Ch. 2

Ulmer, Sellnow and Seeger’s second chapter provided suggestions “about how to communicate in the presence of uncertainty” (p. 17). The chapter outlined ten valuable lessons, which are all listed on page 30.

One of the recommendations that I found particularly thought-provoking was as follows: “Crisis communicators must be able to have a clear and consistent message and present this message quickly and regularly following a crisis event. If the organization is not prepared to provide definitive answers and explanations related to the crisis, the spokesperson must be able to provide information such as the organization’s latest safety records, its measures for collecting information about the crisis, and a timeline for how it is going to handle the crisis in the future” (p. 21). I imagine this is assuming all of these things that they are suggesting be released in place of the actual information have already been prepared. If not, I’d think that it’d be inappropriate to start producing that information. One would think that any reputable organization would/should have that information prepared, but I’d imagine that there have been/are organizations that succeed (at least temporarily) without deserving to. Of course, this would probably be a hit (or unveiling) that would irreparably damage the organization’s reputation.

In the section on “Questions of intent,” the account of the Ford Motor Company selling the Pinto, “a car which they knew had life-threatening defects” (p. 26) was shocking to me. What was so surprising was that before reading that section, I had never heard of that information. To me, Ford cars are associated with not being as reliable as Japanese cars, but still being a solid choice among American car companies. However, willingly putting people’s lives at risk is an unforgivable action that I think should carry as much weight as other pieces of notoriety that other companies still carry along with their reputation. I wonder, could Ford’s public relations department have succeeded in burying this violation from their record?

Lesson # 7 stated that “[w]ithout good intentions prior to a crisis, recovery is difficult or impossible.” This led me to think about the Exxon-Valdez case. I particularly wondered, with such arrogance (as has become evident), how is it that Exxon is still so powerful? The only answer that I could come up with is that our dependence on oil is just that great.