If you have crisis management duties in your organization you should be watching and reading news about one of the most wide-spread crises ever. With each development you should ask yourself whether this could happen to your organization and what you would do if it did.

In the meantime, let’s look at how a crisis can impact an organization’s reputation. It’s all about public opinion.

In many cases, it’s not so much the event that shapes public opinion as it is the organization’s behavior in response to the event that determines damage to its reputation.

Event vs. behavior

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the focus of media coverage quickly shifted from rescue operations to the government’s slow response to the disaster. Basing their opinions primarily on media coverage two-in-three Americans responding to a Pew Research Center poll on September 8, 2005 (67%) believed President Bush could have done more to speed up those efforts.

Half of those surveyed (51%) were also critical of the response by state and local governments in Louisiana and Mississippi. They formed those opinions in less than one week after the storm.

When Swissair Flight 111 crashed off the Nova Scotia coast en route from New York to Geneva in 1998, the airline was given high marks for management’s attentiveness to the needs of the passengers’ and crews’ families and its willingness to communicate the actions being taken to support those families and to cooperate with Canadian and United States authorities. Swissair and Delta, operating the flight under a co-shared business agreement, used their initial response and other communications to explain the actions they were taking in this regard.

Two years earlier, TWA was widely criticized for not providing information and support to the families of the passengers and crew Flight 800 that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff from Kennedy Airport in New York.

Harsh criticism surfaced three hours after the crash when a TWA executive delivered a sub-par statement riddled with industry jargon and lacking specificity about how family members could obtain information about the crash.

Media reports about the Swissair crash compared and contrasted the companies’ responses, reminding the public about TWA’s poor response. During a TV interview Rudolph Giuliani, New York’s mayor at the time of both tragedies, was specific about TWA’s failures.

Your stakeholders usually glean information about the crisis from the media. If you are not talking first responders, eyewitnesses, subject experts – many of them self-proclaimed – and public officials usually are. They certainly don’t represent your organization. Your absence in the coverage needs to your stakeholders wondering about just how bad the situation is.

Don’t blame reporters for not delivering a story if you don’t provide someone from your organization to deliver your view of the crisis.

One more comment about the Toyota recalls. Don’t be surprised if other automakers initiate “safety checks” on some of their cars within the next 90 days.

Some car companies know about safety issues with their products that teeter on the brink of a recall. However, for reasons involving cost and adverse publicity, they address those faults with “service campaigns” conducted when costumers bring their vehicles to a dealer for routine maintenance.

You can bet investigative reporters are working hard to discover any of these service campaigns and disgruntled customers are seeking reporters to report companies carrying out such campaigns.

That depends on which stage your communications efforts are in:

• Initial Stage
• Primary Stage
• Recovery Stage

Let’s take a look at communications in these three stages.

Initial Stage

Making a Favorable First Impression

Just as in social situations you only have one chance to make a favorable first impression in the early moments of a crisis. The Initial Statement is how your organization makes that first impression on the jury in the court of public opinion comprised of your stakeholders.

Not to put too much pressure on you but you absolutely must get this right. So, here is a short table-top exercise to demonstrate how this is accomplished.

Tabletop exercise

You are the communications director for Elmwood City Energy (ECE), the local utility company that supplies electricity and natural gas in your area.

You just received a phone call from the company’s operations manager. Twenty minutes ago an explosion demolished a house in your service area. Fortunately, no one was home at the time of the explosion. When the fire department arrived they reported a strong odor of natural gas.

As a precaution, about 35 people in the neighborhood were evacuated to a local middle school gymnasium. The Red Cross is in the process of establishing an evacuation station there.

ECE has turned off the delivery lines in that area.

Selecting your audiences

A good rule of thumb is to address no more than three audiences with the Initial Statement. Are there other important audiences in this situation? Sure. However, you can address them later.

Don’t forget, the media is not your audience in most cases. The media is a conduit through which you can reach your audiences. To determine who they are start at the center of the crisis. Who is most directly impacted by the event? Undoubtedly you would select the owners of the home that was demolished as the most important audience.

Using your professional communicator’s judgment determine the emotions people are experiencing and their needs. Based on that analysis the next step is to develop a message for the homeowners that addresses their emotions and needs. This audience profile is useful in creating effective messages.

If these messages don’t address or acknowledge your audiences’ concerns, emotions and needs in the statement you’re just talking not communicating.

Then identify the next audience. That should be the people who were evacuated. They are concerned about safety and want to know when they can get back into their homes. By the way, they are probably mad about what’s going on.

The third audience might be customers near the area who are concerned about safety. The message you should give them is about what the company is doing in response to the explosion and what they should do if they detect natural gas.

Creating the Initial Statement shouldn’t take very long because at this stage of the crisis there is little confirmed information. Your media training program must include instructions on how to prepare an Initial Statement, a task that should take a trained spokesperson no more than 15 minutes to create.

