Crisis communication resources to help you protect your revenue, reputation, and brand.

Effective crisis communications when “it” hits the fan.

Welcome to Our Crisis Communication Blog

Our blog is filled with deep resources to help with your crisis communication needs. Whether you are writing a crisis communication plan, seeking the best media training tips, or digging for case studies on crisis situations, you’ll find it here. Our goal is to give you all of the public relations resources you need to protect your revenue, reputation, and brand.

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Lesson 7: Never get in a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel

May 11, 2009/0 Comments/in 29-Day Media Course - Don't Talk to the Media /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud

www.braudcommunications.com

I find it unbelievable that in the 21^st century we still find executives who don’t want to take on a reporter or news outlet that has wrongly damaged their reputation.

The traditional way of responding to a media outlet that makes a factual error is to ask the management for a retraction. But sometimes the issue is not always factual but a difference in your point of view. If a newspaper does a hatchet job on you, the correct way to respond is to always write a letter to the editor. The letter should be short and to the point, with about 200-400 words. In some cases, you may want to ask 3^rd party supporters to also write short letters on your behalf.

Yet I still find executives who say, “We’re not going to respond. Just let it die. You can’t get in a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.” That statement was wrong 50 years ago and it is even more wrong today.

In the past, a negative story may have run on TV or radio once or twice for 60-90 seconds, then it was gone. In the past, a negative story appeared in the newspaper for just one day, then the paper was thrown out, never to be seen again.

But the internet has changed all of that. Today, those negative stories live on in archives on the internet forever. Additionally, media websites are among the highest ranked websites on the internet because their information is deep, the site is constantly updated, and it is perceived by search engines as highly credible. The media sites are so highly ranked that if your organization or name is mentioned in a news report, the media website could come up as a higher ranked site on the internet than your own site.

What this means is that if I do an internet search for your name, or that of your organization, I may see and read the negative things written about you on a media website before I read the positive stuff about you on your own web site.

So what do you do?

Well, just as always, if it is a newspaper that has damaged your reputation, you should write a letter to the editor as I’ve outlined above. That letter to the editor now becauses part of the online archive linked to the story. That way, in the future, when people stumble across the story they will immediately find your point of view as well.

In the case of radio and TV, you should place your comments on the media outlet’s blog on their website. Please be aware that other web users and opponents may verbally attack you and your comments once they are on the media outlet’s blog. You need to be ready to clearly state your case.

Additionally, you may wish to place a response on your own website and blog. Blogs are highly valued by search engines and will help counter the negative comments from the original story.

Finally, don’t take it personally. Your response is as important as a business decision, as we outlined in lesson 2. Hire professional PR writers to help if necessary. They will take the issue less personally and likely choose better words that may temper any anger you are feeling.

In our next lesson we’ll explore why the facts don’t matter.

Have You Stopped Communicating Yet?

May 10, 2009/0 Comments/in BraudCasting /by gbraud

Here’s a new warning about the Swine Flu. Beware if you work in an organization where everything is quickly going back to normal and you’re being told to cease all communications related to the Swine Flu.

The reality is the Swine Flu doesn’t appear to be spreading at catastrophic pandemic rates, but in the world of media relations, crisis communications and employee communications, you should be doing 2 things:

First continue writing any unwritten communications you may need to eventually issue as it relates to the swine flu.

Secondly, convert everything you have written into templates that you can easily access and use for similar disasters… everything ranging from other pandemics, to bio-terrorism to mass casualty events… and definitely have your messaging ready should the Swine Flu escalate in the near future or later, during the 2009 flu season.

Swine Flu is a classic smoldering crisis that would involve communications about precautions, policy regarding infections, infection notification, death from infection, and all clear communications. In Tuesday’s Swine Flu teleseminar I’ll be getting into each of these more in depth.

Also remember my admonition to you just 2 weeks ago when this story broke – now is when you should be requesting the time and budget you need to establish a holistic crisis communications plan and system. PR people often fail to be opportunistic. Trust me, people in other departments, like Risk Management, are being opportunistic. Not only are they being opportunistic, but they’re also preparing for the future because pandemics affect the profits of companies when workers can’t work.

Classic crisis and post crisis behavior is for organizations and individuals to say, “Wow, I’m glad that didn’t happen here.” Then they return to normal operations and do no further planning until the next crisis. Numerous surveys indicate that after events like Hurricane Katrina and the Virginia Tech shootings, most communications departments and most organizations did nothing to prepare for their own crisis of a similar or lesser magnitude.

