the mid-East on both sides. If you comment in a way that comes across as too intolerant, if you come across as a way that is advocating for action that others find objectionable, there are all kinds of websites, Facebook groups that do nothing but monitor for this on every side of these issues.

Janette (18:07) Mm-hmm.

Karen J. Kessler (18:24) and are looking for people who are making statements that they find objectionable and then reposting it and saying, you have to boycott, you have to find out where they live, you have to contact their employer. Listen, the Vice President of United States stood up at a funeral and said, if people come out and say ugly things about my friend Charlie Kirk, call their employer. And the minute they said that, I turned to everyone in the office and I said, bingo, get ready for the phones to ring. And the phone started to ring. I mean…

Rachel (18:45) Right.

Karen J. Kessler (18:51) And we have seen cases that are mild, what we would consider mild. In other words, someone who said, if you liked Charlie Kirk, then please don’t take me off your friends list on Facebook. People found that unbelievably offensive and objectionable to people that said much more ugly and awful things. But so it doesn’t really matter. Whatever is the hottest issue right now, there’s so little tolerance for any kind of difference of viewpoints.

Janette (19:09) Right, right.

Karen J. Kessler (19:19) People are not getting their news from the same places any longer. They swear what they’re hearing is accurate because they got it from a website, regardless of what the website is and how legit it is or who published it or whatever it is. And so as we all live and sort of have retreated to our own news pods, for lack of a better word, our ability to accept anyone else’s viewpoint has gotten smaller and smaller. And Facebook and Instagram and Reddit and TikTok and all these platforms are just feeding grounds for intolerance and feeding grounds for people being violent. And it’s…

Janette (19:52) is your suggestion to just don’t talk about this at all? Just don’t post? To all of us, because we all have emotions. You get, almost write something…

Karen J. Kessler (19:56) Suggestion to whom?

Rachel (19:59) I guess yeah to know. Yeah.

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20:00 — What advice does she give clients?

 

Karen J. Kessler (20:04) I’ll tell you a personal one. And if he watches this, I’ll probably have to hear from him. But I have a brother who likes to use Facebook to talk about news events all the time. And I call him up all the time and I say, do your friends not read the news? Do they really rely on you to get the news? And he says to me, what are you talking about? I said, why are you posting all this? Why are you posting an article that you found fascinating? Do you think your friends are so illiterate that they can’t figure out how to decide what they feel? But people feel a need to sort of push that stuff out there, right? And the problem is when you keep pushing yourself out there, you are doing one of two things. You are either narrowing your own circle, because people don’t agree with you just turn off and move away, right? So you’re not hearing any other folks’ viewpoints. Or you’re encouraging people who don’t agree with you to sort of just come after you in a really big way. Your own friends, what are they going to say? right, I like that article too.

Rachel (20:32) Yeah.

Karen J. Kessler (20:55) What is the point of this? I mean, remember the olden days when everybody posted on Facebook what they ate? Those sound like the sweet days, doesn’t it? You know?

Janette (21:01) I know, were…

Karen J. Kessler (21:02) So what would I say to people?

Janette (21:03) I think that people feel that maybe people aren’t listening to what they’re hearing and that maybe they need to tell some people that don’t know what’s happening and they’re a little bubble, you know? Yeah.

Karen J. Kessler (21:14) they’re not looking to you as an authority on world events. That’s the other thing. So what would I say to people? Listen, if this is who you are and you’re willing to live in this world and take the abuse that comes sometimes from this world, go for it. Be true to who you are. And a lot of people want to be influencers and talking heads. But if it’s not your thing and you’re a normal individual with a normal social circle, then you have to think to yourself, what is it you really want and what is it you’re trying to what if you do have friends or people you grew up with that don’t have the same politics as yours? Is that really going to be a game changer and killer for you if it is? Then accept that. But if it’s not, then focus on telling them where you went on vacation. I mean, decide what matters to you in all of these universes.

Janette (22:01) Good advice.

Rachel (22:02) you’ve said that so well. also for the younger generation, they’re so used to posting whatever thought comes in their head or whatever they see immediately, there’s no context to anything anymore. And that’s dangerous.

Karen J. Kessler (22:15) And then one day they’re going look for a job and someone’s going to go back not just three months and not just six months, but they’re going to go back years and say, look what this person posted, or they’re going to do something stupid later in life. And someone’s going to say, well, look what they did when they were younger. they were, I mean, those, we see that all the time, you know, particularly.

Rachel (22:22) Yeah.

