Jul 02
"Fatal" Distractions in Media Training
With almost every media training workshop we’ve conducted over the past two decades, we’ve asked students to fill out a questionnaire that provides us with a “report card” of sorts on how we did as well as help make sure we’re on track for future workshops.
It has always been our attempt to make the workshop as good an experience for them as we can. And, we know that there are many factors that go into the “good experience” equation than just the training program and the skills of the presenter. The workshop facility itself often plays a major role in how students evaluate their personal experience with media training.
That’s why we’ve always asked students to evaluate the facility where the training is conducted, as well as the workshop’s content and the way it was presented. A cold room, a cramped room, a noisy room or bad food can directly impact the way students look at the overall training experience.
We also ask whether they prefer to have future training conducted on site at their location – say in a training room or conference room - or off-site such as a local conference center or hotel.
Although many clients prefer the convenience and economics of conducting the training at their own facility, it often comes with a hefty price in the way of distractions. When your office, boss, colleague, and computer are just down the hallway or a floor away on the elevator, it’s difficult to give training your full attention. Just having your cell phone or Blackberry at a workshop can be a distraction.
Over the years, I can’t remember the number of students who have been called out of training sessions by their bosses: often the same people who asked that the training be scheduled in the first place. But it’s not always the boss who is the distraction. When the “boss” is in the training, there is never a shortage of people who seem to need his or her attention “right now.”
One of my favorite “complaints” came a few weeks ago from an executive who came in late for the group session, left frequently and then questioned why we didn’t cover some of the material he thought we should. The fact was that we did cover the material. He just wasn’t there to witness it. During the six-hour session, I doubt he was in the room for more than 90 minutes.
More recently, we had a one-on-one session for an executive who asked not to be disturbed during the training. That lasted about an hour and a half, before colleagues dragged him away for other pressing priorities.
I guess the bottom line is this: Media training requires not only a financial commitment, but a personal time commitment, as well. It works best when students can devote their full and undivided attention to the subject at hand. That is difficult to do when their attention is being diverted by other people and priorities.
When clients ask us for a recommendation on whether the training should be conducted on-site or off-site, I try to let them know the challenges of conducting the training at your own facility. It can be done, but there can be potential distractions that can negatively impact the training.
In case you’re wondering how students answer the “on-site, off-site” question, it’s probably about 50-50. It depends on their experience. When distractions become a factor, however, most opt for off-site workshops in the future.
Jun 02
Crisis Management on the cheap?
In today’s economic climate, it’s easy for companies to balk at anything that looks even remotely expensive, whether it’s business travel, office expenses or the cost of hiring an outside consultant to provide counsel on crisis management.
As the current recession progresses, we’ve been finding more and more resistance from companies who are balking at the price of crisis management. As a business owner, I understand the need to keep expenses down when times are tough. And in the 22 years I’ve been in business as a crisis management consultant, this is the toughest I’ve ever seen.
But what is the real price of crisis management? If the crisis is real and the need is great, it’s hard to place a value on a good crisis management strategy.
And what is the cost of not having a crisis management strategy? With more and more companies in bankruptcy these days, I believe we already know.
Throughout the two plus decades we’ve been in business, it seems most clients typically wait until they are in the middle of a crisis before they seek help. Some come at the very onset, but that’s not the norm. Most of our business comes from current clients or referrals from them, or as a result of our web site, speeches, articles or word-of-mouth.
Although some of our clients ask upfront what our fees will be and what we anticipate overall expenses to be, some never ask at all. If your company’s existence is at risk, they seem to think the cost of doing nothing would far exceed anything we could charge them.
Still, we see some organizations treat the purchase of crisis management consulting as they would purchasing a used car or hiring a plumber. They want to know in advance details of what we’ll do for them, what it will cost along with references and what kind of warranty we offer. I know I can’t speak for others, but isn’t that something you ought to think about before the crisis? When your house is burning down, do you want to start interviewing various fire departments and then go with the lowest bid?
I guess my advice to company leaders is this: give some thought to crisis management before you’re engaged in a real crisis. Check out who you’d like to work with if things suddenly turn sour and establish some kind of relationship with them now. Don’t wait until the crisis strikes. Believe me; while you’re interviewing potential consultants, you’re going to lose control of the crisis.
Fees are important. There’s no doubt about that. But, fees aren’t everything. You need to find someone you can work with who can be your partner in managing a crisis.
From my experience in handling a multitude of crisis situations over the past two decades, I can tell you that the cost of a good consultant is minimal compared to the cost of letting the crisis get out of hand.
