“I believe our strategy should be based on our overall long-term objective to maintain your good reputation. There will be negative consequences if they misrepresent you or try to manipulate a situation to portray you in a bad light. I can’t see where legal action, or the threat of same, even comes into play. You’re certainly not going to get money out of an independent video journalist. Almost all of them operate on shoestring budgets.
“Our best guess is that they will portray you as someone who denigrates women’s rights and the feminist movement. They’ll want to portray you as abusive to females.
“What I suggest it that we prepare for some contingency plans and have them ready for when they release the video. When Frank is called for comment, we’ll find out for which particular issue the comment is requested. We’ll then reply with a clip showing the question she asked and the answer you actually gave. In addition, we’ll send them the video and audio recording of the women’s conversation by their car. That will clearly show malicious intent to defraud. And next, we’ll send them information on the videographer’s arrest record and mug shot.
“At the same time, they’ll be politely informed that they now know the information in the video is false. Deliberately publishing it with that knowledge would be libel on their part, even if David is deemed a ‘public figure.’ And we’ll politely let them know that we will go after them if our hand is forced,” Ms. Dixon outlined.
Frank piped up at this point.
“David, if you’re okay with the approach Ms. Dixon sketched out, leave it to us to polish it up. We’ll turn the message into ‘See what some unscrupulous independents will do’ and try to get the media on our side. I’m a little leery of threatening lawsuits, and the media tend to circle the wagons to protect their own. But I have some ideas for a few carrots we can offer to get our story out there fairly. Let Ms. Dixon and me work on this. It’s what you pay us for, and we won’t let you down.”
“Give us a second,” I said, then hit the mute button and turned to Mom, Dad, and Caryn.
“I agree with Ms. Dixon about the priorities, and I agree with the strategy. I’m a bit miffed at Frank for not doing some background on these two to begin with, but now’s not the time to say it. He’s got to realize how I feel about this, and I expect he’ll bust his butt to make this turn out right. Are we agreed?” Dad asked.
Mom and I both nodded. I unmuted the speakerphone.
“Ms. Dixon, Frank, go ahead with your planning on this and work together to fine-tune everything and to be prepared to respond quickly to whatever comes up. We agree with the objectives and with the basic strategy. It’s going to be up to you to make it work, and I’m counting on you,” I said to get this moving forward.
“Frank, because the PR concerns are the biggest ones, you have the lead. But we need you and Ms. Dixon to be working closely together on this to craft the best responses possible. If you can’t agree on something, let me know, but please try to work through disagreements or to find a way around them,” Dad added.
Mom piped up, startling me.
“David’s got a lot on his plate and doesn’t need this distraction. Keep me in the loop on what your plans are, and on what’s happening as it happens.”
She turned and saw Dad and my raised eyebrows. In the past, she’d allowed Dad to take the lead for business-like stuff.
“What?” she asked. “You always call me ‘the mama bear protecting her cubs.’ This time I get to act the part.”
We all chuckled at that and ended the call on a high note. Far be it from either Dad or me to stop her if she wanted to take this on.
◊◊◊ Tuesday May 3
I’d forgotten to turn my alarm on since I hadn’t planned to run today. I’d decided to take a break from constantly working out for the remainder of the school year. And after everything that had gone on over the last two days, I badly needed the break. I also had finals next week, and Prom was this weekend. I owed it to myself to relax for a bit.
A girl’s gasp awakened me. Of course, I was naked, since that was how I slept. My bare bottom was on full display. I tried to think who would be shocked, and then realization struck.
“Megan?”
When I turned to look, she was red-faced but made no move to leave.
“You do know there’s an intercom?” I asked.
“Peggy must have forgotten to tell me. Uh, breakfast is almost ready.”
Peggy was a bad girl, and I might have to spank her cute little bottom. Thinking about that caused someone to wake up and begin to stretch out. I jumped out of bed and made a dash to the bathroom before it got interesting. Megan worked for me, and while the little pixie of a girl was cute in her bespectacled, librarian-like way, she was off-limits.