Janette (22:32) Mm-hmm.

Rachel (22:34) I was wondering if you have to do reputation management for like people’s kids.

Janette (22:40) Mm.

Karen J. Kessler (22:40) We have done people’s kids, we’ve done people’s family, we’ve talked about scrubbing social media, but everyone’s screenshots. So even when people, when they say, I took it down, I took it down right after I wrote it. Well, if you’re a high profile person with a lot of followers, what does that even do? It does nothing. It just makes people say, and now they took it the number one job.

Janette (22:49) Yeah.

Rachel (22:53) Somebody has a screenshot, yeah. It’s out there.

Karen J. Kessler (23:01) goal for people that are under 25 right now, the majority say they want to be influencers as a career field. That’s a very odd world that we live in when that’s what people want to do for a living, right? And so that they can get free what? Cutting knives so that they can get free, you know, free jeans so that they can get free makeup samples that they don’t want. some people make an incredible living, but not a whole lot. Certainly not a lot.

Rachel (23:07) Yeah.

Janette (23:07) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel (23:26) No.

Karen J. Kessler (23:27) you know, to make you think that that’s the career field of the future.

Janette (23:30) Well, I’ve heard, was listening to an Ezra Klein interview a while back and they were talking about that the economy has shifted to an attention economy, I mean, we’re in it, you know, doing this podcast, you know, we’re all, all three of us have some sort of form of this attention economy going on. did you evolve to become to the place where you were on the radar of Roger Ailes’s team? I mean, like, how did you evolve into that stratosphere of such a huge PR? I mean, well, when you’re dealing with one of the biggest, yeah, I think you’re, it is. It’s pretty big up there.

Karen J. Kessler (23:57) I don’t know if I caught a stratosphere, but.

Rachel (24:00) Well, it is.

Karen J. Kessler (24:02) I’m still, and sitting in Red Bank, New Jersey, meeting the two of you. So it’s all over the place.

Janette (24:08) That’s right. People, again, New Jersey is really where it’s at.

Karen J. Kessler (24:12) Yeah, there you go. I’m a big believer. I would say this. I didn’t really know. listen, I did everything the way you’re not supposed to. I didn’t have a business plan. I didn’t have, you know, I had nothing on paper. Like all the things that they always tell you, you’re supposed to have. I did none of that. You know, it was very organic. When I started this, crisis communications was not a field. It was not a firm. It was not an industry. It was not any of those things. Now you can get your master’s degree in it. You can study it in college, I had couple of really cool jobs when I first got out of school. I was always a big observer of everybody and everything. I always was somebody that would say, would you be willing to spend half an hour with me? Please, I’ll bring the coffee. And from the time I was in college, I knew only what I didn’t like. my father kept telling me that I was cut off the loving phrase in my house was you’re cut off the loaf when you graduate. So like, I knew I had to get my act together. I And so I spent my Christmas break, my senior year.

Rachel (25:04) Ha!

Karen J. Kessler (25:09) I had done all semester, had been, whenever I read, I would like rip out articles about interesting people and stuff it in a desk drawer, having no idea what I was gonna do with it. Pulled it all out Christmas time. Nobody had anything to do with each other. I mean, it was every kind of business and industry and name and location. And I just started writing letters to people and saying, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I’m in college, here’s my resume, would you be willing to spend half an hour with me? I’d love to learn more about how you got your start. And that was at a time when, like us, a lot of people weren’t doing those kind of notes. I was stupid. I expected everyone to write and say, of course. Looking back, I’m surprised anyone wrote and said, of course. But people did. And I went and spent time with, you know, like Sonny Werblin, who ran Madison Square Garden. What was I going to do?

Janette (25:45) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Karen J. Kessler (25:52) run a Madison Burn? I didn’t know it, but I thought it sounded interesting. Like all these people said, yeah, I’ll sit with you. So I went, I would take the train to New York City, which was like a 90 minute train ride. And I would make little notes on my notepad of what questions I wanted to ask them. And I’d walk in in a navy blue interviewing suit, because that’s what they told me at college you were supposed to wear. It was so unbelievably unattractive. And I would walk in and give a firm handshake and say, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. And I would ask a lot of questions.

Rachel (26:09) Mm-hmm.

