Apology 101

My fellow-partner in the Apology Institute of America, Nell Minow and I have made a long study of what constitutes a proper apology, most especially in public.  Let's take yesterday for example.

Yesterday, you may have read about Dr. Mehmet Oz make the comment about how delicious it would be to send children back to school, and if we only lost 2-3% of the population as a result, it would be worth.  Now, not terribly shockingly, this didn't go over especially well with the public.  And so Dr. Oz released a video which said --

"I’ve realized my comments on risks around opening schools have confused and upset people, which was never my intention. I misspoke"

Now, according to the standards of the Apology Institute of America, this is a terrible public apology.

Just to be clear, "we" the public aren't at fault. "We" weren't confused. After all, Dr. Oz says HE misspoke, that makes it his fault, not ours.

And the thing is, we know it wasn't his intention to upset people. Goodness, most people don't generally try to upset people, unless you're trying to pander to your base by annoying the other side.  But generally, no.  And of course not here.  Dr. Oz wanted people to think it was a great idea. But it was an awful idea. Even if he had phrased it better. 

So, as public apologies go, this was a D+.  (To be clear, we don't rate on the idea being expressed, which was indeed awful, but only on the apology himself.)

Now, as it happens, only a few days ago, Nell sent me this wonderful video, which is important research for the discipline.  Not only because of Dr. Oz's attempt at a public apology, but also given that we are living in a time where the person in charge is claiming "No responsibility at all," the timing to post this now seems most appropriate, though was originally done last year.  It comes from a British TV show, The Mash Report, a program (sorry, programme) that appears to be something along the lines of The Daily Show.