|
|
|
|
|
|
Michael Dell
Founder & Chairman, Dell Inc.
We did a complete, full investigation and found that one of our suppliers, Sony, had made some batteries that had the possibility of this defect. Quite a small likelihood, but still it was there. So we made the decision to recall all of those batteries. Now the interesting thing, if you go back and look at when we made that decision, the popular wisdom was that it was an issue that was unique to Dell, and Dell was the only company in the world that had this problem, and it must've been because Dell did something wrong in the way it designed its computers. Several weeks later, another computer company announced a similar recall for the same Sony batteries. And then several weeks after that, another company. Eventually all of the companies that used the Sony batteries announced recalls. We were very proactive in doing it, and I think our teams did a fantastic job in sort of doing the right thing, when you know you could have had all sorts of arguments about, "Well, it's a really small percentage " or those kinds of things. But we actually knew the problem was there. And you know, even though there were debates about, "Okay. Is it going to be six batteries that fail, or is it going to be ten batteries that fail?" Doesn't really matter. One battery failing is one too many.
View Interview with Michael Dell
View Biography of Michael Dell
View Profile of Michael Dell
View Photo Gallery of Michael Dell
|
|
Sam Donaldson
ABC News Correspondent
What you're saying to an audience, whether it's a print audience as a print reporter, or in my business, a television audience is, "Folks, I've looked into this to the best of my ability, and to the best of my knowledge what I'm telling you is accurate." And if I'm not certain, I will tell you that. I will say, "it's reported," or "there are reports of this, but we can't confirm them." If the audience doesn't believe that, then they're not going to watch me, and why should they? If they think I'm making it up, if they think I would distort it for some private agenda, if they think I'm so sloppy in my work that -- even though I don't mean any harm -- I'm always getting it wrong, they're going to watch somebody else. And indeed, they should. Now, that doesn't mean that I won't make a mistake, or that I won't occasionally tell them things which prove not to be true, but they will understand that. As long as they believe that I didn't know it at the time, and I honestly believed that what I was giving them was professionally accomplished, because I knew how to do the news business and that I believed to be the truth.
View Interview with Sam Donaldson
View Biography of Sam Donaldson
View Profile of Sam Donaldson
View Photo Gallery of Sam Donaldson
|
|
Sam Donaldson
ABC News Correspondent
You understand in the news business what you can do and what you can't do: the corners you should not cut. At first it may not seem to you that there's any reason why you shouldn't cut them, and then you learn that you shouldn't, and therefore then, you don't. And I say to people, "Don't take a chance." Let's say that morality or ethics have nothing to do with it. I do think they do have something to do with it. Let's pretend though for a moment they don't. I said, pragmatically, don't take a chance of destroying your reputation because you can get a story this way. Don't go through the desks when that's actually not your property to go through. Even though you learned something and you might beat the competition, it will come back and bite you. It will bite the news organization you work for, and you will destroy the very success that you were hoping for.
View Interview with Sam Donaldson
View Biography of Sam Donaldson
View Profile of Sam Donaldson
View Photo Gallery of Sam Donaldson
|
|
Sam Donaldson
ABC News Correspondent
"If you want to be universally loved, if you want to win a popularity contest, don't get in the news business." At least not in the sense of being the front guy. Because there is no way you can report a story and have everyone say, "Well, that's fine, and I'm sure they did a great job." And particularly if you're covering politicians, because people invest their loves, and their hopes, and their hatreds in politicians. And when you stand on the north lawn of the White House talking about President X and you have to report that something went wrong that day, all of his fans says, "Well, of course, that's wrong. He couldn't have made a mistake like that, it's this vicious reporter."
View Interview with Sam Donaldson
View Biography of Sam Donaldson
View Profile of Sam Donaldson
View Photo Gallery of Sam Donaldson
|
| |
|
