Viral Social Media and the McChrystal Termination

June 28, 2010 - By Virginia Henschel

A new colloquialism entered the vernacular last week: “a McChrystal”. The correct usage and precise meaning is not clearly established. Is it an error in judgment while speaking? While speaking to the press? Or, an error in judgment for failing to control the comments of subordinates? Or just inebriated subordinates? Or, an error in judgment for allowing a Rolling Stone reported to be embedded with your staff?

Personally, I think the optimum usage should be for comments that lead to termination for insubordination. McChrystal was terminated for injuring the image/ the brand – the military, the President, the war effort – with words. While this termination played out on a national stage, we have blogged previously about “insubordination” terminations that are taking place routinely for ill advised postings on social media by employees.

The McChrystal debacle is a lesson in the printed word going viral on social media before you could even purchase the original article. How did this happen?

On Thursday, Andrea did it. In an effort to create “buzz”, Rolling Stone leaked (“advanced”) comments from the article to The Associated Press. Andrea Mitchell picked up the feed and Twittered: ‘Rolling Stone quotes Gen McChrystal says Amb(ret Gen) Eikenberry "betrayed’ him with leaked memo last yr doubting Karzai story is out fri.” The deluge followed. Or did it?

On Friday, Wired updated the chronology with comments from Kevin Baron of Stars and Stripes:

“Every reporter in the Pentagon news room, and many beyond, had a copy of the Rolling Stone article by late Monday night. I had it about 6pm, which from what I read is before even Obama saw it, yes? Then at about 10pm I got a copy of the McChrystal apology from ISAF which was even more stunning than the article for its total lack of a denial. So before most of Twitterdom went to bed not knowing anything of it, we were already doing reporting on it, and writing – with a few posting it, obviously. Before I finished my morning joe (lowercase) I saw NBC news’ Samantha Guthrie’s Tweet that the WH had summoned McC to the flagpole, which hit every cable station about a millisecond later. THEN the story went viral...I love Twitter, but it wasn’t the golden goose this time.” http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/06/did-twitter-cost-mcchrystal-his-command/#ixzz0s9SCQ1NJ

Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker contends the troops’ connectivity — not just the civilians’ — that played heavily into McChrystal’s fall. “Frontline troops nowadays are also online troops. They are plugged in to the Internet, to Facebook, to blogs, to e-mail and Skype. They talk to each other in chat rooms with little or no supervision from the brass. It’s all instant and it’s all in their face. And that, I hasten to add, is not a bad thing. It’s a good thing. But it makes the morale of the troops that much more fragile, that much more apt to be affected by relative trivialities.” “The point I want to make is that because of an explosive combination of new media and a (relatively) new kind of journalism, the bar for what constitutes intolerable insubordination is a lot lower now than it was sixty years ago.” http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2010/06/macarthur-was-offline-mcchrystal-wasnt.html#ixzz0s9WKec73

Mr. Hertzberg’s comments regarding the bar for insubordination being lowered by the immediacy of a networked world apply to the non-military employment context as well. Disparaging your employer, or your company’s policies, products or strategies, over coffee to a friend is very different in the scope of impact than posting on social media sites you believe to be private. As we have stated before, if your networked ‘friends’ can print, repost or link to your comments, the comments are not private. Damage to the brand of your employer from ill advised comments posted on social media will result in “a McChrystal.”

Virginia Henschel is Vice President of E-Discovery Affairs for Applied Discovery. In this role, she advises clients on best practices for litigation readiness for e-discovery, including data mapping, database development, litigation hold notices, meet and confer preparation and managed reviews. Ms. Henschel previously served as E-Discovery Counsel for Sunoco, Inc., specializing in multi-district, complex litigation. Prior to joining Sunoco, Inc., she served as Assistant General Counsel for a global Fortune 500 corporation where she managed global risk and litigation.


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