I don't understand why people in these situations feel compelled respond. Why defend yourself? Why say anything publicly at all? Curious if any PR-knowledgable folks around here know if there is any benefit to such statements.
It appears that GitHub and the Preston-Werners aren't coordinating their messages (though no doubt all counsel involved have reviewed them): the GH release is appropriately terse, giving away the bare minimum of information in order to minimize both PR and legal exposure, while the P-Ws are working their angle to the story while still minimizing actual information. The P-Ws really don't have any legal exposure, so there's very little downside to their attempts to work the refs, while GH is operating under the continued threat of legal action (even if it's remote, their attorneys are obviously being appropriately cautious here, so kudos to them).
Of the two statements, Tom Preston-Werner's statement is far more effective and well-crafted than his wife's; he comes across as -- at least for public consumption -- sincere, open and genuinely remorseful while affirming his dedication to Good Things and avoiding admitting to actual culpability. It's a very nicely-handled statement, and it's instructive to compare it to how MoCo and Eich handled their crisis du jour. (The OP statement by Theresa P-W, however, is less artful, more defensive, and personalizes the criticism. Understandable from a personal point of view; not good PR.)
How much of this is true? Well, does it matter? Truth is for courtrooms and confessionals; what matters here is spin. Again, consider MoCo. In both cases, an executive was ousted but, in GH's case, the company looks stronger for it (investigation by outside counsel! No wrongdoing found! Action taken!) and the P-Ws don't look much worse (we support diversity! Created an open culture! Feel terrible that some people felt hurt!).
The ouster of Eich, however, just made moCo look opportunistic and weak, and Eich personally came out looking pretty bad due to his inability to craft a solid message (he said the right things about diversity, but failed to connect it to his personal narrative, so it rang hollow). The lesson, I think, is either move quickly and aggressively (as GitHub did), or else buckle down and stay the course (as Mozilla should have -- though, as I've said previously, I have no issues whatsoever with the campaign to oust Eich). Anything else is going to make a problem into a crisis.
Here is Mozilla's updated FAQ: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat...
Disclosure: I am a Mozilla employee.
You probably want to read the reply above yours, or the FAQ it links. The announcement from Brendan was that he had chosen to resign. No evidence has been presented that he was fired or in any way pressured by the board to leave; in fact, everybody in the know who's commented publicly says it was the other way around (and always was -- it really looks like he never wanted to be CEO but was talked into it, then wanted to resign and others tried to talk him into staying).
1. Don't talk about it.
2. Spin it.
3. Burn it. - Let the lesser known news sources get the scoop so the big news sources won't want it.
I think they're trying to go with 2. "This is a good thing... Oculus Rift Technology... leaving for other, more important reasons... etc..."
I would have gone with bullet 1.
That's any interesting tactic. Do you have a good example of a company "burning" bad PR?
"While many duties of a public relations department involve building the reputation of the employer, with damage control it is primarily about minimizing the negative perception caused by a crisis-situation. A crisis is sometimes the result of an unexpected event. It might also be about something that the public relations department hoped to conceal from the public or hoped would not happen. Those involved in damage control are typically on call 24 hours a day, ready to minimize negative public perception."
It depends on your view. Many times it's not worth commenting on, and unless you can refute it completely, it devolves into a he-said/she-said argument.