Only use confirmed information. Don’t speculate or try to minimize the situation. During the interview if you don’t know the answer to a question say you don’t know then tell the reporter that as soon as that information becomes available you will let him or her know.

Initial Statement example

We are thankful no one was injured this morning. We are working with the fire department to determine the cause of the explosion and will meet with the homeowners later today.

As a precaution, we have shut off natural gas delivery to homes within a two-block area around the explosion.

We are also working with the fire department to determine when it is safe for our neighbors to return to their homes.

We know an incident such as this is unsettling. If you smell natural gas please call our Emergency Response Center at 555-5555.

When we have more information we will inform you by this process and it will be posted on our website at www.ElmwoodCityEnergy.com.

The Initial Statement should be delivered by a spokesperson distributed to the media and, if appropriate, posted on the homepage of your organization’s website no later than one hour after you are notified of the incident.

In a situation like this, it’s permissible for the spokesperson to refer to notes during the interview. In fact, he or she might say, “Let me refer to my notes so I can ensure our neighbors receive this important information.”

Primary Stage

Presenting a Broader Picture

The Primary Stage is a broader response that connects with more audiences and addresses a wider variety of issues than the Initial Response, especially in a fast-breaking incident.

Typically a crisis enters the Primary Stage, from a communicator’s perspective, when enough information becomes available to present a broader picture of the incident.

This will require you and your team to decide how to disseminate this information. Depending on the situation, your employees, local officials, state and federal government officials, suppliers, contractors and neighborhood organizations could be included in your communications.

Each new audience must be analyzed for their emotions and needs regarding the crisis and the best way to reach them with targeted communications must be determined.

Don’t forget your original audiences; they may still have needs and concerns or have new needs as the crisis develops. That has to do with the crisis center-of-gravity which will be discussed in a future article.

Recovery Stage

Repairing the Damage

The Recovery Stage supports your organization’s business resumption plan and repairs damage to its reputation. It is the time to communicate with appropriate audiences regarding what was learned through this situation and what, if anything, will change because of it.

Use the same process described above to identify audiences, their needs and concerns. In some cases the media won’t be the primary method for disseminating these messages. This is another instance where your professional judgment is important.

Some people affected by the crisis — for example the people who lost their home in this example — may never reach the Recovery Stage and your communications must be sensitive to that reality.

Situations like these are some of the most difficult a communicator can face because they inevitably come down to a balancing between personal privacy and organizational damage control. For a variety of reasons, especially the public’s seemingly insatiable appetite for sordid details about people in power, this type of crisis invites intense media scrutiny.

Do high-visibility personalities facing personal problems deserve a measure of privacy? Of course they do; but only to an extent.

People whose success is based on public approval owe their stakeholders – be they fans lining the fairways, tees and greens of a golf course, constituents who vote or attendees at a charity dinner and auction – an explanation of the crisis and their role in it.

However, the longer a personality waits to communicate the harder it will be to connect with his or her stakeholders. If those stakeholders don’t receive information from the personality involved in the crisis they will assume the worst.

With the exception of criminal activity, in which case the authorities often determine what information can and cannot be discussed, you must say something, anything, to acknowledge the situation and explain what you are doing about it. Use your professional judgment to determine which details should be made public and which should remain private.

Depending on the scope and nature of the crisis the personality should be able to address the public within 48 hours. After that, you and your client are navigating in uncharted, shark-infested waters.

The Tiger Woods Crisis

Early on the morning of December 2, the day after Thanksgiving, golf superstar Tiger Woods crashed his Cadillac Escalade, first into a fire hydrant then into a tree, precipitating one of the most widely covered sports stories of the decade.

Stories of the accident flashed around the world with no personal response from the golfer. Seven days into the scandal there were more than 57,000 stories about his infidelity and 80,100 in three weeks.

Later that day Woods and his communications team posted a statement to his website with the awkward headline, “Tiger Comments on Current Events,” that raised more questions than it provided answers. Unfortunately there was no mention of a spokesperson to answer questions and clear up the ambiguities in this statement. There was also no mention of a press conference.

Then on December 11 another statement, “Tiger Taking Hiatus from Golf,” was posted. Once again the statement provided no details about the crisis, didn’t name a spokesperson – frankly nine days into the crisis that spokesperson should have been Woods, an eloquent speaker – and did not disseminate information about a press conference.

Rather than admit the scope of the problem Woods and his communications team opted for what many communications experts call “Death by a Thousand Cuts.” Whenever another of Woods’ paramours came forward the media went into a feeding frenzy and most of their stories ended with the question: Could there be more women?

While Woods was in hiding, the media had little trouble locating crisis management practitioners who gladly offered their opinions regarding what Woods should do. Their advice covered the spectrum from continue hiding and don’t say anything to sit down with Oprah Winfrey and tell his story to the popular television show host and her 7 million daily viewers.

