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If you think fake news could not possibly impact your company, we have one word: Pizzagate. When a North Carolina man walked into a little-known Washington, D.C. restaurant with an assault rifle earlier this year, the widespread impact and dangerous implications of this growing trend proved that no brand – no matter how powerful or obscure – is safe.

I recently sat down with former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis to discuss today’s security challenges and his thoughts on mitigating them. No stranger to complex security matters, having guided the City of Boston through the Marathon bombing and dozens of other events, Davis emphasized that preparedness is key to keeping an organization’s people and assets safe.  Davis, now founder and CEO of Edward Davis Inc, also stressed that being prepared means integrating crisis communications into your crisis management plan.

United Airlines' harsh treatment of a passenger on April 9^th provided 34 seconds of intense video footage that few will forget.

"If every CEO in America isn’t sitting up and thinking what will I do on the very worst day when one of my employees is caught on video behaving badly, they have made a colossal mistake," Denterlein President Diana Pisciotta told NECN Business last night. The United Airlines crisis communication gaff this month caused major public outcry and a plummeting stock price -- all of which could have been avoided with good crisis communication planning, Pisciotta said.

Protecting an organization’s reputation is one of the most important responsibilities of directors today. But what, exactly, is the director’s role in crisis management?

Warren Buffet once aptly explained the effect of crisis management, saying “it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”

Your company just made a huge announcement and you’ve received multiple inquiries for media interviews. What’s next?

The weather forecast may not reflect it, but it’s national Sunshine Week. It’s an annual effort by the American Society of News Editors and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to urge open records and government transparency. It’s also a reminder that Massachusetts has a new open records law. The new statute went into effect January 1 - amending one of the weakest such laws in the country.

Just as “is this off?” are the three most dangerous words in electrical work, and “some assembly required” are the three most dangerous words in birthday presents, off the record are the three most dangerous words in media relations.

While Donald Trump and the media battle it out in Washington, remember that the fight for open records, a free press and government accountability is waged every day on much smaller stages.