Media training in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and other cities in Louisiana carry a special set of challenges. Usually the training is for spokesmen – as in all men. Seldom is the media training for spokespeople, representing both genders. The spokesmen generally work in the oil and chemical industry. Most are not trained public relations professionals. Most are managers and supervisors in a chemical plant or an oil refinery.
In Louisiana’s industrial corridor, the bulk of the media training is to prepare someone for crisis response. Often companies call asking for crisis communications training or crisis management training. Seldom do they ask for media training because many do not know what the training should be called.
At the risk of generalizing, many of these spokesmen grew up as I did. We were taught to tell it like it is. Telling it like it is usually starts with negative information, followed by a justification for the bad news or event. After the bad news and the justification, Louisiana men often tell you what they are going to do differently.
Analyzed, it looks like this:
Bad News – Repeat the negative
Bad News – Repeat the negative
Good News
When I was a television reporter, I was often first on the scene when a chemical plant blew up between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Often the spokesperson would share too many negative details that should not have been shared. They might say something such as, “Well we’ve been having problems with the vessel in the hydrocarbon unit for the past month. We had one small fire that we put out last week. But we don’t know what caused the explosion today. But I promise you, safety is our top priority.”
To be an expert spokesman in media interviews, the fewer negatives you repeat, the better you will be. In media training, you need to learn to say positive news first and as little of the negative news as possible.
The statement above might have better been worded by saying, “Our goal is to always be protective of human health and the environment. What has happened here today will require us to investigate so we can find out what happened, how it happened, and how we can keep it from ever happening again.”
Are you up to the challenge for a media interview?
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Can we have an intimate, professional conversation? The presumption is you are an expert in public relations and that the executives and leaders where you work need expert key messages for media training, to be an expert spokesperson. Here we go:
Good looking
Intelligent
Public relations professional
Mistakes of the past
Bullet points bad
Did we just have a conversation? I don’t think so.
Why?
Because I used bullet points and bullet points are not a conversation. Bullet points are phrases. Bullet points are not sentences.
So, should it then also be true that bullet points are not key messages?
Consider this: If you are training someone for a media interview, and you’ve given them nothing but bullet points, you have only given them an outline from which you now want them to ad lib.
Have you ever noticed that the most embarrassing interviews with reporters are the ones with bad ad-libs?
Have you ever noticed that the media crave a well-worded quote?
This is your call to action to stop believing that key messages should be bullet points. Key messages for media training should consist of well-worded, quotable sentences. Expert spokespeople speak in great, well-worded quotes and not in bullet points.
You are a good looking, intelligent, public relations professional who should stop repeating the mistakes of your public relations forefathers or foremothers, who believe bullet points are sufficient as key messages.
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Not a day goes by that I don’t have a phone call with a public relations person who is telling me what they can’t do and why they can’t do it. This trend concerns me gravely.
I call this getting ready to get ready to get started to begin.
Wow. I would hate to live like that, which is why I don’t work within a corporation. Having been a corporate V.P., I can tell you such behavior was never allowed in my department. It was not allowed from those who reported to me, nor did I allow people to give me excuses on why we couldn’t do what needed to be done.
Granted, in any endeavor in life and business, I value the ready, aim, fire approach. However, each step should have a reasonable time limit. Strategic planning, for example, seems to just keep dragging on for so many public relations colleagues I speak to. They never find the target at which to aim and they are slow to fire. They are stuck in ready. Dare I say, many are getting ready to get ready to get started to begin.
Boldly, I’ll predict that 50% of all activities in corporations are a complete waste of time. What do you think? Ask yourself, “How long have we dragged out or waited for a strategic plan to be developed before we could make a move?” When all that strategic collaboration was completed, did you really learn anything significant that you didn’t know? Did you figure out anything that you couldn’t have strategized on your own – and in a shorter period of time?
How often has a project come to a halt because your company is going through reorganization? Did that reorganization make the organization better? Seldom does it get better, it just gets slower. Usually it is the equivalent of rearranging the proverbial chairs on the deck of the Titanic.
Are you operating in slow motion?
Are you letting your company keep you from doing what you know should be done?
