As a communications advisor, I’m frequently asked how an individual or an organisation can repair their reputation after a public relations disaster.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution here. Time is a healer for some, but not all. Humour is always a good bet, but not immediately and certainly not for all. You can smirk at corporate missteps but laughing at criminal convictions would be a tough gig.

British retailer Gerald Ratner can finally joke on X about ‘that speech’ when he told the UK Institute of Directors in 1991 that some of his jewellery products were ‘total crap’, leading to the company’s near collapse. If it takes three decades to see the funny side, there’s probably a quicker strategy.

Oops. My bad

Fast food company KFC ran out of chicken in 2018, forcing 600 of its 900 or so UK outlets to temporarily close. After recovering, it published adverts in a number of British newspapers, scrambling its initials to say ‘FCK’. Funny for some, offensive for others, maybe.

Full-on apologies do usually work. To err is human, after all. Hands up the last corporate communications team that allowed an intern to leave with all the passwords for its social media accounts?

The challenge for individuals who transgress personally rather than professionally is much tougher. I’m prompted by the launch this week of a substack (blog) from the disgraced BBC newsreader Huw Edwards. No, I’m not linking to it.

Edwards was so much a part of the BBC furniture that he was the man entrusted with telling the nation that the Queen had died.

Edwards pleaded guilty in 2024 to making indecent images of children. Up to now he has been living a relatively reclusive life following the resulting scandal.

On his substack he describes himself as a ‘journalist, political commentator, mental health campaigner’.

The reaction in the media to his new blog was predictable – ‘How dare he?’; ‘Has he no shame?’ and so on.

Edwards may feel he has ‘something to offer’ as a former journalist and commentator. While he may think so it seems few in his prospective audience can yet see beyond his disgrace – especially while the BBC complains they haven’t had any of the money back that he was paid between the date of his arrest in late 2023 and his conviction the following year.

So how could an individual who has fallen from a great height rehabilitate themselves? Well, contrition and regret will need to be front of stage in any such effort.

Are some people beyond rehabilitation?

That’s why there’s no prospect of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor being rehabilitated. He denies any wrongdoing, I have to say. But public opinion has another view and he’s in disgrace following the fallout of his relationship with the convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his own disastrous Panorama interview with the BBC’s Emily Maitlis.

Mountbatten Windsor is not the role model here. John Profumo, ex Secretary of State of War, might be. His political career ended after he admitted he had lied to the UK House of Commons about his relationship with a 19 year-old model, Christine Keeler.

Profumo spent decades working in the East End of London for charity and declined to comment on his previous life or on the scandal that cost him his career. His charitable work helped restore his reputation and he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1975.

Keep out of the public eye, Huw…

Similarly, Edwards needs to find something to do that does not require him to be in the public eye. There is not much appetite for hearing the views and opinions of a convicted sex offender, after all.

A charitable endeavour of some sort beckons. Edwards says he’s a mental health campaigner. Maybe that’s the cause to embrace. But it will take some genuine self-reflection by him to be convincing in this role. And a charity willing to take him on. Neither seems too likely at the moment.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash