Most organisations have 'Business Continuity Plans' in case of disruption from natural disasters. Few have media crisis plans, yet the disruption you may face is far more likely to be man-made than nature at work. Janet Wilson offers some tips for managing a media crisis - who, what, when, where and why me?

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Imagine you own a commercial design company which secures a lucrative fixed price contract to produce a new logo for a government organisation.

You accept a brief from the client and produce the logo.

However, the client’s marketing department suggest several changes different from the original brief and you redesign the graphic.

Then the client’s CEO wants several more changes, taking the design even further from the brief.

More redesign work follows but then the client’s board has its own ideas on what it should look like.

Eventually, weeks overdue and way over budget, the logo is accepted and put into circulation.

Over a period of several days a crisis slowly ensues:

1. Criticism of the design itself begins to surface in the daily papers, online, and on talkback radio (“It looks like a bird’s nest”, “What is that mess?” etc).

2. Then an opposition member of Parliament raises a question in the house about the cost of the logo, pointing out the organisation has had budget cuts and made some staff redundant but is spending “a fortune on this dumb messy logo”.

3. The minister replies the cost was several hundred thousand dollars, it was way over budget and quotes his ministry as saying the fault lay with the design company running way over time in creating a satisfactory design.

4. A newspaper discovers a very similar logo to the one you produced is already in use by another organisation. There are suggestions of plagiarism.

5. Your competitors then go public with rival designs.

6. Further media Official Information Act request reveal your tender was not the lowest, in fact, it was by far the highest.

7. Finally, questions are subsequently raised about one of your senior employee’s close personal relationship with a member of your client’s marketing team.

You find yourself in the middle of a crisis, gradually at first then gaining steam as you become a target for the media and other vested interests.

Who, What, When, Where and Why Me?

Negative media publicity can be a terrifying beast to confront. Commercial pressures have forced the mainstream media into a generally more tabloid approach to news.

That affects story selection, story placement and the execution of a story – meaning a heavy emphasis on conflict, the sensational, the emotional, with an overall black and white approach where journalists look for “goodies and baddies”, victims and scapegoats.

Crises come top of the editorial wish list because crises sell. A scandal attracts more readers, listeners and viewers generating the kind of ‘water cooler talk’ that advertisers love.

Crises create a media feeding frenzy where logical argument and rational defence can be overwhelmed by raw emotion, hype and spin.

If you are at the centre of a crisis and caught in such a media feeding frenzy unless you react in exactly the right way you, your staff and your business can suffer extreme reputational damage.

Like What?

Put simply, a crisis is an imminent risk of the public exposure of damaging facts. One of the hardest steps in crisis management is recognising that you are in or about to enter a crisis. You may be worried that, with hindsight, others will second guess you and accuse you of unnecessary panic but is always better to go to battle stations and prepare for the worst. Being Chicken Little is better than being a dead duck.

How you deal with reporters in the first moments of a story has considerable impact on how you will look subsequently. Be polite, helpful and as open as possible.

Transparency is of overwhelming importance. If you try to hide damaging facts they will, in all likelihood, be revealed at a later date inflicting further reputational damage and loss of credibility.

If there is a lot of bad news, have a ‘Big Dump”. Let it all go at once, rather than let it dribble out and prolong the news cycle of the crisis.

If you or your organisation did something that caused or contributed to the crisis, take responsibility for it, express concern or remorse, lay out your plan to ‘put things right’ or how you will avoid making a similar error again, and try to put the mistake into some perspective (“Out of X number of times we’ve been involved in the activity this is the first and only time it has occurred,” etc).

A public apology is not enough. It is a first step but you must also indicate what action you are taking to remediate the problem and put the problem into some context of scale to indicate it is not the end of the world as we know it.

Your lawyer will probably advise you to make no public comment and try and impose a media blackout on your side of the story. This is why so many of their clients are in jail, ruined or bankrupt.

Unless you are in serious danger of some major legal liability you need to clearly state your position publicly. If you do not define your own position, your opponents will do it for you. That is not good.

In a crisis there can be “first mover advantage”. If you know something is about to blow that is damaging, blow it yourself, apologise, admit the mistake and let the public know what action you are taking to resolve the situation. This pre-emptive action can rob your critics of traction in a crisis.

Too many companies and organisations pursue a conservative ‘reactive’ media strategy, waiting to be asked and simply answering media questions, rather than proactively taking their position into the marketplace and securely entrenching it.

Let’s All Play Nicely

In a crisis you need to recognise that while you have a job to do, reporters have a job to do as well. As the Mafia say, “It’s just business. Nothing personal.”

Keep remorselessly ‘on message’, repeat what your position is over and over until the media start repeating it for you.

Do not let your emotions take over, do not abuse the press, put your hand over the camera, run away up the street or slam the door on them. Acts of bad behaviour will ensure much more negative coverage.

Stay human, be genuine, display concern and empathy, and let the world know what you are doing to remedy the situation.

If you don’t know the answer to a media question, admit it. Tell the reporter you will find out and ring them back with the answer when you have the facts required.

SOS

Don’t be afraid to call for help. There are plenty of PR companies around that can assist in a situation where your business or reputation is threatened by a media crisis.

You may already have inside public relations or communications staff but, too often, they are caught up in the emotion of the moment or have vested interests to protect. Outside professionals who deal in crisis management can think more objectively and help you resolve the situation.

Devise a media crisis plan. Most organisations have 'Business Continuity Plans' in case of disruption from natural disasters. Few have media crisis plans yet the disruption you may face is far more likely to be man-made than nature at work.

Figure out who will be on the media crisis team, how it will function, what media contacts you possess, who will sign off on the strategy, and who will be the public face making comment on the crisis.