Always remember that the worse time to write messages about a crisis is when you are in the heart of the crisis. The best time to write messages about a crisis is on a clear sunny day when emotions are low and logic is high.

Lesson 6: I Wonder What the Next Question Will Be?

May 10, 2009/0 Comments/in 29-Day Media Course - Don't Talk to the Media /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud

www.braudcommunications.com

I want you to think for a moment about the last interview you did with a reporter. The reporter asks you a question then you start talking. Think very carefully now – what were you wondering the entire time you were answering the question?

In most cases, my media training students will confess that the entire time they were talking, they were thinking, “I wonder what the reporter is going to ask me next.”

Well here’s a little confession – Most of the time while I was a reporter, the entire time people were answering my question I was wondering what I was going to ask them next.

This means that in most interviews, both people are distracted, wondering what the next question will be and therefore neither is really concentrating on what the current answer is.

Therein lies the biggest problem in most interviews and therefore the greatest opportunity.

Here is what you need to know about reporters to fully understand how the interview will go down. In most cases, the reporter has no written, prepared questions before the interview. And chances are, the reporter has not done an extensive amount of advanced research.

If you are dealing with an investigative reporter or a television network news magazine, you can expect the reporter has done more research and has some specific questions to ask. But in your average interview for your average story I would estimate that 80-90% of the time, the reporter is going to make up the questions on the spot when the interview begins.

The interview will start with “soft” questions, designed to help you relax and get into your comfort zone. As the interview progresses, the questions will become more direct and possibly more negative.

But here is the big secret – How you answer the current question will dictate what the next question is. Even more specifically, the words you use at the end of your answer will often be used by the reporter to craft the next question.

In other words, the reporter will mirror your language right back to you in a form of a question. For example, if my final words are, “…the challenges we’ll face next year will eclipse the challenges we face this year…” what do you think the next question will be? The reporter will ask, “What are the challenges you expect to face next year?”

To test this theory, watch a TV news anchor talking to the reporter who is live on the scene of an event. The anchor will ask a question and the reporter will repeat part of the question back to the anchor as part of their answer.

Mary the Anchor: “Bob, it sure looks like a disaster zone out there…”

Bob the Reporter: “It sure is a disaster zone out here Mary…”

I’ve developed a system for crafting answers that foreshadows the things that I want to talk about in an interview, followed by a “cliff hanger” or a sentence that creates some suspense. The trick is to always stop short of giving all of the details about something and to make the reporter want to know more. You want to make the reporter ask you a logical follow up question.

This technique makes life easy for the reporter because they never have to think very hard about their next question. You, therefore, are controlling the interview and the questions. The reporter is just following along.

I teach an entire workshop on crafting these “Kick-butt Key Messages.” Unfortunately, time here doesn’t permit me to teach the entire program. You would need a half day to truly learn the technique and system I use. But in the meantime, observe news anchors tossing questions to reporters on live locations and in your next interview try to create a few “cliff hangers” that will make the reporter ask you the logical follow up question that you want.

And finally, in lesson 3 we talked about creating quotes. In every interview you need to talk in sound bites and quotes. Often reporters keep asking questions because while they may already have enough facts to write the story, they don’t have a good enough quote to put into the story. And here is a big secret – the faster you give the reporter a good quote, the sooner the interview will end.

In our next lesson we’ll explore the old myth that you should never get in a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.

Lesson 5: The Media is Biased

May 9, 2009/0 Comments/in 29-Day Media Course - Don't Talk to the Media /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud

www.braudcommunications.com

There is much debate about whether the media are biased; especially whether there is a liberal bias. If you truly want to explore that subject, I suggest you read the book Bias by Bernard Goldberg.

It has been my experience over the years that much of what is perceived as bias is really the result of the following:

• Editors send reporters out of the door armed with only partial facts or rumors

• The reporters and editors have misconceptions or misperceptions about you or your issues

• A competitor or opponent of yours has approached the media and only told them half of the story

• Ignorance by the reporter

All four of the above result in the reporter calling you, asking for an interview, and asking you negative questions, putting you in a defensive posture.

Let’s break it down.

Partial facts are usually the result of rumors and innuendos. We all share rumors every day. “Hey, you know what I heard today…?” In the newsroom, a reporter or editor turns that rumor into a research project and must confirm or refute it. “Hey Gerard, I heard a rumor today that… Why don’t you go check it out?”

