Filed under: crisis communications | Tags: crisis communications, crisis recovery, media relations, news templates, press releases, public relations
This story on the Huffington Post is written tongue-in-cheek, but it illustrates the utility of a common crisis communications tool. The story notes that news organizations are gutting their reporting staffs in order to squeeze additional profitability out of journalism, and suggests they could reduce them even further if they used a series of fill-in-the-blank templates rather than actual reporters.
Here are a few examples:
* ________ has asked Treasury officials for federal funds. In a statement,
______ CEO ______ argues that it is only current economic conditions that have brought the _____ industry to its knees. Decades of inept management have had nothing to with these problems, and if billions are not forthcoming, bankruptcy and massive layoffs will be the only alternative.* ________ corporation today announced it is filing for bankruptcy and immediately closing its plants and laying off _____ workers. Company chairman ______ expressed regret. “The ______ billion dollar infusion of cash from the government was not enough to prevent this unfortunate development” he said. He went on to point out that while all severance and pension agreements could not be honored, top executives will still receive their bonuses.
—— has been charged with fraud in connection with the collapse of his —– fund. Prosperous clients like _____ said they have lost millions. —–s of others say their 401k’s have been wiped out and they lost their entire nest egg for retirement. Regulators at the _______ agency said this was a total surprise. “We had no idea” said Chairman ______.
Although these are meant to be jokes, these tools are used regularly as aids during crisis communications situations for two reasons: speed and to overcome the “fog of war.”
The need for speed is obvious; if your organization’s image and reputation are in jeopardy because something has gone terribly wrong, you need to get information out to your stakeholders as quickly as possible, before others are able to start telling your story and framing the issues for you. Having templates ready reduces the time you need to spend crafting a well-worded press release, intranet post, message from the CEO, etc.
Overcoming the “fog of war” is just as important as speed. During a crisis situation, you likely will have dozens of inputs from various sources, all of which are important in some way. By having templates at the ready, with blanks waiting to be filled in, you don’t have to worry about whether you have left out critical information or messaging simply because you’ve been overloaded during the drafting phase.
I remember during one crisis drill, I was caught without my templates and had to wing it during a very hectic simulation that involved an explosion, fire, and fatalities. The first release I drafted for the incident-commander’s review had carefully delineated the incident, how we were responding, and included a reassuring quote from a high-level executive. Fortunately, the incident commander was astute enough to catch the fact that I had left out the date, time, and location of the incident (I had provided the distance from shore, but which shore of which country was not specified!).
So although the HuffPost story is intended to be a cynical joke, fill-in-the-blank templates are extremely useful for organizations that might face crisis situations. A vulnerabilities inventory followed by a scenario analysis can lead to a series of very useful templates that will be a godsend if things go bad.
Filed under: Business columns | Tags: 24-second news cycle, crisis communications, crisis recovery, Dresser-Rand, Dresser-Rand Group, explosion, Painted Post, press releases, Reuters
Dresser-Rand, an equipment manufacturer for the oil and gas industry, announced last night at explosion at one of its facilities in New York that injured two workers, one critically. The way they handled the emergency, judging by what I’ve seen in the news, was exemplary.
The first story about it is from Reuters, and all of its information comes from the company. This is point number one in Dresser-Rand’s favor, because the initial information about the explosion won’t rely on speculation from emergency-responders like EMTs, firefighters or law enforcement personnel (who necessarily focus on the more sensational aspects of a situation, since that’s their job) or eye-witnesses, who are notorious for making things sound spectacularly serious. The story sticks to the facts of what happened, and notes that the company’s top safety officer is on-site to lead the investigation. That’s good stuff, because it reassures everyone that (a) the company is on-the-ball enough to release the information
itself, and (b) they want to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible.
When we look at the company’s first response to communicating the explosion, It’s great information, but a little slow. It’s time-stamped 12:53 a.m. today, while the explosion had taken place a little under seven hours earlier. As a general rule, their first press release should have come out no more than two hours after the explosion, because any more than that is pressing your luck with news organizations’ patience. Local coverage of the explosion was not so great, and relied on eye-witnesses and law enforcment folks, with a strong leaning toward the sensational.
With local news outlets, this is unavoidable. But Dresser-Rand is a publicly traded company, so its investors – spread around the U.S. and the world – are a more important set of stakeholders than the local community in this type of a situation, especially if the local folks can be communicated with in the morning, after details have shaken out a bit more. So, to their investors, Dresser-Rand put out a release that reassures investors that everything possible is being done to mitigate the situation and prevent a recurrence. To employees and their families, they are saying that their health and safety are the top priorities, both immediately and in the long term. I’m certain that there was much behind-the-scenes phone calls and meetings between company officials and the families of those affected by the incident to assure them of their support; otherwise, their statements of caring in the release would be quickly denounced by the families as baseless propaganda.
And, to the company’s credit, the Reuters story reflects their primary message to investors: the company is taking this seriously and dispatching high-level people to get to the bottom of it. Since Reuters reaches around the world instantly, and is often sourced for info by other business newswires, the impact is broad and hits the intended investor audiences.
All in all, they did a great job tailoring their communications in a very difficult situation, although being quicker out of the blocks would have been better.
And one last word on the globalization of news. You might notice on the Reuters story that although it’s based on a press release from Houston, the reporter who did the story is in Bangalore (India), while the editor’s name is Ben Tan, who I’m going to guess (wildly) is based in either Singapore or Hong Kong. The Reuters story is posted less than an hour after the release was posted online. The take-home message here is that releasing news in the middle of the night means nothing to news organizations; waiting until morning is not an option, because it’s always the middle of the news cycle somewhere in the world. When I did media relations in the Middle East, I was juggling reporter deadlines from Beijing and Tokyo to London and Los Angeles. I can assure you, there is no “dead zone” when it comes to news, especially for public companies. And when it comes to wire services, getting a story on the wires just 30 seconds before a competitor is a huge coup.
