The digital media revolution has created an entirely new set of communication realities. There was a time when news and information moved much slower. Criticisms and public attacks aimed at you or your institution could usually be ignored for a while… and many of them would just fade away.
But when you find yourself in an ideological conflict or a crisis in this 24/7 breaking news obsessed world, it can be extremely damaging to find yourself on the defensive. And it can be even be down right deadly to find yourself on the defensive twice in a row.
Actually this might be how we professional communicators came to describe our profession as “strategic communication.” When issues get hot, getting to the public first with a well thought-out initiative, and immediately thinking ahead to a second and even third follow-up initiative, has become essential to achieving and keeping credibility in a wildly competitive and rapidly changing media circus.
Obama may have been the first to suggest to Russian President Putin that removing all poison gas from Syria could stop a military strike. But Putin picked a moment to take it public as if it originally was his idea. And Obama’s response, no matter what it was, was now going to sound defensive.
And when only several days later Mr. Putin put an Op Ed article in the New York Times bold enough to make additional news headlines, he managed to seize the offensive yet a second time! And what’s more, the article actually espoused democratic ideals and connected with criticisms currently being levied inside the U.S. by some Americans!
The arrogance of a former KGB spy and devout communist party leader preaching democracy to a nation of free people certainly will not ultimately win the ideology war. But the strategic initiative taken twice has put the U.S. president into a defensive and damaging loss of credibility situation.
Lesson learned: You must think quickly and strategically in this rapidly changing new media world. You must then seize the high ground by making your first public statement quickly, and you must hold the offensive by being prepared to do it again very soon.
If you have not read the Putin Op Ed, do it now! It will make you mad. But then, hard lessons always do.
Larry D. Lauer 
I don’t think it is Putin that caused Obama his creditability problem. The problem is that he put himself in a box with that red line comment, and then rather than strike without conferring with Congress he chose to take the issue to that feckless bunch and had a vote taken place it looked like he would lose. But frankly, and I admit to being a Democrat and an Obama supporter, I don’t mind his changing his thinking as circumstances change. Bush had a disastrous “I am the decision-maker” style that got the country into some unfortunate circumstances and by the end of his administration we were a joke overseas. I believe Obama still has the respect of the world leaders with whom he meets. All this Syria imbroglio might not look pretty to a professional communicator, but the result pleases me.