I'm beginning to reconsider the idea that business and government are all that different, at least when it comes to PR. Given the way some of these quarterly earnings conference calls go, the next President should think about hiring some CEO or CFO as his press secretary.
Two examples. One company saw sales dip for one segment in Q1, but net income for that segment fell to almost 0; well out of proportion to previous quarters. The CEO and CFO were asked three times in three different ways what happened, and each time said the problem was a capacity shortage. Not only doesn't this answer the question, but when someone asked where the sales went - were they lost or pushed off into the future? - the CFO replied, "neither."
On another call, the company basically refused to offer earnings guidance for the next quarter, aside from an EBITDA projection. Worse yet, this was a company that had undergone a massive restructuring, and was filing its first public quarterlies in more than a year. They repeatedly refused to talk about what other hidden restructuring costs might be lurking during the next year, before they finally put the whole thing behind them.
Investors showed their confidence in management by driving the stock off a cliff during the call. I can't imagine it does much for management's anti-perspirant to see the stock plunging through new low after new low every time they open their mouths to avoid a question.
Conference calls aren't a waste of time. But imagine how much time of their own these guys waste trying to anticipate and block all approaches to key piece of information.