In what is described as being pulled right from a spy-thriller novel, British Airways this week mobilized an impressive response to the news that three of their planes contained low traces of a radioactive substance, polonium 210, that killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. The airline was contacted Tuesday night by the British government and, in less than ten hours it seems, put their crisis communications plan into high-gear. The task of warning nearly 33,000 passengers that they may have been exposed to a highly-lethal radioactive substance while trying to calm fears and communicate their real risk was low is no easy task. Immediately, the airline pulled the three planes out of service, put a statement on the wire and made information easy to find on their Web site home page. The airline wasted no time in divulging what they knew, not speculating and setting up hot lines for both media inquiries and consumer concerns.

Read the rest of this entry »

Share This: Email or bookmark the post

I attended a very interesting PRSA teleseminar today on communication strategy during class-action lawsuits by Helio Fred Garcia of the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership. Garcia is the president and founder of Logos Consulting Group, the executive director of the Logos Institute, as well as an instructor for NYU’s brand new Master’s in Corporate Communication program. He is also one of the authors of the just-released book “Reputation Management“. While he mainly focused today on class-action litigation, Garcia’s lessons can be applied to most all lawsuit situations, as well as to dealing with NGOs and activist groups. One of the most interesting things he discussed is the symbiotic relationship between lawyers, the media and government regulators. Below are some key learnings from the seminar.

Read the rest of this entry »

Share This: Email or bookmark the post

It’s been widely reported (also see here for Washington Post story) this week that the Pentagon is seeking a PR firm to improve their communications about the war in Iraq. The winner of the $20 million, two year contract will perform global media monitoring, analysis and briefings, translate a key government web site into Arabic and provide other tactical and strategic public relations activities.

In my opinion, the AP’s story headline, “Pentagon Moves Toward Monitoring Media,” is a little odd and a bit dramatic, and the last line of the piece, “Pentagon officials have defended the (PR) program as a necessary tool in the war on terror. But critics have said it contradicts American values of freedom of the press,” is strangely placed. Monitoring media is a fancy way of saying that you’re reading the newspapers, watching TV and listening to the radio. It certainly isn’t against freedom of the press for a government to read the news. In fact, the better media monitoring you have, the better you are able to understand why people are saying the things they’re saying about you, and the better you can create messages that clearly articulate what you’re trying to say so people understand your point of view. So, why is this such a big deal?

Read the rest of this entry »

Share This: Email or bookmark the post

One of the most interesting e-mails I get comes in the form of the Crisis Manager Newsletter from Jonathan Bernstein at his firm, Bernstein Crisis Management. I stumbled upon his site while researching the PR industry after changing majors in college. So, for roughly two years now, I’ve been getting my twice-monthly Crisis Manager Newsletter. It is full of interesting tips, commentary and analysis about crisis and issues management. Jonathan is incredibly insightful, informative and has a great sense of humor that he infuses into each issue. In fact, it was his newsletters that actually got me interested in crisis management in the first place!

This week, Jonathan announced that he has started a blog! This is something I - and I’m sure his thousands of his other subscribers - had been hoping would happen for quite some time. If you are interested in public relations, the Crisis Manager Newsletter and companion blog should be on your must-read list.

Share This: Email or bookmark the post

An article on MSNBC.com last week took a peak into Al-Qaeda’s communications machine as the terrorist organization continues to tweak and grow its media operations capabilities. Al-Qaeda is becoming increasingly sophisticated in its communications tactics, recently releasing highly polished video and audio messages, and developing a larger web presence as a recruiting tool. There is no doubt Al-Qaeda is PR-minded. Its media wing was established in the late 1980s, but was revamped in 1998 as the group renewed its anti-western agenda. At the same time, Al-Qaeda recruited a technically minded Adam Gadhan (27), who has since become a major player in developing terrorist propaganda material.