In fact, it is my belief that crisis management – whether it’s on-the-scene consulting during a major crisis or preparing for the possibility of a crisis in advance – should cost you nothing. It should more than pay for itself in benefits you can take advantage of in better managing your organization.
Crisis management is just part of good overall management. And good management comes at a price. You can’t do it on the cheap.
May 19
Ready for your own mock disaster?
As a crisis management firm, we get many inquiries each year from individuals and organizations interested in staging mock disasters. A lot of those people don’t have a full appreciation for how difficult it is to stage a mock disaster drill, or the potential costs involved.
Many are from schools, hospitals, fire departments and other government or not-for-profit organizations who feel if we provide them with some basic information, they can stage their own mock disaster and save the costs of outside consultants. While it is possible to “build your own mock disaster,” it can be a real challenge. And, it can get expensive. That's why most of the mock disasters we conduct each year are for corporations or large hospitals.
The problem most organizations face in staging their own mock disaster is they don’t start at the right place. They often spend a lot of time creating the scenario and then somehow hope it will help them gauge their ability to cope with something similar in real life. Too often, they end up disappointed.
From our point of view, if you’re a fire department and your disaster drill involves a fire, it’s a fair bet that you already know how to put it out. If you’re a hospital, you probably already know how to handle a heavy influx of patients.
When we develop mock disasters, we start off with the questions: What is it you want to accomplish as a result of this drill? What is it you want to test? What systems or individuals do you want to test?
We then build the mock disaster around those needs and incorporate a method of testing to see how they do. Did they pass, fail, or break even? Why did they fail? What can they do to make sure they do better the next time? We want to make it tough, but so tough that everyone participating throws their arms up in despair. It needs to be challenging, not impossible. And, it needs to be realistic.
The scenario is simply a “vehicle” to test the organization’s crisis management capabilities. In our mock disasters, it is always a vehicle to test their crisis communications capabilities, as well.
All of the communications aspects of our mock disasters are videotaped, often by multiple cameras strategically located to record what individuals did right, and what they did wrong. This includes not only media interviews and news conferences, but actions inside the crisis control center and sometimes out in the field.
The video works hand-in-hand with critiques by controllers and evaluators, as well as self evaluations by those participating in the drill. While a participant or evaluator might have some built-in prejudices, the camera doesn’t.
My advice to those wanting to stage a mock disaster is first; ask themselves “why?” Why are they doing it? What do they want to accomplish? And, what kind of budget is available?
You can conduct a meaningful mock disaster on a relatively modest budget, or you can go all out. It depends on what you want to accomplish. How involved does the the scenario need to be? How many outside participants will be involved such as mock reporters, camera crews and other role-players, controllers, evaluators?
When done right, however, a mock disaster can be of tremendous value and well worth the effort and expense.
May 04
Preparation is key to good interviews
In our media training workshops, we go over the need for preparing for interviews over and over again. I tell students you probably wouldn’t try to give an important speech without at least some degree of preparation, so doesn’t it just make sense that you should prepare for an important interview with the news media?
Most students thoroughly agree with the need for being prepared, but in their first mock, on-camera interviews, they often find they weren’t as prepared as they thought they were. It can be embarrassing.
Something like that may have been going through Vice President Joe Biden’s mind recently after he told The Today Show’s Matt Lauer what he thought people should do about traveling during the Swine Flu threat. He honestly answered the question saying he didn’t think people should travel on airplanes or subways. That wasn’t exactly what the Obama Administration had in mind and they’ve been trying to “re-spin” Biden’s comments ever since.
The vice president’s episode of “misspeaking” certainly wasn’t his first, nor will it likely be his last. He’s historically had a penchant for speaking his mind without assessing the potential consequences. He’s not alone. A lot of us wish we could have “do overs” when it comes to media interviews. Most of us just don't like embarrassing ourselves in front of millions of television viewers.
Too often, political and corporate spokespersons engage in media interviews without being as prepared as they ought to be. I’m not sure whether they feel they don’t have the time; that they don’t feel the interview is important, or they have seriously misjudged their ability to communicate without preparation. To my way of thinking, all media interviews are important, particularly in a crisis.
In a crisis situation, it is not unusual for a spokesperson to have to speak to the news media with very little time for preparation. There is pressure to get information out quickly. But that doesn’t mean you should speak to the news media without a game plan. In a crisis, you may not have as much time as you would like to have for preparation, so you take the time you do have, even if it is only a few minutes.
For as long as I’ve been doing media training, I have told students that they should never do an interview unless they know their message, package it in a way the news media can use it and can deliver it with conviction.
I also tell them that they should never do an interview unless they are prepared. That includes anticipating questions and knowing how you will answer them.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Obama Administration isn’t saying something similar to the vice president these days.
