The Crisis Management Memo

Crisis Management and the Web

For the past several months, one of the forums on this site has been discussing the demise of newspapers throughout the U.S. and how the web has become a more and more important way for Americans to get news.

The next question, for those of us in crisis management, is how does the shrinking role of newspapers and the growing role of bloggers, forums and online news sites change the way we do business?

For one thing, no one in crisis management can afford to ignore what happens on the internet. A misstatement at a public meeting can be captured on a videophone and end up on YouTube within seconds. So much for the daily news cycle. You can even forget about the continuing news coverage of cable television. Now it’s 24/7 on the web, worldwide.

What we’re finding in our practice is that the declining number of reporters on newspapers and possibly local television stations has been more than made up for by a flood of new “journalists” on the World Wide Web.

There was a time when you might have only worried about the three major networks, CNN and Fox, local television, your local daily and possibly a handful of other publications that might have an interest in what you were doing; particularly when what you were doing had the scent of a crisis.

Not to worry, but today you can be contacted any time of the day or night by a “reporter” or “columnist” for an online web site you’ve never even heard of. And, the fact that you’ve never heard of them doesn’t mean they don’t have just as much – if not more – power than your local newspaper might ever have had.

That happened to one of our clients the other day. The PR guy got a call from a freelance “reporter” with quite a following on the blogosphere. She was demanding, pretty much pre-determined what she wanted to do and she wanted it “now.” She had already called some of the company’s executives the night before and got through. Now, she just wanted to wrap up her story.

The risk with reporters like this one is not that different than some of the local newspaper reporters in the past. A “local” story can be picked up by the Associated Press and become national or even international within hours.

With the web, it works much the same although a story that begins on the web may end up on Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh within a few hours. All of a sudden you find yourself faced with trying to defend your company’s actions with a talk show host who has already made up his mind that you’re wrong. And, possibly his or her guest contributor on the show, is – you guessed it – the blogger who wrote the piece to begin with.

So how does this change the way we do business in crisis management?

For starters, you have to take every call from a “reporter” seriously. It doesn’t make any difference whether they’re writing for the New York Times or a web site. It also means you have to start watching the web a little more carefully because they may just write about your company without ever talking to you.

But, when you respond, if you choose to do so, you still need to react with a carefully constructed message that gets your point of view across. And, you need to respond quickly.

Trained spokespersons and crisis teams that can develop the right strategy and the right message are more essential today, perhaps, than they’ve ever been.

Just because the news may be moving more and more toward the web doesn’t mean that it’s gotten any easier to get your message across. It just means you’re dealing with a new medium. A sound bite is still a sound bite. A corporate message is still a corporate message. And a carefully orchestrated crisis strategy is still vital for your survival.

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