Are you letting your company keep you from being the professional you should be?
Are you a floor mat for your corporation to wipe their feet on?
As a former news guy, I can tell you we moved at the speed of seconds. When a crisis hits, we’re on the story and we were on you. Meanwhile, PR people, and especially the corporate bosses, think you can move at your own good ol’ pace. They fall into decision paralysis, which I’ll define as making no decision at the fear of making the wrong decisions, which sadly, is always the wrong decision. They fall into paralysis by analysis, which means weighing too many factors that don’t need to be weighed. Meanwhile, your reputation and revenue are going to hell as detractors and the media take the organization to task.
Public relations people and corporate leaders can see a crisis on the horizon, yet they are slow in planning their response and they are slow to respond. Meanwhile, aggressive opponents are generating negative news about the organization, harming reputation and revenues.
And all that social media that you love in PR… it is often really bad for you in a crisis. It accentuates and escalates your crisis. Social media, in many cases, further damages your reputation and revenues. Why is it public relations people want to use it for good PR, yet ignore its potential negative effects in a crisis?
I challenge you: Pick one PR project and fast track it. When you get done, tell me how it feels. I expect to hear back from you in 24 hours.
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It’s been said that the person who says something can’t be done is always right.
Does this adage apply to crisis communication and crisis communications plans?
The Malaysia Airlines crisis and communication challenges with the media and families have many in public relations saying, “This is unprecedented. You can’t prepare for this.”
Pardon me, but that’s bull$h*t.
As a defiant, non-conformist, contrarian, nothing inspires me to do something more than doing something they said couldn’t be done.
If you want to prepare and you are willing to put forth the effort, you can write a crisis communications plan and a library of pre-written news releases that will serve you in any crisis. Public relations people without the expertise, who are unwilling to put forth the effort, take the easy way out by saying, “It can’t be done.”
Here is the backstory of how defiance turned into a process that allowed public relations teams to put an effective crisis communications plan in place in as few as two days
In 1996, I begin doing extensive research on crisis communications plans and found each plan repeated the same flaws as the ones before it. All conformed to public relations standards of then and today. Being a contrarian, I researched the common communications mistakes made in each crisis. I poured over case studies from when I was a member of the media. I analyzed why spokespeople said dumb things to me in most crises when I was a television reporter. I analyzed why corporations were slow to communicate about each crisis.
The pain, problems, and predicaments of the communicator and the corporation were scrutinized. Once this was done, I began to work backwards, with the end in mind. Multiple end points were identified, which consisted of the intervals at which a statement would need to be made by a company to the media, a company’s employees, and the stakeholders most affected by the crisis.
From 1996 – 2004, I wrote crisis communications plans for a wide variety of businesses, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. The process often took a year of collaboration, which for me was too long. Dealing with the slow pace of corporate collaboration didn’t fit my personality, despite the large sums of money companies would pay for a year’s worth of work.
In 2004, while spending six months recovering from a near-death-illness, I began looking for the fastest way to deliver a crisis communications plan. I had so many plans written that I was able to condense the crisis communications plan writing process down to two intense days of a group writing retreat. I provided the expertise and base documents, while the public relations team provided a workforce to modify the documents.
Ten years later, the plan still works in every crisis. Granted, the base crisis communications plan is a living document that undergoes constant modification to incorporate the ever-growing list communications outlets, such as social media.
The reality is, you don’t know how every crisis will unfold. The secret is to understand the intervals at which you must communicate to key audiences. You must make sure your crisis communications plan has a system in place to gather information, confirm information, then release that information.
The biggest breakthrough for me was unlocking the secret to creating a library of pre-written news releases that lives in the addendum of each plan. Starting with the end in mind, I was able to analyze the questions that get asked in every news conference by the media. Based on those questions and a clear understanding of how journalists will
write their news reports, I was able to create a series of statements that include multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank options.
Some of my pre-written news releases have as few as five paragraphs while others have more than 30 paragraphs. Some pre-written news releases are for an event that can be handled with a single press release. Others are three-part releases that can be used to issue advisories before, during, and after an event, such as for an electric company dealing with a winter storm. Still others must exceed three parts, such as an ongoing crisis similar to Malaysia Airlines. These pre-written news releases can usually be edited and released in as few as ten minutes. This is in stark contrast to the typical problem of a public relations person sitting before a blank computer screen and writing from scratch, then facing hours of revisions and hours of delayed communications.
