III.

COMMUNICATION
IN THE TIME
OF CRISIS
“Risk is what is left over after you think you’ve thought of
everything.”

Carl Richards, Financial Advisor

“Risk is what you don’t see coming.” Morgan Housel

“The idea that what you don’t see might refute everything you
believe just doesn’t occur to us” Daniel Kahneman, Psychologist.
In October, 1929 Economist Irving Fisher famously told an
audience that “stock prices have reached what looks like a
permanently high plateau.”
“Good morning;Sixty-four degrees at eight. It’s Tuesday,
September eleventh….It’sgoing to be a beautiful day today,
sunshine throughout . Really a splendid September day. The
afternoon temperature is about eighty degree…”
 Learning Outcome
I. Crisis, Disaster &
Catastrophe
II. Crisis: De nition, Types,
Nature of Crisis
& Approach
III. Crisis Communication
IV. Fallout of Crises
V. The Five Stages of
Crisis
VI. Communication to
Prevent Crisis
fi
I. VII. The Seven Page
Principles:
a)Apology Vs. Excuse
b)The Five Ws of Public
Apology
VIII.Communication when
the Crisis Strikes.
IX. Steps for Managing a
Crisis
X. Crisis Responsibility
 XI. The “Four Rs”
of crisis communication
XII. A Holding Statement
XIII. Communicating With
the News Media
 I. Crisis, Disaster & Catastrophe

A) A Crisis:
A time of intense dif culty or danger,
a compelling situation that demands immediate response.

Two basic types of crises:

i) Organisational crises usually involve
the motives of money, power or sex.
fi
ii)Community crises usually involve severe danger
that has recently become apparent.

Both crises require an urgent response.

B)A disaster is an incident or a natural event
that causes great damage or loss of life,
affecting an entire community.

Eg Monsoon oods in Mumbai, Chennai.

C) A catastrophe is a disaster
that overwhelms a community’s ability to respond.

Eg. The Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2005.

The Black Death
fl
Public relations practitioners must seek
to prevent a crisis
from turning into a disaster or catastrophe.

What’s a crisis?
A Crisis:
“Any situation that is threatening or could threaten
to harm people or property,
seriously interrupt business,
signi cantly damage reputation
and/or
negatively impact the bottom line.”
fi
A crisis is a major, unexpected event
that interrupts normal business transaction
and directly or potentially
threatens the health, safety and welfare
of consumers, employees, property, community
and the reputation
and nancial situation of an entity.
fi
A crisis impacts negatively
1. People
2. Property
3. Reputation
4. Finance
1. Minor crisis:
-Results in minimal, if any, disruptions of operations
- Quickly brought under control
-Causes a minor injury or none at all
-Media inquiry likely to be minimal
2. Major crisis:
-signi cant injury or loss of life
-prolonged disruption of normal operation,
-substantial property damage
-huge nancial loss
-signi cant environmental impact
-or holds potential for any of these
fi
fi
fi
Nature of crises:
1. Smouldering :
Eg -Discontentment among workers
-A faulty process/ equipment:
goes undetected/ignored
2. Sudden:
Eg -Natural disasters
-Technology malfunction/mischief:
hacking, data theft, etc
Types of crises:
1. Bankruptcy
2. Organisational misdeed
3. Workplace violence
4. Rumours (Run on banks)
5. IT (Data loss/theft)
6. Natural Disasters( Earthquake, ood, volcanic eruption)
7. Contamination, pollution (Exxon Valdez)
8. Terrorism
fl
9. Sexual harassment (UNO, IMF)
10. Racial issues
11. Toxic waste
12. Major Accidents(Oil spill/leak, Bhopal, etc)
13. Energy (power outage)
14.Health(Covid 19, SAARS, Black death, etc)
15. Economic Collapse(Sri Lanka, Venezuela)
16. Climate Change
Volkswagen Emission Scandal
An organisation has no choice in accepting a crisis.
A crisis is forced on it, and it must cope with it.
-Organisation’s can ignore a crisis and hope it will go way.
Occasionally, it does.
More often, it does not.
Crisis ignored can turn into a catastrophe.
Crisis:
If handled promptly,
sagaciously
and strategically,
it can open up new opportunities
In Chinese,
the two letters for the word crisis represent
“danger”
and
“opportunity”
A crisis calls for a four-pronged approach:
a) Anticipate it
b)Be prepared for it
c) Plan for it meticulously
d)Intervene promptly
“By the time you hear the thunder,
it is too late to build the ark”
“Prepare
before nasty weather comes your way”