One month into the crisis we still haven’t heard from Woods or a spokesperson. According to The Cleveland Leader, his approval ratings have been “dropping off faster than a car driven off the side of a cliff” from 80-percent two years ago to 60-percent the day after his accident to 34-percent on December 23. A December 16 Los Angeles Times story headline blared, “The Tiger Woods Story Gets Bigger and Juicier.”

About this time allegations of Woods using performance-enhancing drugs surfaced. Then, on December 27, MSNBC aired a program titled, “The Rise and Fall of Tiger Woods.”

What might have been a more effective way to communicate in a situation like this?

Go ugly early

In the early moments of just about any crisis a statement from the person or organization involved should be issued defining the situation, explaining what is happening and what’s being done about it. If nothing else, that statement establishes the individual or the organization as a source of information.

Don’t attempt to sugar-coat or “spin” information, blame other people for blowing things out of proportion or attempt to minimize the situation. A short statement is better than rambling on about how the media is out to get you or your organization. It’s naïve to think that by of gravity story becomes one of veracity.

Silence allows the story to develop without your perspective and information. By the time you get ready to communicate the story’s direction will have already been determined written and it will be a monumental task to dig yourself out from under the media stories that already have been written or broadcasted.

There is a discussion about the Initial Statement in an article describing the crisis management communications writer.

Media training

Succeeding in this high-pressure environment requires special communication skills because a media interview is not a normal conversation. That’s why top people in any organization, regardless of size or purpose, must have media training. For further information, see the Media Training page on this website.

Plan and rehearse

Deciding on a course of action while a personality-driven crisis is raging is almost always fraught with internal conflict and panic. Although it might be difficult to imagine such a scenario occurring at your organization, you and your management team should discuss how they will respond.

The discussion should be followed by a tabletop crisis exercise based on a plausible scenario. Don’t forget to update your crisis communications plan based lessons learned during this exercise.

Sage crisis response advice

The best crisis response advice I’ve seen is on the masthead of the Aspen Daily News, “If you don’t want it published, don’t let it happen.”

But ask anyone who has responded to a crisis, even a “small incident,” and they will tell you there are myriad administrative events and developments that fall outside those roles that can overwhelm the communications team. From implementing the media triage plan to ordering meals for the team someone must have the flexibility and authority to handle these critical tasks.

That person is the Administrative Coordinator.

Tasks and responsibilities: From media triage to web support

The types of tasks the Administrative Coordinator might be asked to accomplish include:

Media triage
Answer phones, prioritize return calls based on media triage parameters, distribute information to the appropriate spokesperson/spokespeople.

Although the Administrative Coordinator doesn’t conduct interviews, he or she puts reporters in touch with the organization’s spokesperson or spokespeople or makes return calls, even if it’s just to say, “Someone will get back to you with the information you need as soon as possible.”

When reporters call your organization for information about the crisis, they should speak with a person, not an automated answering machine or voice message.

Tip: During crisis exercises and drills have an appropriate statement ready for reporters who may call asking for information about your training activities. It does happen.

Prepare for a press conference
The preparations for a press conference should take no more than 30 minutes. During quarterly crisis table-top exercises the Administrative Coordinator should ensure the necessary items, such as current background information about your organization, pads of paper, pens spare batteries for the clock and a spare bulb for the projector are in the room. While you’re at it, make sure the projector works.

Of course, when not in use during a crisis the press conference room can be used for its intended purpose.

Tip: To prevent reporters from overhearing conversations about the crisis, the press conference room you select should not be near where the crisis communications team is working. Reporters and camera/support crews should always be escorted when they are in your building.

Outside support
Have relevant information in the plan for contacting outside support such as the public relations agency with whom you work, media monitoring services and governmental agencies if appropriate. This prevents the Administrative Coordinator from wasting time during a crisis looking for the information.

Tip: Reinforcements don’t have to come from outside. Have contact information for members of your organization who have completed media training and who could act as spokespeople or perform other communications team roles. That contact information should be in, you guessed it, the crisis communications plan.

Make travel arrangements
Making travel reservations these days can be a real hassle. Whether you use a travel agency or do it yourself, make sure the relevant contact information is included in the plan.

Tip: In this age of heightened travel security the crisis communications plan should include the precise name and other information of all team members needed to facilitate obtaining travel documents.

Catering
Napoleon observed, “An army travels on its stomach.” The same can be said for a crisis communications team. Arrange catering for the team when appropriate and, please, go easy on the junk food.

Tip: Avoid placing food and beverages near where the crisis team, especially your spokespeople, are working. People tend to congregate and gab around food which could cause a distraction. That area must remain quiet.

Accommodations
If it looks like response efforts will continue beyond normal business hours arrange accommodations for team members. With the Team Leader, determine staffing requirements for extended operations.