What are the constant realities for the company you work for? The reality for every airline is that they may experience a crash. Virtually every set of scenarios can be broken down into fill-in-the-blank and multiple-choice options.
A crisis communications plan can be structured to identify your key audiences, the various ways you must communicate to those audiences, and the frequency of your communications.
Is writing this type of crisis communications plan easy? My original plan took about 1,000 hours to develop – that’s six months. Since then, it has evolved with many more hours.
Analyses of case studies in your industry will show you the communications flaws of those who came before you so you can modify your crisis communications plan in such a way that those flaws are eliminated.
If you think it can’t be done, you are correct for yourself. You are not, however, correct for everyone.
Those who are willing to prepare can be prepared and they will communicate effectively when “it” hits the fan. Others, however, will make the same mistakes so many before have made, who have thrown up their hands and said it can’t be done.
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Ask any expert in global crisis communications how Malaysia Airlines should be communicating during their crisis and you will get varied opinions. Having worked in Malaysia many times writing crisis communications plans and teaching media training, I would like to offer five things worth considering, should you face a prolonged crisis that draws global media attention.
Culture – Problem #1
Malaysian’s culture and religion are different from traditional western culture and religion. Their language also includes a mix of Malay, Mandarin Chinese and English. Prior to my trips, I’ve taken classes to help learn and respect their culture. I’ve even learned to speak some Malay.
Sadly, western media wants to play by western rules, often with little regard for the culture of another country. Media are not known to stop what they are doing to take cultural sensitivity classes. U.S. media can be especially pushy and overbearing. Chances are western media will not adjust to or fully respect Malaysia’s culture. Hence, if you work for the airline, you must be prepared to adjust to all of the many global media outlets and their ways. This is no easy task.
Accomplishing this means that long before you ever have a global crisis, you need to write a crisis communications plan that takes this into account. Next, you need to practice it at least once a year in a crisis communications drill until you are an expert communicator and public relations professional. The drill will also help your leaders better understand what they will face during a crisis, provided your drill includes intense mock media and mock news conferences.
Joint Information Centers (JICs) – Problem #2
In the U.S., when your corporation has to share the stage, microphone and crisis with government agencies, often all parties agree to set up a Joint Information Center (JIC). Often, the government agencies want to take the lead and usually corporations are too willing to let the investigating agencies bear the burden of the media interviews. This usually happens because the corporation has failed to write a good crisis communications plan, they have failed to train their spokespeople, and they have failed to hold annual crisis communications drills. Due to their failures – all of which could have been avoided – they capitulate to government agencies, praying the government agencies have good spokespeople.
I despise when this is done. I especially despise when a corporation depends entirely on government spokespeople to communicate.
Consider that government agencies cannot and will not communicate empathy to the affected parties. Their communications is only about the issues related to their investigation and fact gathering. Government agencies have a different communications motive than the affected company. Only the offending party – in this case the airline – can adequately communicate empathy to the family members of passengers.
You have an obligation to media train your spokespeople to the highest level so they can hold their own in a news conference.
Separate Media From Grieving Families – Problem #3
Never house family members in a building or hotel where the media has easy access to them. Crying family members amid the media makes for a great story for the media and a horrible story for your company.
When I was a reporter, I hated talking to family members in situations like this. I recall covering the derailment of an Amtrak passenger train with a high fatality count. The train plunged off of a bridge late one night and the passengers were trapped in the rail cars deep in a river. Family members were holding out hope that there were air pockets with people alive in the cars, just as Malaysian Airline families are holding out hope that their family members are alive somewhere on a remote island.
In the story I was covering, the trauma went on for days, with Amtrak housing the families in the lobby of a hotel with us – the media. The families never got a break from the cameras and the microphones and our producers kept asking for more interviews. Amtrak looked bad every time someone fell to pieces emotionally in the hotel lobby.