“There is always something around the bend

that you can’t predict
but you can prepare.”
How much effort you have invested
in crisis preparedness and practice
will determine the extent of damage
to your organisation’s
brand, reputation and the bottom line.
Be prepared for ugly things to happen in life

“No battle was ever won according to plan,

but no battle was ever won without one …
Plans are useless but planning is indispensable.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
You can choose to feed a crisis
or you could learn from other’s mistakes.
Eg. Tamper proof packaging of Tylenol
by Johnson & Johnson

It’s a conscious choice

that will have a direct impact,
for better or worse,
on the future of your organisation
 III. Crisis Communication

CRISIS MANAGEMENT PLAN:

-A process of strategic planning for a crisis
-This process removes some of the risk and
uncertainty from the negative event
-Thereby allows the organisation to be in
greater control of its own destiny

Effective crisis management includes crisis communication

CRISIS COMMUNICATION:
The effort taken by a company
to communicate with the public and stakeholders
in a situation when an unexpected event occurs
that could have a negative impact on its reputation.
A dialogue between the organisation and the public(s)
prior to, during and after
the negative occurrence.

It details strategies and tactics

designed to minimise damage
to the image of the organisation
It can be further divided into pre-crisis,
during-the-crisis
and post-crisis communication
depending upon its stage

It is part of a crisis management plan

Crisis communication is
a subspecialty of the public relations profession
which is designed to protect and defend
an individual or organisation
facing a public challenge to its reputation.
Public relations deals with publics.

Publics are the speci c audiences/key constituencies

targeted by the programme:

Internal publics: employees, management, shareholders, so on.

External publics: customers, community members, media,

government of cials, so on.
fi
fi
Proactive public relations programmes
can help prevent crisis
and elicit support during a crisis.
Public relations programmes involve
1. Employee/internal relations
2. Consumer relations
3. Media relations
4. Community relations
5. Government relations
Companies with robust public relations
avoid crises,
endure crises of shorter duration
or of lesser magnitude
 IV. Fallout of Crises

If the crisis is not contained or handled ineptly,

the crisis can
-lead to loss of life, property, reputation and growth.
-engender negative emotions
among stakeholders and the clientele.
A crisis event can

-affect purchase intention and stock prices

-damage reputation through negative word of mouth
- result in low employee morale
-incur severe damage to the brand image
and reputation of the organisation
- being perceived as inept, at best,
and criminally negligent, at worst
Crisis communication can be used
to mitigate the negative effects of crisis
on a range of outcome variables:
-Reputation is a valued intangible asset:
Damage has direct nancial costs
through declines
in purchase intentions and stock prices.
fi
-The stakeholders are angry
that organisations allowed a crisis to occur
and to harm others.
-And makes them anxious
because of the fear that the crisis may harm them
or worry about the recurrence of the crisis.
-Anger and anxiety can alter
how stakeholders interact with an organisation.
 V. THE FIVE STAGES OF CRISIS

1. DETECTION:
i)Note the “prodromes” (warning signs):

-Some crisis may have no noticeable prodromes,

but many do.
-When an organisation
in the same business as yours suffers a crisis,
it’s a warning sign to you:
- Learn from other’s misfortune: By noticing what others have suffered,
we can avoid at least similar crisis.
Eg.
a) Tylenol tampering case of Johnson & Johnson.
-Other companies heeded the warning
and started using tamper-proof containers.
b) The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a prodrome to other
companies as well as Exxon itself.

Oil companies now know better

how to prevent spills,
how to clean up spills,
and how to react to the public after spills.
There are other less obvious prodromes:
Eg Employee discontent over any issue
is a sign of a brewing crisis.
-Signs:
Is there an increase in complaints about work hours,
work conditions, or unreasonable supervisor(a jerk)?

- Any one of these and many more issues

can be an early sign of a work stoppage.
The same can be early signs of workplace violence.
Watch for prodromes
and make attempts to stop a crisis at this stage,
before it develops into a full-blown crisis
or at least you have time to prepare
to address the media or other publics.

