Ronnie's Thoughts from Last Week (accidentally deleted)

Every day we are confronted with some type of risk and/or crisis communication and how the communication process is handled clearly alleviates or exasperates the crisis or risk. I had not really given much thought to theories and/or models of crisis communication as outlined in our readings until now.

As a journalist, I was always focused on the information that needed to get out; as a public relations practitioner, I thought more about how the message should be delivered.

For example, 20 years ago, while working as a war correspondent in El Salvador, the capital city came under siege during a guerrilla offensive. This was a crisis for the Salvadoran government and a crisis for the administration of President Ronald Reagan, which backed the Salvadoran military. The U.S. evacuated all non-essential U.S. embassy personnel and their families because of the crisis – but they did not want this information made public. Their party line was that the embassy folk were simply returning to the U.S. for “the holidays.” I reported on the evacuations and was chastised for it by the U.S. ambassador at the time. But as a journalist, I felt obligated (and perhaps a bit righteous) about reporting events in their proper context. The proper context was that the city was under attack and the U.S. wanted to get its people on the ground away from the violence. They just didn’t want the world to see them as running scared.

The prevailing wisdom seemed to be that if you ignored a crisis it would go away. Twenty years later, that may still be the case.

Although it did not have to do with an environmental or health risk (except for the man who was shot), the way the White House handled – or mishandled – Vice President Dick Cheney’s hunting accident is an example of crisis communications at its worst.

Cheney accidentally shot Harry Whittington, a Texas attorney, during a day of hunting on a ranch in Texas. Whittington was shot with birdshot pellets in the face, neck and chest. The accident occurred on Feb. 11, 2006. It was not made public until Feb. 12 – a day later. Cheney himself made no statement about the incident until four days later – on Feb. 15.

Clearly when the vice president of the United States shoots a man – accidentally or not – it constitutes a crisis. Failure to divulge the information immediately made it more of a crisis – in this case of confidence.

The readings also brought to mind the story of Erin Brockovich and the health crisis that confronted the people of Hinckley, CA after their drinking water had been allegedly contaminated by chemicals used by Pacific Gas & Electric. (I just caught a rerun of the movie a few weeks ago!)

Brockovich’s perseverance – or as she calls it on her website – “stick-to-it-iveness” resulted in a $333 million settlement, the largest ever paid in a direct action lawsuit. Brockovich has some words of wisdom for anyone involved in risk or crisis communication:

“It is through awareness and information that we can protect ourselves, our families and our health. It is the absence of knowing information that we become vulnerable and stand defenseless to protect ourselves.” (www.erinbrockovich.com)

I was particularly struck by the L & M readings and the breakdowns as to the different types of risk communication and the different approaches. Care communications would seem to be the model to use when we are aware of a potentially hazardous or troublesome situation and want to take steps if not to head off the risk or crisis, at least to be prepared to handle it. Consensus sounds like a very nice thing – let’s all work together – but in reality, I am not sure how well that can work. Crisis communication in and of itself is probably what we are all most familiar with – certainly it is what grabs the headlines as we witnessed with the recent E-coli outbreaks, the missing children concerns and the still linger effects of Hurricane Katrina.

One quote that really jumped out at me is this:

Where potential personal harm is concerned, the believability of information provided depends greatly on the degree of trust and confidence in the risk communicator. If the communicator is viewed as having a compromised mandate or a lack of competence, credence in information provided tends to be weakened. Or if the risk has been mismanaged or neglected in the past, skepticism and distrust may greet attempts to communicate risks

This underscores the importance of credibility – how important it is to achieve it and how important it is to maintain it – or as Brockovich would say – “deceit becomes one of our biggest challenges and our biggest enemy.” Believe it!