In the world of Social Media and Freedom of Information statues what is often considered private is anything but…
About 15 years ago I responded to a weekend work burglar alarm and discovered the medical clinic had been burglarized. I called law enforcement and secured the premises and gave a statement for the officers report.
Unbeknownst to me Monday’s newspaper carried a front page story with several quotes from me describing the break in.
Mid Monday morning I was summoned to report immediately to Admin to explain myself and I had no idea what I was supposed to explain?
After a lengthy brow beating and being told speaking to the Press could be grounds for termination I responded.
I never spoke to the Press and did not know anything about the story, plus I had filed a full incident internal report the day the event occurred.
Admin was not buying it and the Public Information Officer summoned…
I called the police department and that is how I learned Police reports are public information with certain exceptions.
Sometimes it really is no good deed goes unpunished…
Similar situation happened with me and coaching about 6 years ago.
I was in year one of coaching a high profile high school lacrosse team. In taking over a program that had been ruined by the 2 previous coaches, a lot of pressure and eyes were on me.
We won our first away game against a 2015 state championship team that was supposed to crush us. We had (2) D-1 committed players. One was my son. The other was my son’s classmate and friend. I will call him “Tommy”. They both played very well in the game, but Tommy was ejected for fighting with a player from the other team in the 2nd half. In PIAA rules, a player ejected during a game must also sit-out his next game.
In the next game, we lost. I was interviewed after game 2 by the local sports media. They asked me where Tommy was. I told him he had to sit out this game because of a PIAA violation. Next day “Tommy’s” parents (who I am friends with) were on the phone screaming at me saying I may have cost their son his scholarship to college. The high school athletic director just barely sided with me citing that Tommy’s game ejection was “public knowledge” because it is published on the PIAA website. So theoretically, his future college coach could have been informed by anyone that his recruit was suspended for 2 games.
The next time, I wasn’t quite as lucky….
After about the 6th game of the season, a very promising 6’-4” sophomore, who was gaining a LOT of notoriety from college recruiters fell sick with what they thought was walking pneumonia. I will call him “Dave”. We played games 7 through 9 without him and after game 9, again, I was interviewed by the local sports media about our game 9 loss. One of the reporters asked me why “Dave” hasn’t played. I mentioned that Dave was “out with a respiritory illness”. Next day I was asked to appear before the AD. He said he was asked to let me go. I asked what the problem was. He told me that I violated HIPPA laws by mentioning the type of illness “Dave” had. “Dave’s” parents didn’t care, liked me and asked the school to keep me. They did keep because otherwise I was doing a great job.
We went on to have a winning season and make the playoffs, but that was a rough way to start your inaugural coaching year.
There’s a lot of pitfalls to speaking on behalf of others to the public. My advice is, don’t do it.