Tip: Crisis response is high-pressure work. If possible, shifts should last no longer than six hours, four during the initial response phase.

Information Technology (IT)
Whether your IT support is from internal or external providers, the crisis communications plan must include specific contact information in the plan for Information Technology support.

Tip: Crisis exercises and drills are the perfect time for the Administrative Coordinator to review the plan and ensure critical IT contact information is included and current.

Website support
During a crisis your organization’s website can provide stakeholders with timely information about the situation. Posting information can be tricky in the best of times and a source of frustration during a crisis. Make certain your plan contains up-to-date contact information for the providers of this critical service.

Tip: One of the most important decisions within the first hour of any crisis is whether to activate the “website dark page.” A dark page typically takes the place of the homepage and reflects statements from the initial statement and updates to provide another source of confirmed information for your stakeholders and the media.

Selecting the right person

The Administrative Coordinator must have a working knowledge of the crisis response plan, the organization and how to accomplish the multitude of tasks needed to support the crisis communications team. The person you select must be able accomplish several tasks, sometimes simultaneously.

In large organizations the Administrative Coordinator must have knowledge about how to navigate through policies and procedures to accomplish tasks quickly and precisely. In many cases that person could be an Administrative Assistant, preferably one who works with the communications function on a daily basis.

Select a primary and alternate Administrative Coordinator; both of whom should participate in all crisis drills and exercises.

For more information about crisis management communications see When the Balloon Goes Up: The Communicator’s Guide to Crisis Response by Bob Roemer.

What kind of person voluntarily steps into such mayhem?

If you are a member of a Crisis Communications Team that person might very well be you.

Even if you aren’t going to face the bright lights and microphones, as a communicator you will undoubtedly play a role in preparing the person who will tell your organization’s story to its stakeholders: your spokesperson.

Communicating in a crisis – not an option

There is no question that, at first blush, crisis management principles seem counterintuitive. With controversy swirling and few facts to go on the need to communicate what you do know about the situation is critically important.

Refusing to comment or merely issuing a written statement does not constitute communicating and raises doubts about the credibility and competency of management. It also causes your stakeholders to wonder what the organization is hiding or whether the crisis is worse than was thought.

The first step in preparing your crisis plan is to obtain senior management’s commitment to communicate and be accessible to the media.

The role of the spokesperson is to implement that commitment.

Selecting a spokesperson

Select the appropriate number of spokespeople based on the size and nature of your organization. It’s a good idea to appoint a primary and backup. Of course, you’ll include their contact information in your crisis communications plan.

For example, if you have multiple facilities you may want to appoint spokespeople for each location and the company headquarters. If you are a local not-for-profit group you probably only need two spokespeople.

Job description and title aren’t important when selecting a spokesperson, especially for interviews early in the crisis. At that point, reporters then are looking for basic facts and background information. As long as your spokesperson is available and credible they’re satisfied.

Depending how the incident develops someone from senior management may be called upon as a spokesperson. Situations involving serious injuries, fatalities or significant property loss almost always call for a senior management spokesperson.

Bringing in a senior management spokesperson is always a question of timing and visibility. Involve them too soon it looks like the situation is worse than it is, wait too long and it looks look like they are aloof. There are no universal right answers; as with many issues in crisis management it’s a factor of your organization, the nature of the crisis and your professional judgment.

Spokesperson qualifications

Here’s what you are looking for in a spokesperson:

• Sincere, credible on-camera presence
• Can simplify technical information
• Knowledge of organization and products/services
• Completed media training
• Must be an employee/member of organization (see below)

There are two important caveats to the above guidance: if at all possible, don’t use attorneys or outside consultants as spokespeople.

If your spokesperson is identified as an attorney the underlying message you will send to stakeholders and people affected by the crisis will be all about legal issues. If your spokesperson is identified as an outside consultant that sends a strong signal you don’t have anyone competent enough or responsible enough to represent your organization. As we’ve noted in previous articles in this series there are roles for outside consultants – analyst, writer and administrative assistant – other than serving as a spokesperson.

You should include attorneys and consultants in crisis response drills, exercises and media training to understand – and buy-in the case of attorneys – the organization’s crisis response plans and procedures.

How it works

In the early 90s the oil company for which I worked had a crude oil pipeline leak in a remote stream in Colorado. The district manager, who had attended media training two months prior to the incident, worked with reporters on the scene. A public relations staff member acting as the writer for this incident helped the district manager prepare his key points on which our initial statement and press release were based.

During the first four hours of the incident the manager participated in three interviews; two were live on-the-air telephone interviews for radio stations and the other was for a TV news crew at the location.

The district manager was confident he could handle in any further interviews at the site. Meanwhile, we appointed a second spokesperson in our Denver office to work with Denver media. She participated in two interviews and provided updates as more confirmed information became available.

Altogether we had five interviews that day and two follow-up radio interviews the next day. Those follow-ups were handled by the public relations staff in Denver.

