Clemens Defends Reputation With YouTube Pitch: Too Little, Too Late?

Defending his reputation and once almost guaranteed induction into baseball's Hall of Fame, pitcher Roger Clemens today released a nearly two-minute video denying he used steroids or human growth hormones.

Clemens' video comes twenty days after his name surfaced in a report looking into the illegal use of performance enhancing substances by Major League Baseball players.

The video is the third response by the Clemens camp.  Houston attorney Rusty Hardin released a statement on December 13, the day the report was released.  Five days later, Clemens denied the allegations in a two-paragraph statement released by agent Randy Hendricks.

Clemens' YouTube response is the latest example of how online video is an important crisis communications tool.

Clemens would have been better served if his advisors issued a video statement from the pitcher within twenty-four hours of the report's release.  The video would have appeared on television news reports across the country and been linked to from news stories and blog posts on the Internet.

Within those impressionable twenty-four hours, the public would have seen Clemens personally refute the allegations and defend his honor; an infinitely more effective response than a printed statement issued by a lawyer.