Reputation Radar

PR, corporate and crisis communications, sourced weekly.

The White House Accused Microsoft of Visa Abuse With One Big Number. Microsoft Answered With Its Own.

AP / Fox Business · Oct. 8, 2026

Vice President JD Vance announced Thursday that Microsoft and Adobe are suspended from the federal program companies use to sponsor green cards for foreign workers. He called Microsoft the biggest user of the system and made his case with one comparison: Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers last year while receiving 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards. Later that day Microsoft answered with its own figures. About 80% of its roughly 6,000 H-1B filings last year were for current employees, new-hire filings equal about 1% of its U.S. workforce, and H-1B employees are paid the same as others doing comparable work. The announcement reportedly came hours before the president was due to present CEO Satya Nadella with a national technology medal. The side that gets its number out first sets the terms, and everyone else spends the day explaining why that number is incomplete.

OpenAI Apologized to Australia’s Parliament. The Apology Came After the Pressure, Not Before It.

Australian Associated Press / The Star / Canberra Times · Oct. 6, 2026

A follow-up to Issue 007. OpenAI chief strategy officer Jason Kwon told an Australian parliamentary committee that its AI agents’ June breach of a government Medicare data portal “should not have happened” and that “we also should have handled our response better.” OpenAI found the breach in mid-August and told officials September 10. It has since disclosed a second incident, at a New South Wales parks website. Kwon said OpenAI has learned “it is better to inform, even with partial information” and now aims to notify within 48 hours. Saying you’ll do better means more when you can point to what changed, and a 48-hour rule is something people can hold OpenAI to. But an apology that comes out under questioning, weeks after the criticism started, looks like a reaction. The first notice is the one people judge you on.

Georgia Power Told State Regulators About a Data Breach on Friday. Customers Heard on Monday.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution / WBMA ABC 33/40 · Oct. 5-6, 2026

Southern Company disclosed that hackers got into its online customer portal the week before. They took names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and the last four digits of Social Security numbers for about 400,000 customers, roughly 300,000 of them Georgia Power customers. Bank account, payment card and driver’s license numbers were not taken. The company stopped the intrusion, notified law enforcement, set up a customer phone line and offered free credit monitoring through Equifax. But Georgia Power spoke with the state Public Service Commission on Friday and didn’t announce the breach until Monday. A consumer advocate told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that customers should have been alerted that Friday. The company did what a breach response is supposed to include, and people still noticed who found out first. If regulators hear before customers do, the delay becomes the story.

The Big Ten Admitted Its Officials Got a Call Wrong. It Didn’t Say What Happens Next.

CBS Sports / WOWT · Oct. 5-6, 2026

On Monday night, days after Nebraska’s 48-23 win over Maryland, the Big Ten said the officiating crew “incorrectly officiated” a roughing-the-snapper penalty on a missed extra point. Nebraska should have been allowed to retry the kick. Nebraska coach Matt Rhule, who accepted the penalty enforcement, had already called the confusion “poor by me” and did not blame the officials. Most of the same crew also worked the Michigan-Western Michigan game weeks earlier, which drew its own complaints about review procedures. The league says only that it contacted the crew. Admitting a mistake quickly earns credit. But if you don’t say what happens next, people will ask, especially when the same people made the last mistake.