If your company might face this type of crisis with a high fatality count, your crisis communications team must work with your risk management team to identify, in advance, facilities where families can be housed without the media being anywhere around.
Brute Force Never Plays Well In Front of the Media – Problem #4
When Malaysian authorities hauled away a grieving family member earlier this week, it made a bad situation look worse. Authorities lost their cool. This happens all over the world. When they lose their cool, authorities seldom ask, “How will this play on TV?” This is one more reason to follow the advice above to keep the families separate from the media.
My experience in Malaysia assures me there are many gated resorts that the airline could take over as their base for families. These resorts have sleeping accommodations, restaurants and beaches. Malaysia Airlines should be using one of these resorts. The risk management team should be prepared to buy out the entire resort, keeping families content behind gates, keeping the media on the other side.
Manage Speculation With More Spokespeople – Problem #5
In an ongoing crisis like this, the media lack facts, so they turn to third party experts and ask speculative questions to get speculative answers. If your company is the offending company, you need to have highly trained spokespeople speaking on behalf of your company in every country where your customers have a presence. Those trained spokespeople need to:
A.) state the obvious facts in well worded quotes
B.) constantly communicate empathy and what is being done for the families
C.) constantly discourage speculation
If we look at the Malaysian Airlines case study, speculation has been generated by:
A.) an oil slick near Vietnam
B.) debris at sea near China
C.) possible debris spotted by Australia
D.) rumors that the plane landed safely on some remote airstrip
E.) rumors about the pilots and their routes.
When you fail to provide good information in a crisis, the media fill the void with speculation.
Conclusion
Never believe that any crisis is too big or too complicated to prepare for. You can prepare a crisis communications plan that will address every scenario you may face. Your crisis communications plan can have an addendum of pre-written news releases and media advisories for even an extended crisis like Malaysian Airlines. You can test your crisis communication team, your crisis management team and your spokespeople with a crisis communications drill annually. You can conduct media training annually for everyone who may have to serve as a spokesperson.
This isn’t rocket science, but it does require a commitment from the public relations team and from the leadership team.
So, will you prepare and perform flawlessly or will you leave everything to chance?
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While teaching interview skills in a media training class, a participating executive provided expert insight to the lesson I was teaching.
“So you don’t want us to word vomit everything we know in a media interview, right?” he asked.
That isn’t how I would have phrased it, but now that I think about it, many spokespeople, and the public relations people who write the key messages for the spokespeople, are guilty of “word vomit.”
Before every media training class I teach, I ask the PR team to provide me with their existing key messages. Most are word vomit.
Many public relations people “vomit” every word they can, every cliché they can, and every statistic they can onto the page they submit to me. As you might guess, I have to do major key message re-writes before every media training class.
When a spokesperson is being interviewed, more is less. You must help them fight the urge to say everything they know about the company or organization.
The more you say to a reporter, the more you subject yourself to editing that you may not like.
As gross as it may sound, today’s media training expert advice is:
a) Avoid word vomit when you write your key messages.
b) Avoid word vomit when you are speaking to a reporter in a media interview.
If someone read your key messages right now, would they think, “Ew Gross. Word vomit.”?
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In media training and crisis communications training, there are many debates about who should be your spokesperson in a crisis. Here are three common arguments and what you should consider.
Argument 1: The CEO Should Always Be the Spokesperson
A CEO who wants to be the only spokesperson is destined for failure. In a crisis, the CEO should be:
1) Managing the crisis
2) Managing the business operations
This is especially true in the first hours of a crisis when information is just becoming available.
In a severe crisis involving injuries or fatalities, the CEO becomes the face of the organization’s compassion. Even then, the CEO as a spokesperson might come several hours into the crisis. In the first hour, when a statement needs to be made, the CEO is often busy with other issues.
Also, if a CEO misspeaks early in the crisis, they destroy their credibility and undermine the reputation of the organization. Whereas, if anyone else misspeaks early in the crisis, the CEO can step in to clarify the facts and becomes the hero figure.
Remember BP’s CEO Tony Hayward, who uttered, “I want my life back.” That line caused him to be fired as CEO.