To detect the signs early enough:

form employee committees
who will act as watchdogs/ whistle-blowers
and who will report warning signs to organisation of cials.

fi
ii. Vulnerability Audit:

Look objectively at all the things

within the entire organisation
that might make it more vulnerable
to a crisis in general
or to a speci c crisis

Look for red ags in every functional area

because a crisis can occur anywhere.
fl
fi
2. Crisis Prevention:
Ongoing public relations programmes
build relationships with key publics
and thereby
prevent crises,
lessen the impact
or
limit the duration of crises.
Crisis prevention tactics:
“If anything can go wrong, it will.” Murphy’s Law
a)Initiating safety training and providing rewards
for employees with stellar safety records.
b)Allowing the free ow of information
from employees to management
with no punishment of employees who deliver bad news.
fl
c)Storing / handling hazardous materials safely or
Reducing the use of hazardous material and processes.
d) Following up on past crises or problems

e)Training all the members of the management to be media savvy.

f)Attending community meetings

f)Developing a “community board”
with key outside members
who are public opinion leaders.
g)Sponsoring community activities,
offering scholarships to employees and their children
as well as other children in the community.
A company must not only do what is right.
It also must tell its publics
that it is taking appropriate action.
Or else the publics will never know.
3. Crisis preparation:

This is necessary for dealing with crises that cannot be prevented.

-The crisis communication plan

is the primary tool of preparedness.

-The plan tells each key person on the crisis team

-what his or her role is,
-whom to notify,
-how to reach people ,
-what to say ,
and so on.
Eg Pepsi had no way of anticipating
the scare (10 June 1993) in which
hypodermic syringes and other foreign items
were found in cans of Diet Pepsi.
4. Containment:
It refers to the effort
to limit the duration of the crisis
or to keep it from spreading
to other areas affecting the organisation.

Eg Pepsi used an ad to end its crisis.

After several hoaxes had been exposed,
the company decided the crisis was over
and told the world so:
Pepsi’s released a print ad.
The headline read:
“Pepsi is pleased to announce…nothing.”
5. Recovery:
A)Restore and Reinforce trust through communication:

This involves efforts

to return the company to business as usual.
-Restoring normalcy as soon as possible
-Restoring the con dence of key publics by
communicating a return to normal business.
Eg i)Snapps, a fast-food restaurant in Fort Pierce,
suffered from a rumour
that one of its managers had AIDS
and had infected hamburgers.
fi
To implement recovery,
health department of cials participated in a news conference
telling the public that all managers had been tested,
that none had the AIDS virus,
and that the virus could not be transmitted through hamburgers.
fi
Eg ii)Exxon attempted to recover from the Valdez oil spill
by making efforts to persuade tourists
that Alaska was still a beautiful place to visit.

It’s particularly interesting

that Exxon looked beyond its own recovery
to the way its crisis had affected the tourism industry.
B) Learning:
-A process of examining the crisis
and determining what was lost, gained
and how one performed during the crisis.
-An evaluative procedure designed
to make the crisis a prodrome for the future.
-The learning phase brings about change
that prevents future crisis.
Eg i)Johnson & Johnson,
after its second tampering crisis,
learned its lesson by selling over-the -counter medications
in tamper-proof containers.
-Other companies followed suit.
Eg ii)U.S. airlines were plagued with hijackings
during the 1960s and 1970s.
The airlines set up metal detectors at airports
for persons boarding planes.
-The procedure was extended to cover employees
after an irate employee boarded a plane with gun,
shot a supervisor, and caused a fatal crash.
C) Public opinion:
-In the court of law,
a person is innocent, until proven guilty
In the court of public opinion,
a person/an organisation is guilty, until proven innocent.
-In a crisis, the public perceives truth to be
whatever public opinion says.
-The essential role of crisis communication
is to affect the public opinion process,
to be instrumental in
establishing and communicating proof to its publics,
and often to the general public,
that the prevailing negative opinion
is not factual or wholly factual.
-Then explanations of
how much is true must follow.
-If the organisation is actually at fault,
owing up to is usually the best policy.