Media training is a must

Our article about the basics of media training provides an overview of this subject but it can’t be said enough that people identified as potential spokespeople must be trained.

Effective media skills are not inherent, no matter how many interviews a person has watched on TV or listened to on radio. In most of those interviews the newsmaker performs poorly.

The training must be designed to give the attendees the confidence they need to represent the organization to its stakeholders through the media.

“Media training allows you to identify who’s an effective spokesperson in general, and who, specifically, may be better for different types of interviews: TV, radio, print or online. And who, perhaps, should not be a spokesperson.” From Keeping the Wolves at Bay: A Media Training Manual by crisis management expert Jonathan Bernstein.

Inviting local officials such as police, fire, staff and administrators to attend media training is an excellent way to build positive relationships.

By the way, your crisis communications team members should also attend media training, perhaps in a special session just for your team. It’s been my experience that many communicators are good writers but could use some help with their television and radio interviews skills.

Availability is key

Once appointed, speaking to reporters about the crisis becomes the spokesperson’s full-time job. Nothing is more exasperating for a reporter than to be given a spokesperson’s contact information only to discover that person is unavailable. If this is an ongoing crisis, enough spokespeople must be available around the clock and on weekends and holidays.

What should the spokesperson say?

The spokesperson must focus only on confirmed information. Speculating is absolutely forbidden. If you don’t know, say you don’t know. Then promise the reporter you’ll get back to him or her with the confirmed information as soon as possible.

Although usually your audience is not the reporters – it’s your stakeholders – it’s important that reporters regard your spokesperson as a responsible, professional and reliable source of confirmed information who understands what’s needed for a news story.

Media query information

If at all possible, ask your spokespersons to maintain an informal log, sometimes called a media query record – or simply media-q – of the interviews he or she does.

Include the following information:

• Reporter’s name
• Media outlet affiliation
• Contact information
• Questions asked
• Answers given
• Questions for which you had no answers
• Issues raised
• Tone of interview

Your analyst will appreciate these “intelligence tidbits.”

Introduce the pressure, fear, panic and uncertainty a crisis creates and you’ll understand why writing crisis response communications is so challenging.

Not to overstate the case, but every word you produce and disseminate over a variety of formats will be scrutinized by your stakeholders including employees, customers, detractors, competitors, neighbors, public officials… this environment is no place for a rookie.

But in a crisis you don’t always have the luxury of finding the perfect person to fill this critical role. This is where your Crisis Response Plan can help.

Planning and exercises: Simplicity and specificity

When it comes to crisis communications plans, two elements will make or break their implementation: simplicity and specificity.

Your plan should be written so that the most junior member of your team can implement it with confidence that he or she is responding appropriately. The plan should not be a philosophical discussion about crisis management. It should be a concise guide to responding to a crisis with specific actions, decisions and information.

To achieve that the plan should be written in a checklist style with specific information needed to implement each particular action. For example, if the plan calls for issuing a press release, information about how to do that should be adjacent to that action, including:

• Distribution service (e.g. PR News wire)
• E-mail address
• Phone number
• Names and contact information of pertinent staff
• Your account number
• Detailed instructions from the vendor about issuing a press release on their system should be included in Annex

Give junior or new members of your crisis communications team an opportunity to practice implementing the plan during a crisis tabletop practice exercise, but only if they have had a chance to review and study the plan and have participated in their assigned role in exercises. This will build their confidence.

Boilerplates: Help relieve writer’s block

Some of the most important pages in your Crisis Response Plan are those that contain “boilerplates.” Boilerplates are templates for the statements the writer might create in the crisis. They provide the structure on which the statement is based.

Crisis response writing must be crisp, unambiguous and to the point. Don’t even think about extolling your organization’s vision, values, safety record or other self-serving statements. To save time, especially with the initial statement, you should have management approve the boilerplates in advance of a crisis. The first hour of a crisis is no time to discuss whether you should communicate even though you won’t have all the facts.

Now, you have one hour to write, have approved an issue the initial statement. Your phone is ringing off the hook. People are asking you questions regarding what happened. Your boss needs to see you. The clock is ticking.

This is why boilerplate statements are invaluable.

Here is a sample boilerplate for the all-important initial statement from When the Balloon Goes Up: The Communicator’s Guide to Crisis Response.

Initial Response Statement Format

Note: Use only confirmed information in this statement. Although it is unlikely you will have all the facts, it is critical to communicate your primary concerns and what actions the organization is taking to respond to the situation.

Your most important audience in this statement is the people directly impacted by the incident.

Headline

A concise statement about what’s happening, for example:

RPM CORP. RESPONDING TO SMITHVILLE FIRE

Date/city of origin

What happened?

RPM Corporation can confirm at (date/time) (described the incident/situation).

Who or what is affected?