Argument 2: The PR Person Should Always Be the Spokesperson
The public relations person is an excellent choice as spokesperson in the first hour of the crisis when media might be just arriving, but doesn’t need to be the spokesperson throughout an entire crisis.
The PR person should be on the crisis management team and should serve as leader of the crisis communications team.
A “First Critical Statement” should be in every crisis communications plan. When few facts are known, it allows the PR person to:
1) Acknowledge the crisis
2) Provide basic facts
3) Say something quotable, while promising more information at a future briefing
(For a free First Critical Statement contact gerard@braudcommunications.com)
Argument 3: A Variety of People Should Serve as Spokespeople
My recommendation is that numerous people should be media trained as spokespeople. In a crisis, the PR person should speak during the first hour of the crisis. By the end of the second hour of the crisis, a subject matter expert should serve as spokesperson. If needed, the subject matter expert can remain as spokesperson if the crisis is ongoing. The final news briefing of the day may be the best time to feature the CEO as spokesperson.
Think of your spokesperson selection process the way sports teams operate. You have stars and strong people on the bench, ready to step in as needed.
Media training helps identify your star players and secondary players. Most of all, never let anyone speak without intense training. Media play hardball. Don’t send out an untrained person with little league skills.
About the author: Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC (Jared Bro) is a media training and crisis communications plan expert. He has helped organizations on 5 continents. Braud is the author of Don’t Talk to the Media Until… 29 Secrets You Need to Know Before You Open Your Mouth to a Reporter. www.braudcommunications.com
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Few people read to the end of an article. I have little confidence that you will read to the end of this article, even though the final thought may change your life and career. Every reader makes several judgments throughout each article as to whether they should move on or read on.
What if you began with that thought every time you write?
Would you change the way you write to make it more compelling?
Here are three things that you can do to produce words that resonate with your audiences and increase the chances that your audiences want to either read more or hear more about your topic.
Write Conversationally
Approach everything you write as though it is a script for the greatest speech in the world. Listen to great speeches and study the language and motivational techniques. Notice that the language is conversational. The words in great speeches are usually words that we hear in everyday language, yet they are organized in a way that invokes a call to action or a deep emotion.
Whether you are writing for print or the spoken word, re-think your style to be conversational. No, this isn’t the way you were taught to do it in college. Face it — most colleges taught you to write for a newspaper and that style was created long before we lived in a world with as many information outlets as we have today. This is your permission to rethink your style to match the needs of your audiences.
As you write, hear the voice. Channel the voice of Kennedy, Reagan, King or another great speaker. Consider that sometimes you may write something that looks great in print, but it doesn’t sound good when read aloud and it isn’t comfortable to the ear. Something that sounds good to the ear, and can be spoken with ease, will also look great in print and is easier for your reader to read.
Write Inclusively
After nearly two decades of political correctness and diversity training, we should all realize that these movements are centered on inclusiveness. Corporations and government agencies have spent millions on training programs centered on inclusiveness. Yet these same organizations, and the people who write for them, exclude vast audiences when the writing is filled with institutional jargon and acronyms. A person shouldn’t have to “belong to the club” in order to be able to understand what is written or said.
Junk the jargon and realize there are no prizes for being multi-syllabic. In media training classes I always try to get spokespeople to speak at a sixth, seventh or eighth grade level, because that is the level at which most people comprehend the written and spoken word. To achieve this, you must shun the idea that you are “dumbing things down” and adopt the approach that you are simplifying the information to be inclusive of everyone in your audience.
Vigorously Fight Edits from Non-writers
Many corporations, government agencies and non-profit agencies are lead by left-brain, analytical individuals and seldom by right-brain, creative individuals. Analytical people, such as accountants, engineers, scientists or doctors are each great at their skills, but their proper writing skills are as poor as the creative person’s math skills.
When I’m invited into organizations to help them achieve more effective communications, I always promise the accountants that I won’t try to balance their books if they don’t try to re-write what the public relations team has written. You should instruct the left-brain analytical types that they have permission to correct errors, but that they should respect the professional training of the writer and respect the content and style of what is written. If you really want to get their attention, tell them that every time they change a letter you’ve written, you get to change a number that they have on a spreadsheet. This should cure the problem.