The public is forgiving

if measures are taken to prevent recurrence.
The news media(print and TV,)
particularly the social media,
are the prime tools for changing public opinion.

Public relations experts need to know

how to reach the media,
when and how to call a news conference,
when and how to conduct one-on-one interviews,
and when and how to disseminate written material.
Crisis communication is not merely
the distribution of news releases,
nor is it only media relations.

It involves
community relations, consumer relations,
employee relations, investors relations,
government relations,
and many other kinds of public relations.
 VI. Communication to Prevent Crisis

News Media:
-Communicate regularly with the news media
and endear your organisation to its publics

-As public opinion is so critical,

use the news media channel
to inform all the key constituencies.
Never say “No comment” to the news media:
if the public does not hear
your side of the story,
it will conclude “you are guilty”
“Do not wage a war with an enemy
who buys ink by the barrel,
paper by the ton,
and controls the airways”
Likewise, regularly communicate with
a) employees
b) consumers/ customers
c)board of directors
d) advisory board
 VII. THE SEVEN PAGE PRINCIPLES

SEVEN KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF A MANAGEMENT PLAN

TO RESPOND TO A CRISIS
1. Tell the truth:
Let the public know what’s happening
and provide an accurate picture of the company’s
character, ideals and practices.
2. Prove it with action:
Public perception of an organisation
is determined 90% by what it does
and 10% by what it says.
3. Listen to the customer:
-To serve the company well,
understand what the public wants and needs.

-Keep the top decision makers and other employees

informed about public reaction
to company products, policies and practices.
4. Manage for tomorrow:
-Anticipate public reaction
and eliminate practices that create dif culties.

-Generate goodwill

fi
5. Conduct public relations
as if the whole company depends on it:
-Corporate relations is a management function.
No corporate strategy should be implemented
without considering its impact on the public.

-The public relations professional is a policy- maker

capable of handling a wide range
of corporate communications activities.
6.Realise that a company’s true character
is expressed by its people:

-The strongest opinions (good or bad)

about a company are shaped
by the words and deeds of its employees.
-As a result,
every employee (active or retired)
is involved with public relations.
-It is the responsibility
of every corporate communications department
to support each employee’s capability and desire
to be an honest, knowledgeable ambassador
to customers, friends,
share-owners and public of cials.

fi
7.Remain calm, patient and good-humoured:
-When a crisis arises,
cool heads communicate best.

-Lay the groundwork for public relations miracles

with consistent and reasoned attention
to information and contacts.
A) Apology vs Excuse:
-An excuse passes blame to others. An apology does not.
Eg Do not say “we did not realise….”
When you should have realised.
-An apology is a sincere admission
that you are sorry for whatever happened.
Eg. When people are sick or dying,
you would owe the public an apology,
not an excuse (that others were responsible for the incident.)
An apology:
“ We are sorry. We will do everything we can
to make amends. We take responsibility
for medical treatments.”
 B) The Five Ws
of Public Apology
for Businesses

Of all the crisis communications theories,

apology is the one most applied to life in the 21st century.

As businesses become more global,

public apologies seem to be part of the routine.

They are so overused,

the public does not believe there’s true regret.
They are often not trusted.
So be sure an apology is needed and sincere.
1) Why Apologise?

Apologies are intended

to help restore or repair relationships,
retain loyal customer, fans, constituents.

-Determine whether a public apology is needed.

-Be honest with yourself and know

that convincing the public of true regret
is dif cult and not easily faked.
fi
2) What constitutes an apology?
-It includes a confession,
a plea for forgiveness,
a promise to make corrections
and an explanation.
-It takes into consideration fault, humility,
dignity and validation.
-There’s no one magic formula for an apology.
-Sincerity is the key.
3)Who should apologise?
- In dire times,
particularly when deaths have occurred,
no PR person could apologise effectively.

-The spokesperson must be the person at the top.

Eg i) When 22 Canadians died from listeria
resulting from eating processed meat
from the company Maple Leaf Foods,Inc.
based in Toronto
CEO Michael McCain was on TV and YouTube admitting publicly
that his company was at fault
that the buck stopped with Maple Leaf
and that he was Maple Leaf Foods, Inc.

It was no time for the PR representative to speak

although PR delivered the apologetic messages
to print media.
There was no ducking and dodging.
The blame was totally on his company.