Are/is people, property or the environment in danger? If so, what should people do (e.g., shelter-in place, return the product to their local grocery store for a refund, if you smell natural gas odors contact our emergency response department at 555-1111, do not swim at the Scott Beach until further notice, etc.)

What are we doing about it?

State primary concerns (e.g. the safety of our neighbors and employees, the supply of components to our customers, protecting the Lincoln Nature Preserve, etc.)

Provide details about the actions the organization is taking to respond to the incident. Address stakeholders/audience concerns (”We are working with the fire department to ensure the area is safe so that people who were evacuated from their homes can return as soon as possible).

If appropriate, mention a toll-free telephone number or website where people can obtain more information.

Provide appropriate background information.

Company/plant/facility/product background is useful here, e.g. RPM employs approximately 250 people at the Smithville plant, built in 1977, where we produce seats and interior trim products for the automotive industry.

As is the case with most elements of crisis response this data must be prepared before it’s needed and updated regularly.

How/when/where will you provide updated information?

We will provide updates through this briefing process at this location as more details become available. Updates and company information are also available on our website: www.rmpautocorp.com

Media contact

Contact information for an RPM Corporation spokesperson

Other boilerplate statements you may wish to include in the plan are:

• Media advisory for press conference/other information
• Information update
• Injuries and/or fatalities
• Press release
• Product recall
• Product tampering
• Website “dark page” with information about the incident

Website dark page: Design in advance

A website “dark page” is a pre-prepared website page that page that can be quickly tailored to the situation and posted on your website to disseminate information. You must use your professional judgment regarding when to implement this communications tool.

Two hours after an airplane crash I went to the website of the airline involved, who shall remain nameless in this example. The homepage was filled with travel deals but no information about the tragedy.

As with other crisis response documents the dark page must be designed prior to an incident. If you decide to activate the dark page the only preparation that should be needed is specific information pertaining to the current situation.

Management buy-in is essential

To speed the process of composing and issuing statements, especially the initial statement, you must have management’s approval for what you’re going to say. There isn’t time to obtain such approval during the early moments of a crisis. It behooves you to gain management approval of the basic structure and boilerplate messages before trouble strikes.

Imagine mayhem that can ensue from discussing what should be done while reporters call or arrive at your offices with questions.

Hint: Involve management in crisis drills and exercises where statements and content can be discussed and approved.

The writer is in demand

As we’ve discussed, boilerplates are time-savers especially when the writer can be asked to expand his or her role to include preparing communications for customers, public officials, Non- Governmental Agencies and industry groups.

Then there are special projects such as opening statements for press conferences, talking points for briefing the Board of Directors and preparing text for video news releases.

Depending on the crisis you might consider having more than one writer.

Bring in outside assistance

Fortunately resources from outside the organization can assist your writer or take on the role completely. Of course, this arrangement must be planned in advance. If possible outside vendors should participate in drills and exercises to learn the organization’s culture and writing style.

Share your crisis response writing anecdotes

If you have any anecdotes about crisis response writing you’d like to share with our readers please submit them.

When the Balloon Goes Up: The Communicator’s Guide to Crisis Response is available at Amazon.com.

An Important Crisis Management Role

The analyst gathers and interprets data about the crisis from several sources to determine the effectiveness of the organization’s response and makes recommendations based on that data about how to improve reaching stakeholders with important information about the crisis.

The analyst also maps the progression of the crisis to ensure the appropriate audiences are included in the response and whether there are changes in the crisis center of gravity requiring adjustments to the organization’s communications. There are discussions about the various stages of crisis in When the Balloon Goes Up: The Communicator’s Guide To Crisis Response.

Throughout the crisis the analyst also adjusts the data sources to obtain the best possible information about the crisis and the response. For a sample of these reports visit Media Monitoring: A Look Outside Your Organization.

Monitor for Mistakes

As if your analyst didn’t have enough to do, he or she should also monitor coverage for substantive errors, mistakes in important facts and discrepancies. If the errors are about your organization someone on the team should contact the editor or news director and ask for a correction. Do this judiciously; editors are usually very protective of their reporters and stories.

For example, I was the spokesperson for an emotional situation involving the eviction of a service station dealer who was six months in arrears in his rent.

A consummate marketer, the dealer convinced about 40 of his customers that this was a classic case of “David versus Goliath” and persuaded them to walk around the premises carrying signs reading “Down With Big Oil” and “We Love Sam” – for purposes of this example the dealer’s pseudonym – when the media arrived.

In a newspaper article the next morning a reporter wrote the dealer “owned” the facility. Although seemingly a trivial point, the owner of the property was the heart of the issue. I called the reporter to explain the situation. He thanked me for clarifying the issue and said he would fix the “mix up.”

His follow-up story read, “There is some confusion about whether the dealer owns the station or leases it from the oil company.” My next call was to his editor who corrected the situation.