We each have natural skills and gifts. I know my gifts are definitely not in math but are rooted in written and spoken word. Try the above lines where you work. Stand up for yourself. Push back. If someone wants you to re-write something that you’ve written — and you know it is good and they want to clutter it with jargon, acronyms, and excessive facts and figures — you have an obligation to your craft and your career to push back.
Will there be a big payoff if you implement these three ideas and re-think your writing? Try it and see for yourself. You’ll never know until you give yourself permission to try.
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In crisis management and crisis communication you must manage the rule of thirds, as it relates to your brand and the management of your reputation.
Define the rule of thirds this way:
One third of the audience loves you – and nothing can change that.
One third of the audience hates you – and nothing can change you.
One third of the audience swings like a pendulum and they love or hate you based on what is trending at that moment.
Please see exhibit A: Justin Bieber.
His self-made series of recent crises have eroded his credibility with the middle third.
Do you know parents who have supported their daughters, who love Bieber? Did those parents in some way also think Bieber was a nice guy?
If you had asked them a year ago, they would have said, “He’s a nice kid, he has great God given talent, and his mom seems to be trying to keep him grounded.”
Ask them today, they might say, “Justin Bieber is a spoiled little a**hole.”
Want more proof of how this works?
1) Bieber is officially the butt of an increasing number of jokes. During the Olympics, the trending joke was that the loser of the U.S. versus Canada hockey game had to keep Bieber. Hashtag – that’s funny for us. Hashtag – that’s sad for Bieber.
Our last article focused on the need for public relations experts to be more strategic as they accomplish tactical tasks. You were reminded that the articles you write must result in behavior change. Your Tweets, Facebook posts and videos must also result in change such as better employee productivity, more sales, or a changed behavior in your customers.
Once you have set up your strategic goals for the year, you must fight what we will call, “Emergency News Release Syndrome.”
Symptoms of Emergency News Release Syndrome include:
1) Emails from an executive telling you in the middle of the day that they need an unplanned and unscheduled news release by the end of the day.
2) An executive walking into your office asking you for a news release immediately for something that he or she has known about for weeks, but did not trust you enough to share with you previously.
3) Someone from a random department, that achieved an internal goal, wants you to write a news release to brag about their accomplishment. No one in the outside world, or even outside of their department, cares about it.
Several years ago I worked as a Vice President at Best Buy, which had one of the best processes I have ever seen for dealing with Emergency News Release Syndrome. It was in place before my arrival, so the credit goes to my predecessors.
Best Buy’s communications department had a policy that no news release would be written if the information did not correspond with the strategic objectives of the overall corporation. For example, if a corporate goal was to increase sales, the news release had to contribute to an initiative to increase sales. Also, if someone in IT came rushing to the communications department asking for a news release about a gadget that did nothing to improve sales or productivity, their request was rejected and no release was written. They were told to write a memo and place it on the bulletin board within their department.
Another policy was that there would never be a request for a news release for something that the communications department was kept in the dark about. When the executive leadership held confidential meetings about big, future initiatives, or potentially negative issues, a vice president from communications was brought into these confidential discussions from the beginning.
Both of these approaches worked because the communications team instituted a “Gatekeeper” policy. All requests for news releases had to go to the Gatekeeper. The Gatekeeper and her team would evaluate whether the information contributed to the company’s strategic objectives.
There are two somewhat sarcastic lines I use when presented with an Emergency News Release request:
• Do you want fries and a large coke with that news release?
This references the concept that you are not in PR just to take orders like someone at a fast food restaurant.
• Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
This references the concept that in PR, your day, week, month and year should be planned out. Yes, you must be flexible on days when things are truly beyond anyone’s control, but man-made emergencies that result from poor planning or corporate secrecy are unacceptable.
You should do these things:
1) Set PR objectives annually that are in line with corporate objectives.
2) Appoint a gatekeeper and communicate to all what the PR department’s policies are regarding the gatekeeper system.
3) Push back and stick to your guns when people violate the gatekeeper system.
In short, be a welcome mat for strategically communicating and not a doormat for everyone to wipe their feet on.
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By Gerard Braud