Apr 16
Keeping the crisis local
The best way to control a crisis, I was told years ago by a veteran public relations professional, is to “keep it local.” His philosophy was that if you kept a lid on the crisis and let it play out locally, perhaps it wouldn’t become a national crisis. And those, he knew from experience, were the worst kind.
But, that was before YouTube, MyFace and Twitter. Today, keeping a crisis local, has gotten a lot more difficult.
Domino’s Pizza found that out recently when two of their employees did some disgusting things with the food in one of their restaurants, videotaped their actions and then put it on YouTube. Within a couple of days, more than a half-million people had viewed the video. By the time it was becoming legendary on the internet, the mainstream media got word of it and it started making the rounds on cable and finally broadcast news via The Today Show and others.
Employees characterized the stunt as a prank, and Domino's said the filthy food was never served. But a spokeswoman said the company "was not in a forgive-and-forget mood," the BBC reported. The chain has gone a step further, with the affected North Carolina franchise filing a criminal complaint against the ex-employees and police issuing a felony warrant for their arrest, according to the BBC.
Domino's apologized for the actions of "Michael" and "Kristy" and said the videos marred "the hard work performed by the 125,000 men and women working for Domino's" in the United States and all over the world.
Domino’s was praised for its swift, deliberate action, but could it keep the story local? No chance. Considering the popularity of the infamous video on the internet, I’m not sure there was any way Domino’s could have kept the work of its two moron workers within the environs of Conover, N.C.
The internet, as we have been discussing on crisismanagementforum.com, has changed the way events become crises and it has changed the way they are reported. In the early days of crisis management, PR people were often hired to keep a story out of the newspaper. With newspapers on the decline these days, that may not be difficult. But keeping the story off the internet? That may be next to impossible.
I’m still new to LinkedIn, but there must be dozens of forums there where stories like this are being discussed. YouTube, of course, is always waiting for a popular – even if disgusting – video. There are just too many opportunities and too many people to take advantage of those opportunities to keep the story local much of the time.
In the “old days” prior to the internet, we thought one way to keep the story local was to respond locally and respond quickly. That still works today, but only to an extent. It depends on the “disgust” factor sometimes and Domino’s had a very high factor when it came to disgusting. This was the kind of story that used to be fodder for grocery store tabloids. Today it’s the kind of stuff that feeds YouTube and the rest of the internet.
Today, I think you have to assume a bad story can end up on the internet and consequently on the morning news shows and the front page of the New York Times. And, I think you have to respond accordingly.
That fast, local reaction is still important. But it’s important to go beyond that. Domino’s responded on the internet as it was responding to the mainstream media. That’s important today.
It’s also important to make monitoring the internet a part of your overall monitoring of the news media. If you’re only subscribing to a service that monitors newspapers and television these days, you’re not monitoring all of the media, just part of it.
Apr 07
Who’s going to cover the school board?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always read newspapers while traveling – either for business, or vacation. But this past week, I found myself breaking that habit. I hope it’s temporary.
I was on a short vacation and staying in a rented condo vs. a hotel room, so there was no newspaper being delivered to my door, or in the lobby. As a result, getting a paper meant walking to a local newspaper box. After depositing my 50 cents and returning with my prized newspaper, I noticed the newspaper was a lot thinner than I remembered it in vacations past. It also was more expensive and it seemed like there wasn’t an awful lot of news in it. The business section had all but disappeared, as is the case in a growing number of papers today.
I spent more time watching the cable news channels and checking headlines on my laptop. Ultimately, I stopped walking by the newspaper box and just checked the headlines on the internet.
As I was catching up on the latest news, I read or listened to probably a half-dozen stories on dying newspapers. There were also more and more stories on newsroom layoffs at television stations and how competing stations were now going together to cover news conferences. Newspaper reporters are already reporting the news on some TV stations and TV reporters are reporting the news in some newspapers. The result is that we have fewer and fewer reporters covering the news.
I have no doubt as we turn more and more to the internet, cable news and iReporters armed with their video phones, the big stories will continue to be covered “somewhere.” We can probably read about them on the internet, if no where else. CNN will always cover the Earthquakes in Italy or the shootings in New York. And, they’ll always have their “analysts” to tell us what President Obama’s latest speech really means.
What I began worrying about on this trip, however, is who will be covering the local school board or checking the public records at the court house?
When I first started out as a newspaper reporter, I spent what seemed like a lifetime checking public records or attending public meetings. Most of which I found extremely boring. But, occasionally, you’d find the kind of information that news stories are based on. Occasionally, you’d uncover political corruption. Occasionally, all that boring work seemed to be worthwhile. You felt you were making a difference.
