Final Exam 3 paragraphs, with no topic drift

Sample Prompt: Read the attached excerpt from "Lessons Learned from the Tylenol Tragedy,” and argue—in one concise, direct, assertive paragraph—your response to the following question: Which single PR strategy was most powerful in Johnson & Johnson's reputation repair, and why? To support your argument, use specific details from the provided text and your own logic and knowledge.

Sample Response:

Open, active communication with the public, through Chairman James Burke’s TV interviews and a toll-free hotline, was Johnson & Johnson’s most powerful reputation repair strategy because, with this strategy, the company took advantage of 1982’s limited media channels to update the public on new developments.  First, Chairman James Burke appeared “on TV interview shows” to explain how Johnson & Johnson was controlling the situation.  In that way, Burke cooperated with the TV news media, providing a sense of active transparency and complying with W. Timothy Coombs’ recommendation that companies use the news media to quickly reach a large pool of stakeholders.  Since, in 1982, TV had fewer competing media, because the Internet was not yet the competing influence that it is today, Burke using TV to disseminate key response messages was a powerful choice.  Second, Johnson & Johnson used a toll-free hotline to answer questions, which enabled the company to communicate one-on-one with members of the public.   The hotline was a way to personally explain the situation to anyone seeking information, demonstrating Coombs’ advice that companies should use all available channels to communicate to the public after a crisis.  Through TV and telephone, two powerful modes of communication in 1982, Johnson & Johnson spoke to the public using widely disseminated messages to fill what otherwise may have been an information vacuum, which could have led to more public mistrust of the company.

(Note: reading is in a separate PDF)