…But Ignore Small Mistakes

Sometimes it’s best to ignore small mistakes that don’t change the essence of the story.

One night lightning struck a crude oil storage tank at one of our refineries creating a spectacular fireball. Fortunately there were no injuries and the tank was located where there was no danger to our neighbors.

A television reporter did a live report with the burning tank in the background. She was complimentary about how the refinery emergency team responded, saying, “Thanks to the company’s quick response this tanker fire has been confined to the immediate area.”

Some of the engineers at the plant were upset because she confused a tank with an oil tanker ship. They wanted the refinery’s public affairs manager to call the TV station to correct the error. He explained because the error didn’t change the essence of the story he wasn’t going to press the issue with the news director.

Test Your Skills as an Analyst

To understand the pressure the analyst is under try this exercise:

• Choose an actual breaking crisis to monitor – it doesn’t have to be in your industry.
• Select a media source such as Google News.
• Visit the Crisis Response Communications website article Media Monitoring: A Look Outside Your Organization and complete the updates and reports it suggests to track your selected crisis.
• Analyze the effectiveness of the response based on the data you collect.
• Produce an hourly update regarding the effectiveness of the response.
• Rate the organization’s response efforts.
• What did it do well; what could it have done better?
• Does your crisis communications plan include the items and tasks the organization did well?

By the way, the formats for recording analyst reports should be included in your Crisis Communications Plan. The early hours of a breaking crisis is no time to be discussing what information is needed and how it should be presented.

Don’t Fly Blind

How you staff your Crisis Communications Team is a factor of available people, the type of crisis and your professional judgment. However, the role of the analyst must somehow be incorporated into any effective response. Someone from outside the organization, for example, a public relations or communications consultant, could fill. It could also be combined with the writer’s duties (more on that in next month’s article).

Without the metrics and feedback provided by careful analysis of your communications and the progression of the crisis you are flying blind.

Share Your Experiences

Do you have any experiences analyzing a crisis response? Please share them with our visitors by sending them to Contact and we’ll feature them in our website’s “Articles” section next month.

Depending on your organization’s mission and the type of situation you’re facing some of the concepts discussed in this article will be appropriate, others not. You’ll have to rely on your professional judgment to make that determination.

However, the basic roles and responsibilities of a crisis communications team do not change regardless of the size or mission of your organization.

The roles are:

• Team leader
• Analyst
• Writer
• Spokesperson
• Administrative coordinator

This article discusses the role and responsibilities of the crisis communications team leader. Future articles will cover the other roles.

The crisis communications team leader

The team leader is responsible for forming and training the crisis communications team, developing and implementing the crisis communications plan, counseling management and providing the working environment and support necessary for the communications team to succeed defending the organization’s reputation.

The team leader will often be pulled in different directions, especially in the first few hours. This will minimize the direct interaction the leader would want to have with the team during this critical time.

This requires that the crisis response plan contain the detail and specificity needed so the most junior member of the team can implement it with confidence. Conducting periodic practice drills and tabletop exercises will allow each member of the team to become familiar with the plan.

In the first moments of a crisis the team leader must ensure work is progressing on the initial statement and, with the team analyst, determine the media triage and media monitoring priorities. Team members must be encouraged to take initiative to comply with actions and decisions contained in the plan.

Initial crisis response statement

The initial statement must be released within an hour of being notified about the situation to establish your organization as a source of confirmed information. Although there may not be answers to even the most basic questions the initial statement can at least explain what your organization is doing to respond.

On July 17, 1996 TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747-131 jet en route from New York to Paris with 230 passengers and crew, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff from Kennedy Airport at about 8:31 p.m.

The airline failed to provide a statement – or a spokesperson – until nearly three hours later, causing reporters and, more importantly, family members to doubt the airline’s ability to respond to the crisis.

Although very few facts were known an initial statement could have included confirmed information, what the airline was doing to respond, how family members could obtain information and that TWA was cooperating with the investigation.

Instead, coverage of the tragedy quickly included questions about TWA’s competency.

There is a thorough discussion about initial statements and an example of a “boilerplate” and initial statement in When the Balloon Goes Up: The Communicator’s Guide to Crisis Response.

Media triage and monitoring

Although you would like to satisfy everyone’s queries expeditiously it’s not always possible because of the volume of requests. The triage list prioritizes which media outlets have priority and helps spokespeople manage their time in difficult conditions.

For example, during the 1993 Diet Pepsi syringe crisis, which turned out to be a hoax, the PepsiCo national public relations team received 1500 media calls. The team determined the media triage list in the opening moments of the crisis. By 11:00 that evening the team had returned nearly all the calls. A year after the crisis PepsiCo Public Relations Director Rebecca Madeira told me they could never have accomplished that without a media triage plan.

You may never face that deluge of calls but if you are working with a small team, or by yourself, 40 calls can seem just as overwhelming as 1500.

