When news of the world's first surviving octuplets was first announced Dec. 20 by Texas Children's Hospital (TCH) in Houston, the hospital had about two weeks to prepare itself for a global media deluge. From the beginning, its top brass - including executive management, physicians, PR and security - set this communications agenda: everything the hospital does and says will be based on providing outstanding care to the Chukwu family, says Philip Caudill, TCH's VP of marketing and PR. This meant keeping the media at bay until it was medically safe for the family to talk and making sure the coverage didn't stray from the medical status of the babies.
A medical event of this magnitude requires quick-thinking, fast team-building and multi-tasking, but it also requires not being too narrowly focused on following your plan to the letter. For TCH, the communications plan focused on:
- preparing the Chukwu family for the incredible media attention,
- media coaching at least three physicians, the CEO and other spokespeople;
- working with St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital's PR department (where the mother was transferred from) on a coordinated media relations effort;
- media role-playing that involved developing possible news scenarios and crafting responses for visual, audio and print reporters; and
- creating a command center for press conferences.
Family Wishes First
When a medical event as phenomenal as the birth of octuplets occurs, the media's appetite for interviews and pictures is overwhelming and should be controlled with ground rules. To respect Nkem Chukwu's request of no baby pictures, Caudill used a "pool concept" for the media allowing a group of news photographers to shoot outside of the nursery, but definitely not in it. This approach was also used in capturing the visuals needed for the hospital's B-roll videos sent to TV stations.
In prepping the family for the impending media tidal wave, Caudill says it helped to be familiar with the family's Nigerian tribe and culture. Initially the mother was too exhausted to go through any media role-playing, so Caudill worked with Iyke Louis Udobi, Nkem Chukwu's husband, and his brothers on rigorous Q&A sessions before the first press conference.
In the Iowa septuplet case (November 1997), honoring the family's privacy was essential to gaining their trust and eventual cooperation with the media.
In this case, the story broke three weeks before the McCaughey septuplets were delivered and although the mother had been media-prepped, a week before she gave birth she refused to conduct any media interviews and asked that the hospital discontinue its press briefings, says Mieka Rustand, Iowa Methodist's media relations manager. During this time, reporters filed stories on the septuplets using third-party experts and other medical sources.
Web Eases the Pressure
The Web is an invaluable information tool for managing worldwide media attention. Web traffic to Iowa Methodist's Web site (http://www.his.desmoines.org) surged when the septuplet case was in full swing, generating 25,000 hits daily up from an average 250 hits daily. The Web site posted news releases (updated daily), photos of the septuplets and profiles of the physicians involved in their care.
TCH's Web site traffic shot up 1,200 percent to 900,000 hits during the November-December time frame when the news of the octuplets broke. The Web site (http://www.texaschildrens.org) continues to post daily updates on the condition of the surviving seven babies (the smallest infant died Dec. 27), easing the pressure on the PR department to answer media calls about the babies' health status.
Hotlines are also a necessity in responding to the massive number of inquiries from the media and the general public these cases generate. The Iowa Methodist hotline for septuplet inquiries received more than 2,000 phone calls, says Rustand. And TCH, which set up six incoming phone lines and four unpublished outgoing lines for inquiries, fields hundreds of calls a day.
(TCH, Philip Caudill, 713/770-2323; IMMC, Mieka Rustand, 515/241-6168)