McCain expressed concern for families

who lost loved ones and to those who were ill.

The gist of the message was:

“It’s our fault. We’ll x it so it won’t happen again.”
fi
Eg ii)An apology from the CEO
is what Exxon needed in its 1989 oil spill in Alaska.

Had the CEO come forward

to meet the new media gathered at Valdez,
picked up a dead bird covered in oil, and cried,
history would have been different.
 But the CEO Laurence Rail was nowhere to be found.

Even four days after the spill

he declined to go to the site.
He said that he felt “technologically obsolete.”

Eg iii) Late President of India Dr Abdul Kalam

4)Where do you apologise?
Choose the right medium:

-If one person is offended,

make peace with one person and only one person.
-If only group of people, apologise to them.
-If the conversation is limited to one social medium ,
don’t broadcast it on others.
 Eg
When two employees of Domino’s Pizza
performed disgusting acts on YouTube
lmed in a Conover, North Carolina, restaurant,
the company president created a YouTube response
in which he apologised to customers
assuring them that the acts were not condoned
by the company and the the employees had been red.
fi
fi
 Domino’s Pizza Crisis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaNuE3DsJHM
President of Domino’s Pizza Apologises
YouTube was particularly effective
because it is visual
and viewers could see his body language,
the disgust in his face,
when he said, “It sickens me.”
-You knew it did.
-The sincerity came through.
5) When to make an apology?
-Individuals and companies should apologise immediately
even if one does’t have the entire picture.
-Sandy Fathi of Affect, says
“Apologising immediately shows
that you acknowledge
that something wrong has occurred.
It does not equate to admitting any wrongdoing.”
Eg
This is the strategy Johnson & Johnson
adopted in Tylenol contamination case.
-James Burke, the CEO then was certain
that the capsules were not poisoned on their premises.
-Nevertheless, he apologised to all affected
and asked consumers not to take the capsules
in their possession.
-By coming forward immediately, he saved lives.
VIII.COMMUNICATION WHEN THE CRISIS STRIKES

Crisis Communication in Crisis Management

A) Anticipate Crisis:
-Form a Crisis Communication Team(CCT)
and conduct intensive brainstorming sessions.

-Create a formal Crisis Response Plan (CRP)

speci c to the organisation.
fi
B) Identify key CCT Members:
-Formalise leaders
and assign speci c roles to individual members.

-Predict any possible con ict of interest

among the members.
fi
fl
C) Identify and train spokespersons:
-Identify lead and back-up spokespersons
for different communication channels.
-Train them to act in such way
that the response of all stakeholders is optimised.
D) Form noti cation and monitoring systems:
-Establish multiple communication channels
to be used to reach stakeholders fast enough
and validate their ef ciency.

-Establish teams of trained personnel

to gather the feedback from stakeholders
and pass it on to CCT.
fi
fi
What is the focus in a crisis?
One needs to manage three aspects:
1. Manage information i.e. related to the crisis
2. Manage the perception:
Control the perception of others:
How will it be perceived by the publics?
3. Disseminate the right information to the publics:
Three types of information:
a) Alerting information:
Eg i.Move to higher places, if ood.
ii.Return home or don’t go shing, if a tsunami.
b) Amending information:
-If there is negative perception,
share the correct information.

fi
fl
c) Reputation repair:
-There is a problem, but not of our making.
-There is no evidence of any wrongdoing from our end.
But we will take care of people.
-Distance your organisation from the crisis.
“Just because you communicate during a crisis
does not mean you necessarily make the situation better”
Edward Burkhart
 IX. STEPS FOR MANAGING A CRISIS

Three questions:
1. Who or what was responsible for the crisis?
2. Assess the damage from every angle
3. Decide on strategy, on forward action
 1. Gather the right facts quickly:

-Get genuine and accurate information

from reliable sources.

-Analyse the situation.

-Understand what happened

and what went wrong.
2. Prepare a “holding statement”
A holding statement is a brief account
of what the company knows
and what actions it is taking
in the face of the crisis at hand.
The Holding Statement is the initial statement
designed to help control the message
to the public
immediately following an incident.

