Reactions this week

Every day, when people watch TV news or read newspapers, all kinds of crisis events bomb their daily life. Crises range from fraudulent practices in financial industry, e.g. Enron’s collapse to product recalls and food-borne diseases. Right after the breakout of a crisis, press conferences are usually held to announce an official statement explaining five elements of the event- what, who, when, why, where and how to the involved stakeholders. We all know organizations need to communicate “something” immediately. However, for organizations experiencing crisis situations, they also face tremendous constraints such as lack of knowledge about the cause and effect, unavailability of accurate and appropriate information and so on. Therefore, the three chapters offer some basic attitudes to deal with this stressful process.

Key point: time, content and evidence

“Crisis communication must communicate early and often following a crisis, regarding of whether or not they have critical information about the crisis.” (Ulmer et al., 2006, p. 21).

When it comes to releasing information, the key responsibility of a communication specialist is to catch the timing, find sufficient evidence to support the statement and suggest decisions regarding what to do next. In the meantime, information organizations are willing to release is so limited that it contradicts what the publics want to know. One chapter suggested “audiences generally want as much information as they can get as early in the process as possible. However, organizations often release as little as possible as late as possible, for several good reasons” (Lundgren & McMakin, 2004, p. 86). As a communication practitioners working in a given organization, how do you strike the balance between the two parties? Should you play a follower role or an activist role in the crisis situation? Besides, if the organization doesn’t have sufficient data at hand, to what extent do they need to release information? If they shift the blame to others first and are found inconsistent according the following evidence, will the publics forgive the fault they made? They probably won’t.

Moreover, in p. 87, the authors raised another interesting question regarding the issue of censorship. Should an organization limit the amount of information or would this limitation be a form of censorship? For freedom of speech, we have a formal regulation to follow. In terms of crisis communication, organizations possess the final power to decide what to say and how to say. Do PR people have the power to decide what to say and how to say? In chapter three, we learned laws that mandate risk communication. Under the law regulation, basic rights of publics are protected. However, we still can see some organizations respond to the press and whole society in a passive and dishonest manner in various crisis situations. For organizations, would PR professionals play a necessary evil role that pushes organizations to tell the truth and face the problems? In a company that acts in a social responsible way, managers will appreciate proactive ways to deal with crises. On the other hand, PR people may risk losing their jobs by insisting on own opinions especially in the crisis situation.

Crisis is another opportunity

Despite the tremendous stress communication professionals are facing, we all need to keep in mind the positive side is to transform the constraints of uncertainty into opportunities.

What an organization deals with an ongoing crisis has significant impacts on building excellent performance history and corporate credibility.