Al-Qaeda’s first big revamped foray into higher quality media came in 2000 as Osama bin Laden ordered the creation of a full-length film featuring actual footage of the attack on the USS Cole. Although unable to record the attack, production moved forward. From MSNBC.com:

In early 2001, al-Qaeda recruiters in Europe began to distribute an unusual new video from Pakistan titled “The Destruction of the USS Cole,” created by a mysterious entity known as the “As-Sahaab (‘Clouds’) Foundation for Islamic Media.” Not only did As-Sahaab’s first video release contain startling and unprecedented footage of bin Laden, al-Zawahri and al-Qaeda’s military training camps in Afghanistan, it was demonstrated that the propaganda arm was capable of producing remarkably high quality video and carefully scripted cinematic effects. Oddly, the nearly two-hour long video was even subtitled in near perfect English.

Read the rest of this entry »

Share This: Email or bookmark the post

Many people are in their first few weeks of their internship right now, so I thought it appropriate to pass along a few tips to help you make the most out of your summer in PR.

As always, your thoughts are appreciated, so feel free to add to this list!

Anticipate: Think ahead.  It depends on what area of PR you’re interning in, but you’ll probably be analyzing press coverage at some point.  Look critically at the issues your clients are facing and anticipate questions they’d ask if they were looking over your shoulder.  Also, think about what problems your client is trying to solve.  Anticipate media coverage, too.  Take a look at an emerging issue and try to predict how it will be perceived in the media.  This will help you create better analyses, press releases, etc.

Take the good with the bad: There will be fantastic, interesting things that you will do over the course of a summer. However, sometimes interns have to do stupid things - there’s no escaping it.  I had to sift through five newspapers every morning for an entire summer and literally cut out “clips” for my boss.  I also got to go to a private party with a client on top of the Sears Tower that same summer, so roll with the bad tasks and enjoy the good ones to the fullest.  Realize that even the most mundane tasks need to be done for a reason, and that everything you do, no matter how small, fits into the bigger picture.  So, take pride in doing even the smallest things, 100 percent - it will pay off.

Read the rest of this entry »

Share This: Email or bookmark the post

How many of us smacked our foreheads when we learned this week that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) waited two weeks before alerting the public that the personal data of 26.5 million veterans was stolen? Now, instead of educating veterans about how to protect themselves from identity theft, VA is busy trying to put out an unnecessary fire, leaving that job to the media and other third parties.

When you mess up, you still have a chance to make things right by apologizing and taking the lead in educating those affected. The only things we’ve heard from VA involve checking your credit. Besides a Web site where vets can go to learn about fraud alerts and other identity theft remedies (they’ve finally posted information on their web site), the real focus should be on a quick, timely response to the situation. This will help salvage your reputation from being completely damaged, and (most of all) it will give those affected the information they need to be confident that they are OK.

VA was honest, but waiting two weeks before telling the public, and the ensuing irresponsibility (their explanations are sounding more like excuses) will most certainly damage their reputation. When a crisis hits, come out talking immediately, show your compassion and humility, and talk candidly.

Share This: Email or bookmark the post

Last night, I watched ABC’s movie about avian flu. Other than a few unnecessarily sensationalized scenes of bodies in mass graves, and some B-grade acting, I thought it was a fairly accurate portrayal of an absolute worst-case scenario.

If this is your first real introduction to bird flu, keep in mind that this is sweeps week, and ABC has undoubtedly exaggerated many key elements (as any profitable TV network will) for a little ratings boost. I won’t go into detail here, as I do not claim to be any sort of expert in epidemiology or medicine, but PandemicFlu.gov is a fantastic resource everyone should pay attention to.