This states the basic facts of an incident

and lets people know
you are actively dealing with the crisis situation.
A holding statement consists of
a few brief sentences you give to the media
when they rst call
immediately after the crisis has occurred.
fi
A holding statement should come
as quickly as possible
after the incident has occurred
in order to control the narrative about the situation.
3. Get to the crisis team:
-Brainstorm the cause and the effects of the problem
-involve the related parties
-establish the team to address the situation
4. Set up a “war room”:
-Set up the committee
responsible for the communications
and take control of the situation
5. Set up a legal think tank:
To assess the fallout, impact
and to plan forward action

6. A Task Force:
To plan out rescue operations, negotiation.
7. Bring out the “Crisis Management Plan”:
-Brainstorm and bring out a plan
to meet the crisis and how to deal with it
and to address the situation
-Identify goals and objectives and timelines to meet
8. Log the outcomes:
Log and record everything that happened
and said about the organisation,
understand and learn from the mistakes.
 X. Crisis Responsibility

The amount of responsibility for a crisis

that stakeholders attribute
to the organisation
determines the crisis type(Coombs, 1995):
A) Victim Crisis:
Positions the organisation as a victim of the crisis
and thus produces minimal attribution
of crisis responsibility.
B)Preventable crisis:
Attributes responsibility to the organisation
Eg. management misconduct
that knowingly places stakeholders
at risk
and/or violates laws or regulations:
Intensifying Factors:
i) Similar past crises
or prior negative reputation
ii) Lack of competence Vs integrity:
-Trust violations related to competence
may be forgiven
but not trust violations related to integrity.

-Similarly accidental acts(competence)

may be overlooked
but not intentional acts (integrity)
 XI. The “Four Rs”
of
crisis communication

1. Regret:
The rst thing you should do
is express concern
that a problem has developed
even if it was not industry’s fault.
fi
2.Responsibility:
Whether the cause of the problem
was the organisation’s fault or not,
be prepared to take action to solve the problem.

However, don’t plead culpable.

It will provide a credible demonstration
of your commitment to doing the right thing.
3. Reform:
Your various stakeholders must know
you are taking steps to ensure
that problem will not happen again.
4. Restitution:
If appropriate,
detail how the industry will help
those who have been affected by the problem.
 XII. A Holding statement

An effective holding statement will

a)buy an organisation crucial time until it can
better understand what has happened
and issue a more detailed statement
b) also help prevent the spread of rumours
and speculation.

Here are six crucial parts of an effective holding statement:

1.Empathy: Put people rst
-It’s imperative
that organisations show concern and empathy
for those who have been affected in a crisis incident,
whether that is people who have been physically injured
or customers unable to access their accounts
because of a computer glitch.
-Putting those people rst
and showing you understand the severity
of what has happened
will demonstrate compassion, concern and humanity.
fi
fi
2. Action:
-You need to show customers
that you are taking steps to rectify the situation
and
to ensure that something similar does not happen again.

-Even in the initial stages,

it is important
to outline what your organisation is doing
to deal with the crisis.
Eg.
This could be as simple as stating
that you have launched an investigation
to determine what has happened,
or
that you are reviewing procedures
and
working with the relevant authorities.
3. Reassurance:
-Try to put the incident into context
and show that it is isolated (if it is).
-If the crisis has been triggered by an accident,
highlight
-the safety protocols you have in place
and
-your previous stellar track record.
4. Examples:
Use examples
to support the message you want to get across
Cite examples:
-examples of the steps that have been taken
in response to the incident
-examples of the company’s previous
sterling safety record
- examples of how the company is
taking good care of victims.
5. Details:
In an ideal world,
you would be able to provide all the basic information:
- A journalist would want to know:
What happened?
Where did it happen?
When did it happen?
Who was involved?
How did it happen?
Why did it happen?
In reality,
-You are unlikely to have all of this information,
particularly in the very early stage of the incident.