Karen J. Kessler (26:19) almost inevitably at end of every interview someone would say, is there anyone else that you’d like me to introduce you to? And I would say, yes, I would like to meet more people that do this or whatever it was. And I just kept going and going. And in many ways, it’s a precursor for what I do now because, I didn’t know what the word networking was. I didn’t know what any of that stuff. There was no LinkedIn. But I always believed if you were direct with people and you were authentic with people, you could build a group of people around you that you could sort of stress test ideas and careers and moves with. And that always worked for me and it still has. So our network now, which is a lot of lawyers and a lot of people that are in high profile places in business, are people that I’ve known for a long time or people that I met for a long time or people I’ve known through activities or events or whatever. And I just didn’t lose.

Rachel (26:49) Mmm.

Karen J. Kessler (27:11) touch with, you know, and when something would come up and I would think about them, I would get in touch with them or I would say, I saw this article and I thought maybe think of you and people like to be thought of. everyone’s favorite subject as themselves. They like to think that you remember them, right? And that you, even if it has nothing to do with what you’re doing right now.

Janette (27:27) Wow, I love that method of just being friendly and inquisitive and just, but it takes a skill that not everybody has and…

Rachel (27:30) Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Karen J. Kessler (27:38) treat them people, to not fan out over them, not like, oh, you’re a celebrity, ooh, ooh, ooh, because that doesn’t work, you know? And to not be dismissive if they’ve done something awful and horrible that you find offensive. It’s to just meet them where they are, to understand that just like you, you know, they’re getting through every day, and to befriend as many people as you can.

Janette (27:41) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rachel (27:42) Mm-hmm.

Janette (28:00) It’s interesting you said something in there, not to be dismissive if they do something horrible. And I think that’s interesting because you’re in PR and it feels like you are able to stomach something that some people would just cut off people for. maybe that’s part of the reason you’ve been able to navigate this field so well is that you’re able to continue the communication and hear them out and find a strategy for them to navigate something. you know, that they repair.

Rachel (28:27) or to repair. It’s like not judgmental and then help them repair the mistake. Is that right?

Karen J. Kessler (28:34) And when you meet people that have either been caught doing something bad or that have to, usually they’re wounded in different ways. And even if they have a bravado, it drops after a while. law enforcement is scary stuff. I don’t care who you are and what your career path has been. If you feel like you’re getting in legal trouble or you’re about to get in big public trouble and you’re about to be on the front page of whatever. It’s very humbling for most people and it’s a scary time and they drop that facade pretty quickly and will say things like, you know, what is this going to do to me or what is this going to do to my family or how can you help me through it? And what we always say to them all the time is we’re really reputation managers more than calling ourselves crisis communications. It’s not just the crisis. It’s trying to help them afterwards, have a reputation and get back as much of their reputation as they can, even if it’s a build back. I no one’s getting it back right away. But there’s a way to build back and to do good and to be seen as who you want to be seen as and to decide how much of the life that you had was a lot of phony stuff or things you can give up or what. if you’re somewhat introspective, which some people are not, but many people are, it does give you a chance if you’ve been caught doing something bad to sort of think about, like, this is how I want to be known for the rest of my life, right?

Janette (29:54) Yeah. And it can end up being a pivotal point in their life that could go in a good direction.

Karen J. Kessler (29:59) Often, often, is, yeah. And then sometimes it’s not. And then sometimes it’s not. Listen, we always say in this office, the athletes and the entertainers are usually the top of the ladder, meaning no matter what they do, they can get their reputations back pretty quickly. If you continue to be a great athlete, if you continue to be a fabulous entertainer, if you still can put out a hit song, the world is incredibly accepting.

Rachel (30:00) Yes,

Janette (30:01) So what else outside of, huh?

Rachel (30:05) Yeah, I’m sure sometimes it’s not. Yeah.

Janette (30:07) It’s empty.

Karen J. Kessler (30:22) If you’re a politician, if you’re a teacher, if you’re a religious leader, tough, tough, tough to ever come back from those things because you’ve put yourself out of some version of a moral authority. And when you fall, most people like to have a little bit of schadenfreude.

Janette (30:29) Yeah. makes sense.

Rachel (30:37) I think that applies to every almost every politician except for one. but I mean, it doesn’t seem like it’s applying to politicians as much anymore as it used to.

Karen J. Kessler (30:42) Okay.

Janette (30:46) It doesn’t stick to some…

Karen J. Kessler (30:46) The life is long, life is circular. You don’t know where things are going to end up, women. We can only wait and see, right?

Rachel (30:52) True, true,

Janette (30:55) That’s true. So outside of crisis management, is there other type of services that you provide for PR?