Typically media triage categories are:

• Priority A. Answer or return calls from these outlets immediately.
• Priority B. Answer or return calls from these outlets as soon as possible.
• Priority C. Answer or return calls from these outlets when able.

Changes to the media triage list will be needed as the crisis develops requiring you to reach more stakeholders.

Information about media monitoring can be found in the Media Monitoring: A Look Outside Your Organization article on this website.

Communications counseling management

One of the team leader’s most important responsibilities is counseling management about the communication aspects of the crisis. During the initial response phase that will primarily focus on preparing, receiving management’s approval and issuing the initial statement within one hour of learning about the situation.

The team leader also suggests spokespeople – who have attended media training – and their locations. If some member of the management team will make a statement or appear at a news conference the team leader arranges for a quick media training review and rehearsal if required.

As the crisis develops the team leader should provide management with data obtained through monitoring and other sources regarding the scope and tone of media coverage, message effectiveness, emerging issues, centers of gravity, new or modified messages, and broadening audiences and the best way to reach them.

Be a crisis communications leader

Your crisis communications team members are working under tremendous pressure to deliver maximum information with minimum delay to connect with the organization’s stakeholders. In such an environment, a few words of encouragement and a “thank you” from you, their boss, goes a long way to acknowledge and encourage their efforts.

Closing thoughts

Remember, especially in the early moments of any crisis, it’s not so much the initial event as it is the organization’s defensive behavior and slow or nonexistent response that causes the most damage to its reputation. In other words, do you want your stakeholders to view your organization and management as caring and competent or callous and incompetent?

Timely and accurate communication can influence their judgment.

If you have a comment or question about this article or crisis management in general, please contact me.

Media monitoring provides a look outside your organization to learn what people important to it – your stakeholders – are saying about the crisis and your performance. Providing this external perspective, especially during a crisis, is one of the most important functions the public relations, communications or corporate affairs staff of any organization, from a Fortune 500 corporation to a local charity.

This critically important management tool is a product of collecting and analyzing media reports and community web sites covering and commenting on your organization and the situation in which it finds itself.

Gathering this data is fairly simple. Many marketing-oriented organizations already have systems in place to monitor and analyze media and community web sites. Media monitoring firms, also called “clipping services” can tailor collection and analysis packages for individual situations. If you don’t require such intensive, and sometimes expensive, analysis Google and Yahoo news search sites can bring the raw data to your desk and someone in the organization can be tasked to collect, analyze and report this material.

Whatever collection and analysis method you will use arrangements must be made prior to a crisis and specific information must be included in your response plan.

Effective media monitoring provides the following:

• What are people saying about our organization and its response to the crisis?
• Do our messages resonate with our key audiences and stakeholders?
• How effective are those messages?
• Are there developments or issues we are not addressing?

The key elements of media monitoring are:

Coverage

The number of television stories, radio reports, newspaper articles, commentary/editorials and community web sites provides a snapshot of how much attention your crisis is generating and where.

Ask your spokespeople to keep track of the interviews they perform; specifically the reporter and his/her contact information and media outlet.

You might be surprised at how much coverage what seems to be a local story receives, especially when the media needs to fill the 24/7 news cycle.

Storylines

List the most common storylines and comments the media uses in the coverage and commentary and how often they appear in the material you’ve analyzed. This data is key to determining how the situation is perceived.

For example, customers need to know what to do with potentially contaminated peanut butter and your organization has yet to disseminate data information. That storyline is in 72-percent of the stories you’ve analyzed.

Common questions

What are reporters asking and do your statements or press releases address those questions or issues? Your spokespeople can take a moment after every interview to jot down this information.

Effectiveness

How many media reports include your organization’s messages, or at least parts of them? If the answer is “not many” you may have to tweak your messages or rewrite them.

Analysis

Provide a dispassionate analysis of the coverage/commentary you’ve collected. Rate the stories as positive, negative or neutral.

Emerging issues/topics

Are there any emerging issues or topics? For example, the crisis may have started with a chemical leak in your plant however, on Day 2, your monitoring and analysis might detect some reporters are zeroing-in on your maintenance program.

You may also wish to monitor unofficial blogs, message boards and other sites your employees use.

Presentation and staffing

Graphing this data provides a visual map of how the crisis is unfolding and how well your response efforts are working. Those graphs also serve as the basis of your Crisis Response Team (CRT) updates.

Don’t forget, someone must be responsible for updating existing messages or creating new messages to address issues identified from your analysis.

If this process sounds labor-intensive, you’re right. The amount of resources devoted to media monitoring depends on several factors including the size and/or importance of the crisis, people available, time constraints and budget.

Remember, if you neglect media monitoring you will be flying blind, heading for a crash.

It doesn’t matter what size your organization is, or what its purpose is, a crisis can strike without warning to any organization. As a communicator you must be ready to respond.