If the layoffs in newspaper and television newsrooms continue. If we have less and less competition among news-gathering organizations, what happens to coverage of those “boring” school board meetings and court house records? Will the iReporters cover them? Will they break the news stories on corruption? I doubt it.
As a young reporter, when I’d complain about covering another boring public meeting or spending an hour at the court house reviewing boring records, my editor reminded me that was what journalism was all about. “If we don’t watch the public officials,” he’d say, “no one will and they’d be able to operate without the scrutiny provided by a free press.”
But now there are fewer and fewer watchful, watch dogs looking over the shoulders of public officials. This doesn’t mean all public officials are going to go out and try to plunder the institutions they are entrusted to protect, but it means there are fewer and fewer people watching them to make sure they don’t.
I personally like to think that somehow newspapers will survive this current crisis that threatens them. I personally like to think that local television will become more and more aggressive in reporting and uncovering corruption. I’d like to think that we don’t have to depend on iReporters to keep a check on public institutions.
I believe a lot of us would like to think that.
Mar 16
Did mainstream news shoot itself in the foot?
As America’s newspapers and a growing number of local TV stations find themselves falling on hard times these days, the country’s depressing economy is not being singled out as the only – and possibly not even the primary – culprit. More and more, the internet is being blamed.
Recent surveys indicate the internet has increased beyond the once-thought “threat” to newspaper readership.A Pew study showed more people today get their news off the internet than from newspapers and magazines combined. Can television be far behind?
But what are people getting when they get their news from the internet? Some would say it is full of opinionated, unprofessional rantings from bloggers and others. Where is the real journalism? The journalism that made newspapers thrive and gave us hard-hitting shows like 60 Minutes and World News Tonight.
But wait a minute, what are we getting from other media sources today? What about the “mainstream” media? What about cable television, for instance?
When you have people like CNBC’s Jim Cramer shouting around and prancing on his Mad Money television show, is it any wonder someone like Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart appears to be more credible as a newsman than Cramer? Which do you want, funny, or angry?
Is it any wonder why more and more people consider The Daily Show a legitimate news show? What does that say about the “mainstream” media?
Somewhere in the not so distant past, a lot of the “legitimate” news media seem to have crossed the line from newsgathers to entertainers. As for objective journalism, look at the credentials of some of the leading talk show hosts. Many of the top-ranked ones are former politicians interviewing current politicians. What about the highly-opinionated Lou Dobbs or radio’s conservative czar, Rush Limbaugh? Are they journalists, or are they entertainers? The line is getting blurry.
At least Jon Stewart doesn’t try to take himself seriously, even if others do.
The point is that there is an increasing gray area between the “news” on the internet and the news we obtain from what we thought were possibly more legitimate sources. As cable news programs depend on civilian iReporters to report the news and newspapers slash professional reporting staffs, the internet has to be taken as a serious provider of news today. For one thing, a growing number of people read newspapers and watch television online than that old-fashioned, conventional way. The internet is where it’s at.
So how does this all fit into a blog on crisis management, you might ask?
Well, there was a time not so long ago when the internet may have been considered an after-thought when trying to get your message out in a crisis. There are some who still refer to the internet as “new media.” I think it’s gone beyond that. It’s here. It’s serious. And, like Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, you can’t ignore it. You have to deal with it.
If that means working the internet or going on The Daily Show, so be it. Just remember that no matter whether you're dealing with mainstream media, the new media or whatever the next generation of media might be, you had better be prepared for it.
Mar 10
Is a recession the time to cut crisis training?
In these economic times, it’s easy for those in charge of corporate budgets to look everywhere and anywhere to find ways of saving money. Quite often, that means putting a hold on training, travel, outside consultants or just about anything that isn’t vital for the day-to-day operation of the company.
As someone who provides training and consulting services, these budgeting constraints can be more than just a matter of small concern. But, as we talk with our clients these days, we find not everyone views crisis media training, crisis plans and crisis consulting in the same light. Some see it as more of an insurance policy than just a line item in a budget that can be slashed in bad times.
It reminds me of a story my grandfather told me about living through the Great Depression. “Even in the toughest of times,” he said, “you don’t let your insurance policy lapse.” It was, he said, just too dangerous.
And, while there is certainly a difference between media training and insurance, the type of training we conduct, the mock disasters we stage and the crisis plans we write are very much akin to insurance policies. They are a type of insurance against the unplanned and unexpected.
Certainly, no one ever purchases an accident policy hoping they’ll have to use it some day. They buy insurance to protect them from the uncertainties that they could face – as an individual, or as a business. If they could afford to take the loss on their own, insurance companies would be out of business.