-The good news is that

journalists will not expect you
to be able to go into any great detail
at the start of an incident.
While it will be bene cial
to include as much information as you can,
an effective holding statement
can just acknowledge
that something has gone wrong.
fi
This tweet is a great example of quickly acknowledging
that there has been a signi cant issue
while details are still being gathered:
“There has been a serious incident on our campus.
We will share an update shortly.”
fi
6. Update
Holding statements can only hold for so long
and if you do not give an update soon afterwards
you can expect to be inundated
with calls,
emails
and social media posts
from frustrated journalists.
Being explicit in your holding statement about
when
and
where journalists can expect further information
will reduce the number of incoming inquiries
you will receive.
Here is an example of a holding statement that brings all these
elements together:
“We are deeply saddened to con rm
that two of our colleagues were injured in a re
at our of ce in Delhi earlier this morning.
They are both currently receiving medical treatment.
We are in contact with their families
and are doing everything we can
to support them at this dif cult time.”
fi
fi
fi
fi
“As this has just happened,
the cause of the incident is not yet known.
However, an investigation has been launched
and we are cooperating with the relevant authorities.”
“This is the rst time
anything like this has happened in our 30-year history,
and we have always prided ourselves
on our excellent safety record.
We will be reviewing our procedures
and will put in place any recommendations
from the authorities to ensure this does not happen again.
We aim to provide a further update about this incident
on our website and social media channels at 2 p.m.”
fi
 TASK: Critique the following holding statement:

“There has been a lot of speculation about our brand due to

newspaper article published yesterday regarding the ingredients of
our agship product Pancide.

It is regrettable to hear this, as customers are our rst priority, and

trust and reliability are the core values our organisation thrives on.

We will be carrying out a thorough investigation about the matter

followed by release of the results from our side. We assure you
complete transparency and trust.”
fl
fi
 Wordy opening: Get to the point

No focus on gaining sympathy for the rm

Customer rst, trust and reliability: empty slogan? Posturing?

Investigation: unless initiated by a third party, lacks credibility;

doesn’t cut ice

Vague speculation: doesn’t convey anything

Omission of 4 Rs
fi
fi
XIII. COMMUNICATING WITH THE NEWS MEDIA

NEWS CONFERENCES/PRESS MEET

Eight Dos for Media interview:

1. Have a prepared statement read and distributed to the media.

This helps you in setting the tone for the rest of the session

2. Have major talking points(key messages/speaking points):

One or two summaries used to remind you of messages
you want to be sure to get across to the public.

3. Rehearse your statements and talking points

to be comfortable in front of TV cameras

4. Before a crisis, simulate an actual press conference.

Have employees ask the most dif cult, rude,
pointed questions of the spokesperson.
fi
5. Do listen to the whole question before answering

6. Do use everyday language, not jargon of your business.

7. Be calm, courteous, responsive, direct, positive, truthful,

concerned, and if necessary, repentant and apologetic

8. Do look the reporter in the eye.

In your response, address each reporter by name if possible.
Trick Questions Reporters ask:

1. Speculative questions: They begin with “If”.

2. Leading questions:
The reporter has already the answer; you are merely to verify it.
Eg. “You do agree that the company could have avoided
the tragedy, right?”
 3. Loaded questions:
Designed to elicit an emotional response.
Eg. “ Isn’t it true that you knew that there was a defect in the
machine and failed to do anything about it?”
-You rephrase it and answer your own question:
“Do you mean, ‘Were we aware there was a defect?’
No, we were not.”
4. False questions:
Intentionally contain inaccurate details.
Eg.
Journalist: “You red half of your over-50 staff, right?”
You: “No, only 40 percent.”

-Not realising
that the reporter was aiming
for that information all along.
fi
5. Accusatory questions:
-Designed to blame others.
Never fall for this.
-Maintain your innocence if that is true.
But do not cast blame on others.
6. Multiple part questions:
-Can be confusing to you as well as to the publics.
-Ask which part you should answer rst.
Then answer each part as a separate question.

-Also you can say,

“I will take the rst part.”
-Then restate it yourself the way you want to answer it.
-Do the same for each subsequent part.
fi
fi
7. Chummy Questions:
The reporter, pretending to be your buddy,
may ask,
“Say, Pal, off the record, what do you think …?”

-Remember that nothing is off the record

and should be careful about supposed friendships.
British PM Boris Johnson Facing a Press Conference over Partygate
Tasks:
1. Prepare a holding statement incorporating
the six elements

2. Conduct a press conference

(8 pax: press corps;
8 pax represent the GOI: answer the press;
8 pax: critique the performance)