That rumor would become my assignment for the day. If there is a rumor that the mayor is on cocaine, then I try to prove that the mayor is using cocaine. If he is, it is a story. If he isn’t, then there is no story. If the rumor is that the married congressman has a girlfriend, then I try to prove the congressman has a girlfriend. If it is true, I have a story. If I can’t prove it, then there is no story.

You may not like it, but it is the nature of the business.

The next issue is very similar; it’s the impact of a misconception or misperceptions. Often this is purely subjective. Perhaps you are proposing a new development, but something just seems shady. Then the news report may likely reflect a tone of skepticism. The reporter may even seek out a 3^rd party who is willing to cast further doubt on your project or credibility.

On the issue of opponents — I’ve watched many opponents make compelling cases and provide an enormous amount of supporting material and a hefty helping of innuendo. In the U.S. they’re often called “opposition groups” while around the world they are called “NGOs,” which stands for non-government organizations.

Usually the members of these groups are very passionate about a specific issue and those issues may be considered liberal issues. If a member of one of these groups makes a compelling case to a reporter, they could trigger a news report about you or your company. The reporter may come armed with reams of documentation supplied by the opponent, placing you in a defensive position. The resulting story could portray you in a very negative light.

And the final issue is ignorance by the reporter. Sometimes reporters just get the wrong idea about something and pursue it as a negative story. For example, most reporters look at steam belching from an industrial facility and think they are seeing pollution. Hence, they may do a story about industry polluting and fill the report with images of the stack belching what looks like smoke.

When you are faced with a situation like this, you need to apply all the tricks from lesson one, which includes explaining everything to them in simple terms the way you would explain it to a 6^th grade class at career day.

Chances are the media are not “out to get you.” But somebody else may be out to get you and they are letting the media do their dirty work.

In our next lesson we’ll talk about how you can predict what questions are reporter will ask you in an interview.

Lesson 4: They Took Me Out of Context and They Left My Best Stuff on the Cutting Room Floor

May 8, 2009/0 Comments/in 29-Day Media Course - Don't Talk to the Media /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud

www.braudcommunications.com

The 2 single biggest complaints I have heard from executives over the years, after they have done an interview, is that “the reporter took me out of context” or that “the reporter left my best stuff on the cutting room floor.” (If you are young, the cutting room is where film was edited for TV news prior to the mid 1970’s. Film that was not used in the story was thrown to the floor during editing.)

Here is the God’s Honest Truth – First, if it was your best stuff it would be in the story. What you think is your best stuff and what the reporter thinks is your best stuff may be very different. But no reporter leaves your best stuff on the cutting room floor. Secondly, reporters never intentionally take anyone out of context. If you are taken out of context there must be a reason for it and I think I know why. Let’s break it down –

In lesson 3 I emphasized the importance of talking in well worded, professionally written quotes. Why do we all know Neil Armstrong’s quote, “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind?” The reason we know it is because it is a well written quote from a professional writer and Armstrong practiced as part of his pre-flight training. It was not a spontaneous thought or ad lib by Neil Armstrong as he became the first man to set foot on the moon.

Your best stuff should be a well written practiced quote. Hey, if it is good enough for Neil Armstrong, it should be good enough for you.

Unfortunately, spokespeople who refuse to go through media training are usually guilty of making some spontaneous, inflammatory statement that becomes the quote. Generally they say something really dumb that they regret later. The problem is once it is said, it’s said. There is no taking it back. There is no do-over.

So my big rule for you in this category is that someone is going to edit what you say; it should be and must be you. Editing starts when the quote is written.

And remember this — reporters all recognize a good quote. If you want proof, attend a news conference and watch the reporters as they take notes. It is like watching a ballet as all of the reporters raise their notebooks at the same time to write a quote or fact as the spokesperson says something important. Then all of them put their notebooks down together, then raise them all together again as they hear the next important quote or fact.

Let’s now look at the issue of, “they took me out of context.”

Being taken out of context is usually the fault of the spokesperson. It is generally caused by the spokesperson being unclear, transposing important words, speaking in jargon or trying to give too many facts. That results in the reporter misunderstanding what the spokesperson meant. In short, something gets lost in translation.

How can you keep from being taken out of context?

Don’t try to overload the reporter with facts. Reporters write in an inverted pyramid style. That means they start with a headline that is the synopsis of the story. Then they add the next broad general fact and so on. Seldom does the reporter get into great detail and an abundance of facts. So, don’t get caught in the trap of trying to give too many facts.

