Crisis Management

How should communicators handle bad facts that they’re called on to clean up? When they’re true, own them, say veteran PR pros.

A typical summertime activity, visiting an amusement park, turned tragic at Adventureland Park in Altoona, Iowa. On July 3, an 11-year-old boy, Michael Jaramillo, died after a group tube on the Raging River ride flipped over, trapping him and his family members underneath. The park’s response could have been more sympathetic.

Whether it’s tennis associations pitted against athletes, NHL hockey teams covering up sexual abuse, the NCAA battling its member universities and athletes, European soccer bosses jousting with fans or organizers of the Tokyo Olympics seemingly ignoring athletes, doctors and the majority of Japanese citizens–the antediluvian approach of these sporting entities to stakeholder communication is inescapable.

A revival of the “Subway tuna” controversy is the cyclical crisis that few PR pros want to see on their plate. Monitoring and dark pages can help, experts say.

What a start to the week for anyone working for Toyota PR. Axios released a report late Sunday (June 27) regarding the car maker’s political donations, which were found to fund 37 donations to Republican election objectors. 

The coronavirus vaccines were supposed to bring an end to the pandemic. Yet vaccine resistance continues to claim a significant portion of the population. Former Porter Novelli president Bill Novelli says communication can work, but it must overcome politics, distrust and misinformation.

While the travel industry is sure to appreciate a spike in sales, it’s also feeling the burden of carrying more passengers while attempting to rehire a workforce that COVID-19-related furloughs and early retirements tore apart.

One of the biggest obstacles to effective crisis management is denial: company managers refuse to believe there is a risk that needs attention.   

Media relations can take a completely different turn when your client or organization becomes the target of media. Hamane Niang, the top official in international basketball, stepped down prior to the release of a New York Times abuse investigation yesterday.

In this dialogue we look at the initial moments of a crisis, when communicators and companies decide, ‘Are we in a crisis? Should we react? When? How?’ Our dialoguers are TV-reporters-turned-crisis-pros Scott Sayres, Honeywell’s director, global corporate communications, crisis, reputation and issues management, and T.J. Winick, SVP, Solomon, McCown & Cence.