The first time I handled media calls regarding job losses at a company, the communications team worried that laid-off employees would leave the informational meeting, run to their offices and phone the local paper.

The fifth time I did it, concern centered on people ringing up reporters on their cell phones.

The tenth time, hand-wringing involved potential texting from the meeting itself.

The 25th (yes, 25th) time, real-time updates on personal Twitter and Facebook accounts was the chief worry.

As the technology evolves, so do the challenges of effectively communicating change. And at this moment, no one knows that better than HMV Group, a British-based entertainment company that laid off 190 employees today as part of an administration process. (The financially struggling company is being run by Deloitte.) As the hatchet fell, one of the exiting workers apparently used HMV’s own Twitter feed to give a blow-by-blow account.

Once again we see a corporation failing to adequately consider social media in its external communication strategy around a major event. Had HMV included these tools in its planning, it could have shared its message proactively, personally, accurately and effectively.

It will be interesting to see how HMV and Deloitte manage the reaction to this miscue in the coming days. As of this writing, the company has issued a brief statement about the layoffs with no comment on the Twitter incident.

Meanwhile, companies delivering bad news (or any news of external interest) can learn from HMV’s experience and incorporate social media in its communication strategies. Layoffs are difficult enough for all involved; living them virtually doesn’t help.

On Nov. 23, 1963, the British Broadcasting Corp. unveiled an odd little TV show. A combination of history, science and science fiction, it featured a grumpy old man who traveled in a police telephone box, of all things, with his teenage granddaughter and two schoolteachers, having adventures across different worlds and time periods.

A disappointed reviewer at The Guardian newspaper called the debut “little to thrill,” with equally little hope the show would be around for long.

Nearly 50 years and 800 episodes later, Doctor Who is recognized by the recordkeeping folks at Guinness as the longest-running science fiction show in television history. Eleven men – not counting those in a few non-canon productions – have played the titular alien Doctor, more than the number of actors who have said “Bond, James Bond” during the same period. A worldwide hit today, Doctor Who has faced down death by poor ratings countless times, even returning to global applause after a 16-year hiatus.

Survive it does, and largely due to one powerful influence:

Its fans.

Counting Queen Elizabeth, writer Stephen King and metalhead Bruce Dickinson among its many diverse admirers, Doctor Who fans – often called “Whovians” – are as quick to praise the show as criticize its shortcomings, but their commitment to the Time Lord and his companions is steadfast. They kept the program alive through its history of uneven writing, dodgy sets and tepid effects, even past the usually mortal wound of replacing its leading man – a creative approach called “regeneration,” conjured when William Hartnell, the first Doctor, became too ill to continue.

Fandom kept the Doctor alive during its 1989-2005 respite with audio adventures, comic books and an ill-received Fox Television film. And fandom exploded around the globe when producer Russell T Davies brought the show back, bigger and better than ever. Today, Doctor Who is a hit everywhere, including the U.S., where current lead Matt Smith receives a rock-star greeting whenever he tours the States.

True, that level of support is uncommon. For every thousand Whovians or Trekkies, there’s a lonely, morose fan of Cop Rock. But much of the longevity of Who fandom is connected to the relationships – real or virtual – built by the producers and actors with their audiences, and the connections the fans themselves share. Hiding behind the couch for fear of a Doctor Who monster is a rite of childhood passage in the UK. And once again we see the strength of story in bringing people together.

Regardless of your enterprise, it’s important to make those connections, to foster that kind of dialogue. Building relationships, making it personal, is the foundation of fandom.

Like the time-traveling TARDIS, people are bigger on the inside. It’s important that organizations, leaders and public relations recognize and honor that.

Recently I pitched a business story to the editor of an online community news site in suburban Chicago. While I was reasonably confident she’d be interested – otherwise I wouldn’t waste her time – her response still surprised me: “You can just post it yourself on our website.”

That was my first experience with an emerging trend among media. Strapped for time and staff, some news outlets are allowing organizations to post releases directly to websites.

I call it DIY news – as in “do it yourself.”

As a career PR guy, a former journalist and a lover of the Fourth Estate, I have mixed feelings about this trend. So I bounced the topic off a colleague with a similar career pedigree but of much greater talent and learned insight: Matt Friedman, co-founder of Tanner Friedman, a Detroit-area  communications firm.

He, too, saw pros and cons.

“Sometimes this is a way to get information publicly available that otherwise wouldn't meet the threshold of news in the current environment,” Friedman said.

The client wins, he explained, by getting the information in front of its target audience through a more credible vehicle while the news outlet gains extra page views.

But there is a dark side, Friedman warned.

“There's handwriting on the wall that this system may not just augment news coverage, it may replace some or all of it in the not-so-distant future. That's potentially bad news for journalists, obviously, but also for PR because searchable content alone isn't going to get the job done for our clients,” he said.

I agree with Friedman’s view. In the long term, I fear this is not a good development for either discipline.

True, I got a good media hit by posting directly to the community news website; it showed up on Google Alerts and on the outlet’s home page. Had I not had that option, and had the editor turned down my pitch, I’d have come up empty.

But what happens when these sites start being flooded with any and all “news” items? How robust will the editorial filters be? While their skepticism has grown, people still expect news media to separate fact from fluff and falsehood – which should be the starting point for PR professionals, too – and offer a credible product. When that standard isn’t applied to DIY news, how does that impact legitimate posts?

It’s a manageable problem if the news outlet devotes resources to assessing the value of the releases that are posted and ensuring they meet the outlet’s standards. But given the shrinking newsroom, does anyone believe that’s going to happen?

As a PR professional serving my clients, I’ll of course use the DIY option when it makes sense while holding myself to the high standards I expect among all good news media.

I just hope this trend doesn’t lead to the future Friedman postulates.

File this one under No Good-But-Poorly-Thought-Out Deed Goes Unpunished.

Six months after a gunman killed 12 people and wounded 58 others in a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., the theater announced that it would reopen in January – and emailed an invitation to the victims’ families so they could reserve tickets.

Several family members were furious.

“Thanks for making what is a very difficult holiday season that much more difficult. Timing is everything and yours is awful,” said several family members in a letter to Cinemark USA, published in the Denver Post.

Half a year is a long time for a business to be shuttered. The Century 16 theater, owned by Cinemark USA, missed some of the biggest revenue-generating films of 2012, from “Skyfall” to “The Hobbit.” So it’s understandable that the owners wish to highlight the reopening and commendable that they want to have a time of remembrance for the victims.

Cinemark’s PR gaffe is not in holding the event but in how it decided to do so.

According to news reports, Cinemark has made little or no effort to connect with the families since the July shooting, rebuffing any such requests. When considering the reopening, the theater chain spoke with many others in the community – except the victims’ families.

Given the lawsuits filed since July, no doubt Cinemark’s silence came at the behest of its lawyers. Still, common sense (and good public relations) dictates that the people affected by this tragedy should have been approached first.

Had Cinemark made an effort to speak with the families and involve them in the decision, the reopening might have provided some of the healing that the theater owner and community leaders hoped it would.

I prefer to think the theater owner’s gesture was sincere, just poorly done. Given the negative response, Cinemark would be wise to nix the grand reopening ceremony – pursuing it now would make Cinemark appear uncaring – in favor of a quiet reopening and a long-overdue outreach to the families.

In PR, we talk a lot about “lessons learned,” that is, what new knowledge we can glean from hindsight. Fair enough. But the most effective public relations efforts are those that lean toward foresight.

And, in this case, a whole lot more empathy.