Also, realize that the flaw of giving lots of facts and details is often a personality trait. Accountants, engineers, doctors and lawyers live in a world of details where numbers and facts must be precise. Hence, they want to be exact in what they say and they say too much; they give details beyond the reporter’s comprehension. A print reporter is likely only writing a 12-20 sentence synopsis, a radio reporter is only writing 6-8 sentences and a TV reporter is only writing 10-12 sentences. Usually the miscommunication begins when the spokesperson may want to tell the details of “War and Peace” but the reporter is only looking for the CliffsNotes.

If you keep it simple you help the reporter write their story without miscommunications or misinterpretation and you won’t be taken out of context. That’s why in so many media training programs the trainer will ask the spokesperson to focus on just their 3 most important messages.

Next, forget the corporate and non-profit jargon, buzzwords and the government acronyms. Jargon, buzzwords and acronyms are speed bumps to comprehension. They are easily misunderstood by the reporter. The reporter then writes what they think they heard you say. However, if you were not clear, then the story will be wrong. It is your fault and not their fault.

Finally, before the interview is over, ask the reporter if they clearly understand all of the words you used. An embarrassed reporter may nod their head in agreement, yet be too embarrassed to ask you to define certain terms that you used.

In summary… Keep it simple.

In our next lesson we’ll address bias in the media.

Lesson 3: It’s About Me

May 7, 2009/0 Comments/in 29-Day Media Course - Don't Talk to the Media /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud

www.braudcommunications.com

My wife often reminds me that it’s “not about me.” But she forgets that I come from a 15 year career as a journalist, where everything was about me.

Everyday it was my story; my interviews; my scoop.

Reporters have big egos. Accept it. You can’t change it so don’t even waste your time and energy.

To be successful in an interview, you have to know and understand the wants, needs and desires of a reporter. They include:

• I want a hot story.
• I want to be the lead story, which is the first story in the newscast or the first story on the front page.
• I want to build a positive reputation.
• I want to advance my career.
• I want to impress my boss.
• I want a raise.
• I want my TV station to have the best ratings.
• I want my newspaper to have a high readership.
• I want to be recognized as a good reporter by my peers.
• I want to win awards.

Do you see a trend here? I want, I want, I want…

Give reporters what they want, but give it to them on your terms. Take care of them and they’ll take care of you.

Help them tell a great story and they will treat you right.

The best single tip I have for you in this category is to talk in great quotes. A quote is one of the single most important things a reporter needs for a story. Sure, facts are important. But when it comes time for the reporter to write the story, your quote makes or breaks the story.

Most spokespeople concentrate too much on trying to convey facts.

The anatomy of a TV news story is this: the reporter writes 1 or 2 sentences to set up the premise or “lead” for the story. The next 2 sentences are a quote, followed by a 2 sentence transition that sets up a second quote. Then the reporter wraps up the story with a summary. A newspaper story is similar, but 3 to 4 times longer.

When you speak in quotes you are actually writing part of the reporter’s story. I’ll bet you didn’t realize that.

Here is one other weird thing that reporters do that no other professionional does. A reporter gives away a portion of their job each day to a complete amateur. Yep – A lawyer doesn’t let an amateur try their case or write a contract; an accountant doesn’t let an amateur do the math or balance the books; an engineer doesn’t let an amateur run the chemical plant; a doctor doesn’t let an amateur do surgery. But a reporter turns over a portion of their script – the quote – to you – an amateur. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, etc. are not professionally trained writers. Yet they are writing a portion of the reporter’s story when they start talking in an interview. Some part of that interview will be quoted and that means you are writing a portion of the final script.

Great quotes are seldom spontaneous for the spokesperson. That is why they are best written by a professional writer and public relations expert. It is the spokesperson’s responsibility to ask for help crafting quotes and then also their responsibility to go through media training and practice so the quotes are internalized, honest and sound unrehearsed.

In our next lesson we’ll examine those age old responses from spokespeople who say, “the media took me out of context and they left my best stuff on the cutting room floor.”

Crisis communication resources to help you protect your revenue, reputation, and brand.

Welcome to Our Crisis Communication Blog

Lesson 7: Never get in a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel

Have You Stopped Communicating Yet?

Lesson 6: I Wonder What the Next Question Will Be?

Lesson 5: The Media is Biased

Lesson 4: They Took Me Out of Context and They Left My Best Stuff on the Cutting Room Floor

Lesson 3: It’s About Me

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