PR Consultant Takes Responsibility for Error

TextTrust is a Toronto-based company that sells software designed to correct spelling mistakes on the Internet. A news release from TextTrust required a correction on Tuesday, ironically to correct a spelling error. This embarrassing mistake could have caused finger-pointing and in-fighting. However, PR consultant Pat Brink said, “I made the mistake.” In these days, that makes Mr. Brink a hero.

The original release read in part, “TextTrust has compiled a list of the most commonly misspelled words it has found on the 16 million we [sic] pages it has spell checked over the past year.” A quick correction was required to put the “b” in “web.” As errors go, this is pretty minor, even for a company that is in the spell-check business. This journal committed a much bigger error in thinking Senator Bill Frist (R-TN) might turn out to be one of the GOP good guys because he’s a physician, and therefore, is familiar with science and reasoning – to say nothing of the odd mistake in spelling and grammar.

TextTrust founder Daniel Rostenne said in the original and re-released versions, “You only have one chance to make that first impression, and spelling errors on your web site don’t make it any easier for people to trust your organization.” That is true, but since the Kensington Review ran across Mr. Brink in the Reuters article that followed the correction and not in the news release, the opinion here is a very positive one.

Mr. Brink did something that doesn’t happen often enough. He took responsibility for what happened on his watch. The number of times athletes, celebrities and the rest blame the media for whatever bone-headed situation in which they find themselves borders on the infinite. The smoker blames the habit on “Big Tobacco” while the abusive husband claims he shouldn’t have been provoked by wife and kids. And of course, there’s Mr. Bush, whose inability to acknowledge mistakes is the stuff of legend.

To err is, indeed, human, and to forgive may well be divine. Yet, admitting to mistakes is one the endangered species list. Mr. Brink would probably like to forget the whole thing and probably isn’t in the mood laugh about this just yet. The Kensington Review, though, thinks TextTrust is quite fortunate to have such a man of character around. Perhaps this could bring an alternate meaning to “brinkmanship,” meaning the quality of being stand-up guy one can trust to do the right thing.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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