Dan Kane’s N&O series this week (“Carolina’s Blind Side”) shows anew that UNC leaders never learned The First Rule of Crisis PR.

The rule: It’s the crisis. Not the PR.

When you think it’s the PR, you ask, “How do we put this behind us?”

When you recognize it’s the crisis, you ask, “What the hell is going on here? And how do we fix it?”

UNC leaders kept asking the first question. They tried to put it behind them. Now, it’s in front of them, behind them, on both sides of them and on top of them.

And there’s no end in sight.

They should have asked: What would Bill Friday do? Bill Friday would figure out what the problem was, and he would fix it. He would depend on his own sense of right and wrong – and a trusted advisor, veteran newsman Jay Jenkins (father of the N&O’s Jim).

Friday would do what was right. And the PR would take care of itself.

Kane’s series raises another good PR rule: Don’t call somebody an “asshole” in an email.

Or you may see it reprinted in the newspaper.