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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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In a crisis, TV is not your friend

Fredrik Wacka cautions against using a corporate blog in a crisis. Caution in a crisis is always good counsel, but one of Wacka’s primary arguments needs closer scrutiny.

In a crisis, emotion is in play more than logic. Publics have emotional responses to crises, which means companies can never come out ahead by engaging in rational debate no matter how right they are. Organizations engaging in debate appear guilty to a risk-averse public. Wacka acknowledges this, but adds, “10 times out of 10 I would choose the emotional TV medium before the informal blog medium to show sympathy/empathy.”

There is no question that television gives you the opportunity to show yourself in the guise of your spokesperson. That individual, ideally, is not a PR person but rather the company expert best suited to address the particular issues of the crisis. He or she is a real person who can exude sincere emotion, and people can see that…if the news organizations reporting the crisis let him.

In a crisis—particularly one in which your organization is at the center, such as a predator or breakdown crisis—the media are not your friend. News coverage thrives on conflict. The media’s goal is not to help the organization survive a crisis—nor should it be. But because of this inherent relationship between media and organization-in-crisis, you should expect that news organizations can easily select the sound bite that makes you look as bad as possible, even if in context of the rest of your statement you looked sincere and accountable. Counting on TV for help is like a defendant looking to the prosecutor to help make his case.

A blog, on the other hand, remains firmly in your organization’s control. Because of its informal nature, it’s easy to sound human. And given the growing popularity of video blogs, why not use one to post the entire press conference so your audience can see exactly how a TV news organization took a quote out of context?

While you should never crow about how you’re right and the news organization was wrong— that’s rational debate and you shouldn’t look triumphant during a crisis—there’s nothing wrong with posting all the video of your news conferences as a part of the record your blog maintains. That’s one of the other benefits of a crisis blog: It’s a chronological record of your organization’s response. As time passes, it becomes difficult for anyone to twist the record since it’s right there on your blog for all to see.

I’ll get around to posting my guidelines for blogs in a crisis one of these days—it’s what I presented at the New Communications Forum. In the meantime, don’t count on TV news people to do more than their jobs.

02/01/05 | 5 Comments | In a crisis, TV is not your friend

Comments

  • 1.Shel,

    Thanks for sharing this great information. It will proove useful as we develop our process for integrating Blogs and RSS into our communications plan. I look forward to seeing the rest of the information presented at the New Communications Forum.

    Jonathan Haber | January 2005 | Bethesda, MD

  • 2.Shel,
    I never said that you should count on TV news people "to do more than their jobs". You should count on yourself being able to use the airtime you get to come through to the public -- which is possible. We have all seen examples of those who's succeeded and those who hasn't.

    But ok, there will probably be some crisis some time when blogs will be useful. Especially those situations where TV doesn't broadcast anything live with you or where we are talking about difficult market developments rather than real crisis situations (product malfunctions etc). But in those cases sympathy/empathy are probably not what you have to communicate. And in that case, you and me are talking about different situations.

    Fredrik Wack | January 2005

  • 3.Fredrik:

    Sure, I know plenty of examples where companies came across well on TV. Most of them, I think, were lucky. You can go through media training to improve the odds, but nobody but the reporters and editors have control over how they cut the footage and which 30-second bite they show.

    There's a wonderful story about "60 Minutes" shooting interviews for a story about Coor's, the beer company. One of the conditions on which the company insisted was that all interviews would be taped simultaneously by the company. They did this specifically so they could show the public any bites used in the "60 Minutes" broadcast that were crisis taken out of context. Posting these videos to a crisis blog designed to maintain a record of company responses just takes this concept to the next level.

    In any crisis, of course, it's important to recognize that the public reacts emotionally, not logically, regardless of the nature of the crisis. While empathy/sympathy may not be appropriate, addressing the emotional response always is.

    Thanks for posting, Fredrik!

    Shel Holtz | January 2005 | Concord, CA

  • 4.While I disagree with Fredrik, there are two points where I can't find myself agreeing with you completely. The first is about what media is best in a crisis, the second is who is the best spokesperson in same.

    1. Each crisis will have its particular "best" media.

    If you're a huge power utility and you suffer an outage that blacks out all of the Northeastern US, TV isn't your best friend (people can't watch TV); neither is your blog. Your best friend is radio.

    If you're a multi-location company and the revered founder (and Honorary Board chairperson) of the company dies, it has a relatively outwards impact on the company but your employees are crying their loss: your intranet, and a special blog set-up for the occasion, would be more appropriate.

    2. You wrote:
    Your spokesperson(...), ideally, is not a PR person but rather the company expert best suited to address the particular issues of the crisis.

    I'd drop the first part of that sentence. It just so happens that a PR person may be the best person to answer the questions. Not always, but sometimes he/she is.

    Regards.

    MS

    Marc Snyder | February 2005

  • 5.Thanks, Marc. I actually agree with everything you say, and probably should have noted that there is no single prescription for any communication event, including (and perhaps especially) a crisis. I do think there are some generalities, but if you start with media rather than assessing the situation and setting plans to address the circumstances, you'll wind up in trouble.

    Shel Holtz | February 2005 | Concord, CA

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