Karen J. Kessler (31:02) I mean, we do lots of monitoring. So for people that are concerned that things are going to pop up, could pop up, we monitor these situations for them on every kind of social platform so that they don’t have to. It’s not healthy to be Googling yourself day in and day out. We write for people that sometimes have very high profile positions and have to speak a lot.

Janette (31:14) Mm. God.

Karen J. Kessler (31:23) mergers and acquisitions we get brought in, you know, because we’re going to merge with a company, how do we talk to our employees? And we’re going to have to fire people. How do we talk to our employees? We’re going to have to relocate. How do we talk to our employees? You know, all of those kinds of more standard corporate kinds of things we do a lot of. You know, we always say what we do is sort of not in any way linked to the economy. So when the economy is good, people do stupid stuff. When the economy is bad, people do stupid stuff. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, right? Who’s in office, who’s not in office.

Rachel (31:48) People, we’re humans, do stupid stuff all the time.

Karen J. Kessler (31:56) Keeps rolling along. Keeps rolling along.

Janette (31:55) We’re dumb.

Rachel (32:00) Apparently humans don’t learn their lessons.

Janette (32:03) No,

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31:20 — How is she shaping New Jersey’s film scene?

 

Janette (32:03) I want to touch base a little bit on the you being appointed the New Jersey Film and Television Commissioner. How did that come about and what is the role?

Karen J. Kessler (32:13) So as I said, I was appointed by Governor Murphy and I was delighted and I’m still relatively new in that I’m only a year into my term. A couple of the big cases we worked on have been turned into major motion pictures. So I think that probably was helpful. I’ve been involved in the movie Hustlers with Jennifer Lopez about the women who were scamming the guys who, right, yeah.

Janette (32:30) Which ones? yeah. Yeah.

Karen J. Kessler (32:37) That’s actually, that case has a lot of New Jersey roots And Bombshell, which was the Roger Ailes one as well. And I worked, I was a technical consultant to Nashville. I was technical consultant to The Good Wife, to a bunch of things. So I’m comfortable on television sets and movie sets. I think that was part of it. I have a daughter who’s a director. I have a son-in-law who’s a producer. So this world, this universe is not unfamiliar to me.

Rachel (32:43) Right.

Karen J. Kessler (33:00) So I think that was part of what got me on. And then since I’ve been on, it’s been fascinating. It’s exciting that New Jersey is going to have probably three, if not more studios within the next few years built throughout the state. I think it’s going to bring a whole level of both creative people to New Jersey that probably don’t live here now because one of the conditions is that they hire people.

Rachel (33:11) I know.

Karen J. Kessler (33:22) They don’t just bring them from where they’re relocating, that they actually hire them from here. So I think that’s going to bring a creative community here, which sounds exciting. I think it’s going to bring interesting jobs here that have not been here before, like wardrobe people and makeup people and set designers and things like that. So that’s always exciting. I think that there is a level of disruption to communities that we’ve been able to be helpful with because not everyone is used to having people shutting down streets and. you know, relocating things and all that at odd hours of the day and night or whatever it is. But the job of the Film Commission is to really encourage television production in any form, commercials, television shows, mini series, you know, and film documentaries to big blockbusters to film here and to see the advantages of New Jersey. And I think people are sometimes surprised that…

Janette (33:49) true.

Karen J. Kessler (34:12) If they need a lighthouse, we have it. And if they need an urban center, we have it. So a lot of it is a sell job, is letting everybody who makes these decisions know and then a pricing job to try to be competitive with what other markets are offering. I hope whoever is the next governor really sees the value of this industry and it should be non-partisan that this is a great investment for the state and a great…

Janette (34:17) Yeah.

Rachel (34:29) Yeah. Exactly.

Karen J. Kessler (34:34) you know, way for the state to get away from some of the yucky images that the state had for a long time. And I would hope whoever’s the next governor would continue it.

Rachel (34:40) Mm-hmm.

Janette (34:43) Well, it’s been really great to get a chance to talk to you. And now we have some perspective on crisis and PR, how it’s evolving. And if we ever have a crisis, we know who to call.

Karen J. Kessler (34:47) Well, thank you all very much. that I speak to says the same thing, which is, I hope I never have to call you. And we say, we hope you don’t either, but if you do, you know how to find us. That’s what we say.

Rachel (35:07) Yes. Stay tuned.

Karen J. Kessler (35:07) I think what you’re doing to help promote New Jersey and talent New Jersey is hugely important and I think it’s great and I congratulate you both. Really, thank you both so much.

Janette (35:15) Thank you, thank…

Rachel (35:16) Thank you.