It’s a bit that way with the kind training and consulting our firm provides. I doubt any of the companies we work with “assume” they’ll confront a major crisis which would put their crisis management capabilities to the test. But, they’re not willing to stake their company’s survival on the chance that they will never confront a major crisis.
As a chemical plant manager in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, told me years ago regarding the investment he placed in crisis plans and training, “The more prepared I am, the luckier I get.”
Or, as scores of students have told us following crisis training: “This is the kind of training I hope I never have to use. But, I’d rather have it and not use it than need it and not have it.”
Although we have a vested interest in the continuation of crisis plans, media training, mock disasters and the like, so do the organizations we work for. Certainly, you can delay training, scale it down a bit and otherwise find ways to reduce costs, but like insurance, it’s not really something you want to totally lapse.
The bottom line is that crises don’t care who you are, whether you’re prepared or not, or even if there is a recession going on. They are indiscriminate. They treat everyone the same.
Mar 02
Newspapers: The Final Edition?
It was with a bit of emotion that I heard about the demise of the Rocky Mountain News this past week. Although I never worked for the News, I had several friends who were reporters and editors there. Most people thought of it as a good newspaper. It had been around since before the Civil War and had survived newspaper wars, the Great Depression and even a flood in 1864 that all but knocked it out of commission.
But Colorado's oldest newspaper, like so many newspapers around the country, had fallen on bad times. Its circulation had peaked at 400,000, but dropped to just over 200,000 by the time it published its final edition.
So Denver joins the league of so many one newspaper towns in America. As a kid, I saw my mother almost cry when her beloved Indianapolis Times folded, leaving only two newspapers to report the news.
I was working for the Franklin (Indiana) Evening Star up to one week before it folded to new competition. I went to work for the competition.
And, I was working at the Cincinnati Enquirer when the Cincinnati Post began its downward spiral, ultimately shutting its doors for good.
But so many of those early newspaper deaths were due to competition from other newspapers, and even television. There were times when we all thought television would certainly be the death of newspapers as we knew them.
But newspapers, overall, survived the threat of television. It was the internet they couldn't compete with.
When the internet started becoming popular, many newspapers weren't sure how to deal with it. Even the television networks were a little slow to recognize there was a new media in town. Ultimately, however, most newspapers, magazines, television networks and their affiliated stations, and even the wire services began putting their news on internet web sites.
At some point not too long ago, the clear line between television and newspaper began to get terribly fuzzy. Television was placing "print" stories on the internet and newspapers were running video on their web sites.
At a crisis news conference in Houston this past summer, a pack of reporters and television videographers were on the scene. One of the videographers, however, was not with a television station. He was with the Houston Chronicle. The internet has become the meeting point between television and newspapers.
With so much news on the internet and available anytime you want it, it is little wonder people began drifting away from the morning newspaper with its early deadlines and often-stale news. There is, of course, the current economic recession which has resulted in cutbacks in advertising and subsequent layoffs in the newsroom. Newspapers not only have less news today, they even have less paper. They are only a pale reflection of what they once were.
When I first got into the newspaper business in what today seems like a lifetime ago, I recall the stories from the older reporters who lamented about the good old days and the Golden Age of newspapers. It was a time when many, if not most, reporters got their education on the job, sometimes working for next to nothing just to get experience so they could be a newspaper reporter. They talked about the competition and those "electrons" from the TV stations. "Those people," I was told back then," "aren't real reporters." The TV reporters retorted back, "Nobody reads newspapers. They get their news from television."
It seems the TV reporters were partly right. People today don't read newspapers, at least not like they used to. As a result, newspapers as we know it, are part of a dying breed of journalism.
When I first went to work for the then fledgling USA Today, there were jokes from other newspaper reporters about USA Today's approach to newspapering. "The McNewspaper," some called it. I was told many times, it wasn't a real newspaper. Real or not, USA Today is one of the few newspapers with a degree of health these days. And even USA Today is not immune to the ravages of the current recession.
So what will be the final chapter of newspapers in America? I have no idea, other than there will be far fewer of them than we have today and the internet will be an even bigger part of the way they deliver news.
But as we turn to the internet for news and move away from the newspapers and their platoons of local, regional and national reporters who have covered the news in this country since the days of the American Revolution, what happens to news? Will those laid off reporters become more bloggers? Will newspapers charge for their internet content? Will consumers be willing to pay for it?
There are a lot of unanswered questions as we watch an American institution going through a major life change. As I look at it from my vantage point, I'm already starting to miss the Rocky Mountain News and all those other great newspapers that preceded it in death.
The Crisis Management Memo archive
12:34 AM Mar 17