Imagine this. You represent a professional football player who has been arrested on a charge of assaulting his wife. You get your client into a pre-trial intervention program to avoid prosecution, wait for the smoke to clear, then schedule a mea-culpa news conference at which you expect he will, at minimum, offer a heartfelt apology.
Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice checking notes on his smartphone during an "apology" press conference. At left is his wife, Janay Palmer. Image from nfl.com.
The player does apologize - to his fans and to professional football - but he neglects to do so to the wife at his side. Then, as this real-life story of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice stumbles from bad to worse, he tries to read key messages from his smartphone - in full view of the reporters assembled.
"He kept picking up the device and paging through it while the room hung in awkward silence," writes TV critic David Zurawik. "The one thing written on that screen should have been: Apologize to the woman sitting next to me.” Courtesy The Baltimore Sun.