The media can cut both ways. Sometimes you (or your clients) want it, to broadcast something good you have done, or your point of view. Other times, a phone call is unwelcome about something you would rather not see in print. How then to handle the media? We offer some perspectives.
Shootings of students by a student, though in the United States, send a shudder through schools and universities around the world. Even an event that does not affect your organisation – 7-7, for example – can flood your switchboard if staff or concerned friends and family ring in, asking what is going on, or if they can help. The media, then, can be welcome, or not: seeking to report on the most distressing tragedy; or providing a public service, reassuring people. A double-edged sword? "Absolutely," said Bernadette (Bernie) Duncan. "You do need a crisis communications plan, of some sort." As head of security at City University London was the woman behind an Association of University Chief Security Officers (AUCSO) project to write guidance on emergency management. That includes handling the media. Bernie summed up: "I take the coffee and doughnut approach," which literally means, giving journalists food and drink, while you say you will be with them in 30 minutes (or whenever – and do be honest), and give them as much information as you can. That need not mean, all the information you have! There, the planning for such an event comes in.
To take universities, most have press offices, staff used to dealing with the media, ‘but in a crisis, all of a sudden, your incoming [media] inquiries will increase by 1000 per cent and how many people have you got to deal with it. It’s something I think universities have to consider a little bit more, and it might be that we look at mutual aid.’ In other words, if one university has a problem, its neighbours might pitch in. Or, you might want to put on a retainer consultants who know how to work with the media. "But the bottom line is, you do need a plan of how you are going to try to co-ordinate media response." It’s a bit of a shame, Bernie went on, that the media may well report the bad side of something, rather than the good news of how well you handle the emergency. The guidance, available to download from the AUCSO website (www.aucso.org.uk) includes how to get the media to work for you; because through TV, radio and so on, you are communicating with your staff. Bernie spoke of a high and low-tech approach. Put messages on your website, send email updates, SMS messages; in the case of universities, even consider putting news on the internet social networking sites used by students. Then students can spread the word, faster maybe than you or the official media could. The danger, as Bernie pointed out, given super-speed technology, is whether the right information goes out, because rumours can spread quickly. "And we have to be honest with the media; if you don’t know the answer, you say, ‘we don’t know, we are co-operating with the emergency services’." As Bernie added, if you do not speak to the media, the journalists will find their own sources, injured or shocked people stumbling out of your building – and whatever they say, good or not, it is out of your control.
Bernie studied Virginia Tech and other shootings and stabbings on campus, the United States having far worse gun crime than the UK. While she has sympathy for US campuses dealing with those problems, she wonders if Americans look for strategies for everything, whereas their British counterparts are not as rigid. That may be because UK security people have had more practice dealing with various emergencies. Here Bernie spoke of universities in an emergency taking the police-style bronze, silver and gold command structure. Briefly, bronze is the security team, fire crews and others on the ground. Silver would be an emergency management team, looking at the tactical side of things, for instance whether to initiate the business continuity plan. And gold, if you need it, takes the strategic view; this is the vice-chancellor and the institution’s senior managers, who look to the weeks, months ahead, however long the effects of the emergency will linger.
Making yourself known to the media you are likely to encounter in a crisis – whether the weekly paper, or BBC local radio – can have other benefits. Through such work, Bernie has had dealings with the Times Higher Education Supplement, and The Guardian, "and it has been quite useful, actually, and in times of emergency, if I was put on the spot I would be much better prepared for it. I know what the media want from me and what I want from them. It’s a two-way process and I am much more confident than I would have been four or five years ago." It’s worth adding that AUCSO has taken the same tack, appointing Stuart Miller, of the University of Surrey press office, as press officer; and, if you can judge by such things, on the AUCSO website contacts page Stuart is listed fourth, after chairman George Blanchflower (Northumbria), vice-chair Mike McCormack (East Anglia) and secretary David Owen (ex-Southampton). The moral of the story appears to be, if your industry association wants more profile, so that you are approached by government – and AUCSO reports that these days it is indeed more consulted, invited onto panels and so on – you have to do some of the work, to get press coverage, to be noticed. As ever in life, you get out what you put in.
Poor old CCTV even gets the blame for being used by the media to give influence the public into thinking that crime is ‘more widespread and frequent’ than it really is. In her June report ‘Engaging Communities in Fighting Crime’ for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Louise Casey wrote: "A further dimension of media coverage is that it has (perhaps inevitably) become more visually graphic in nature facilitated by an increase in CCTV footage, mobile video technology, and an enthusiasm for reality television programmes." You can read the full report on the Cabinet Office website www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk
If your organisation is hit by a fraudster, or a rogue trader, besides the loss, you could face the reputational risk of bad publicity. A speaker at the Fraud Advisory Panel tenth anniversary conference offered advice.
Financial Mail reporter Tony Hetherington stressed that the media might find a fraud story too technical, or a case too long, to report. But the media finds some fraud cases appealing – if the proverbial ‘little old lady’ is a victim, or there is a celebrity angle (Tony Hetherington gave examples of ones he found), or an element of the absurd, or a sympathetic, ‘Robin Hood’ figure who appears to be robbing the rich. Given media interest, then, how does a bank control the story, rather than the story controlling the bank? Hetherington advised that the ‘first blast’ of publicity is something you have to bear. But if more information has to come out, you, the bank, ‘can control the context it emerges in’. It’s better, he suggested, for you the bank to make a virtue of revealing bad news, because then you can at least try to give blame; rather than the journalist uncovering the bad news, leading to headlines claiming ‘cover-up’. In short, get the bad news out of the way at once, rather than bit by bit which means the media will each time rehash all the bad news so far.
As Hetherington bluntly put it, it’s not an option to batten down the hatches, to forbid your staff to talk to the media; because, he said from experience, quite apart from ex-staff willing to speak against you to the media, disgruntled staff may speak too – or tip off the media with the most damaging questions to ask. This is assuming that you are not a crooked broker or firm, only interested in playing for time, and without a good name to defend! If your business wants to place particular information with the media, use a PR company, Hetherington advised, that knows financial journalists. Maybe it’s better to brief one journalist, so that at least you can hope for a sympathetic hearing from one outlet – and, maybe you can influence the report and limit the damage to your reputation. Such damage limitation – playing on the fact that journalists are only human – is an option, as Hetherington laid out. Other editors, seeing a financial scandal reported by a rival, may feel less like repeating what you have fed to the chosen outlet.
Can the media affect public opinion, or does it merely reflect what people already think? Such a question hovered over the question and answer session. Hetherington said: "I think the public has an ambivalent attitude towards fraud." That is, a ‘rogue trader’ such as Nick Leeson might draw sympathy from people, particularly if the fraud was against a ‘faceless’ insurance or other company.
Any views? Email us at [email protected]