I’ve recently been working with both a global company, as well as a small municipality, on their crisis communications plans surrounding a pandemic. In both cases, risk communication has been a major part of our council. Effective risk communication before a crisis hits helps to ensure that your most important stakeholders (in these cases, citizens and employees) don’t have to completely rely on you off-the-bat when a crisis occurs. If you can calmly educate the public on how to handle themselves and their families during the critical 24 hours when emergency plans are being implemented, you will be able to better serve them in the immediate aftermath. Some of the most important things about communication in a public health emergency coincide with some of the most important things about communication during any emergency:

• Pick a few (more than one, but don’t get crazy) trustworthy spokespeople and switch them out to prevent fatigue
• Have planned, clear, consistent messaging
• Find third-parties to validate your messaging
• Be open and honest
• Confirm facts; refute rumors
• Communicate as much information as possible to the media. Often.
• Never tell people “don’t worry” - address their fears head on
• Show complete confidence and expertise
• Stay committed to your goal of calm, accurate information dissemination

This post was originally published at Josh’s blog, Corporate PR Blog.

Share This: Email or bookmark the post

The Chicago Tribune ran an interesting editorial last week by Rick Maese, a columnist for the Baltimore Sun. It got me thinking about the way the attorneys on both sides of the Duke lacrosse rape case are handling the media, as well as how the media is covering the story. This has been the best example I can think of, in recent memory, of a trial being played out in the news media - in the court of public opinion. Not the Michael Jackson case, the Laci Peterson case or the Natalie Holloway case has played out in the public in quite the way this current trial has.

It seems as though every shred of evidence is brought to the public via a slick press conference, as though we were all assigned to be judge, and the media eats it up. Hearing the defense attorneys make their case, I can’t help but think it sounds like opening arguments. Maybe I don’t watch enough court TV, or maybe this really is a different kind of case. Each side is jumping at the opportunity to get their story out first. In the beginning, the prosecution was more reluctant, but with the increasing visibility of the defense and its media-intelligent attorneys, the prosecution is more often looking like it is on the defensive. Maese said it best:

Taken singularly, every day has brought a different knee-jerk judgment. The evidence-of-the-day always is compelling and, lacking context, always damning.How many of us rushed to verdict after the initial allegation? Did your opinion change when defense attorneys began poking holes? Change again when the e-mail was released last week? (There was mention of hiring strippers again. “I plan on killing [them] as soon as the[y] walk in and proceeding to cut their skin off,” the e-mail read. Amazingly, it became even more depraved from there.)And did your opinion change again this week when authorities revealed DNA tests didn’t implicate a single one of the 46 players who were tested?Or when the prosecutor vowed that the “case is not going away.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Share This: Email or bookmark the post

Former head of FEMA Michael Brown just finished up his interview with Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report. The question is, did he gain any ground in rebuilding his reputation by going on the show? The answer is�probably not.

At the beginning of the interview, Colbert asked Brown, if he wasn’t to blame, who was? Brown responded by basically throwing his hands in the air as if to say, “anybody but me!” Brown also said he decided to stop taking the blame for FEMA’s criticized response because he wanted to “tell the truth”, and subsequently said he had been complaining for two years about things that needed to be changed, and nobody did anything. Brown did not take any responsibility tonight, which is crucial to rebuilding trust.

In addition, I believe he failed at getting across some key messages when asked about his qualifications for the top job at FEMA. In a roundabout way, he discussed his previous emergency management experience, but it should have been a major crutch of his answer as soon as Colbert brought it up. Brown also went right along with Colbert when asked about his questionable e-mails, describing what kind of martini he wanted when he said he’d rather be golfing and drinking a martini than handling the recovery efforts. Brown spent way too much time describing the drink, giving the savvy Colbert more than enough ammunition to keep the punches coming.

Brown seemed unprepared for Colbert’s questions, and seemed to stumble a few times with his answers. I am not attempting to take this show too seriously, but when you’re in the position that Michael Brown is in, and you’re trying to repair a damaged reputation, this is not the way to do it. I personally found him less likeable after the interview than I did earlier. There is a way to play along with the humor of the Colbert Report and still get your message across. Brown did not do either of those two things very well tonight.

Share This: Email or bookmark the post