Executives can protect their companies and their reputations by learning a set of skills to handle media queries during a crisis.

Tips outlined include:

• How to develop a company media policy 
• The value of developing key message points
• The process of identifying and working with a spokesperson
• The importance of setting a time limit for interviews 
• The caveat: Never say anything “off the record”

Suddenly, as quickly as your eyes scan the words on this page, the unexpected happens at your company. A crisis strikes. Soon, reporters begin calling with questions. Are you prepared?

Unfortunately, many companies fail to develop adequate crisis-communications plans. They watch their stock prices drop and reputations shatter as streams of news articles convey a negative picture.
Ultimately, they’re risking their most priceless asset: reputation.

As Warren Buffett said, “If you lose dollars for the firm, I will be understanding. If you lose reputation for the firm, I will be ruthless.”

In this issue of Connections, we’ll discuss ways companies and executives can prepare to handle media relations following a crisis and emerge successfully.

Alexis Muellner, managing editor of The Business Journal Serving South Florida, shares his thoughts on how companies should work with the media. In this article, Alexis explains why reporters consider it important to cover crises and discusses the best and worst things companies can do while working with the media. Alexis has spent many years covering high-profile crises in South Florida.

Muellner recently discussed crisis coverage in a discussion with Jodi Paradise, an account supervisor at Thorp & Company.

Some of Muellner’s thoughts include:

• “We, in the business press, cover crises in part because conflict drives the news business and because we want to be watchdogs of business. We owe it to our readers to keep an eye where we can on corporate greed, or take an investor-rights point of view.”
•  “The phrase ‘no comment’ raises a 42-foot-tall red flag. It’s also a way to almost guarantee that we will keep after the story.”
•  “Public-relations firms are helpful when they provide access to their clients, even under our often really inconsiderate (on our part, sorry but that’s the way it is) deadlines.”

Click on this link to read more about Alexis Muellner’s perspective:
Q&A with Alexis Muellner

When unexpected crises hit a company, executives often find themselves rudderless in a monsoon of media calls. Without knowing how to get the company’s story across, the executives can damage their company’s reputation.

• “The savviest chief executive in the world often falls victim to a kind of paralysis when a crisis strikes,” says Steven Fink, author of Crisis Management: Planning for the Inevitable. “Executives often bury their heads in the sand and refuse to communicate. But adopting a bunker mentality is always to their own detriment.”
• The goal during a crisis is to avoid a mushrooming of repetitive articles about it. The more headlines about a crisis, the more stamped it becomes in the public’s mind and the more momentum it gains.
• “You shouldn’t say anything [in the presence of a reporter] that you don't want to read in a newspaper or see on the tube,” writes David Snell in his book How to Succeed in Media Interviews When Mike Wallace Comes Calling.

Click on the following links to read recent news articles about corporate crisis communications:

• American Medical News, “Disaster plan can safeguard your practice, records,” Julie Jacob, October 22, 2001.
• Media Relations Insider, “Practicing Due Diligence: Three ways to prepare for bankruptcy and bad news announcements,”April 2002.

The events of 2001 reminded many businesses of the importance of having comprehensive crisis-management plans and media policies.

Evergreen Re Inc., a reinsurance brokerage and healthcare-consulting firm with clients nationwide, asked Thorp & Company to design a crisis plan to help it prepare for unexpected emergencies. It also asked Thorp & Company to develop a hurricane plan to address the needs of its staff, clients, partners and the media. Evergreen Re successfully implemented this plan during a recent hurricane warning.

After Gerald Stevens’ executives chose to file bankruptcy and attempt reorganization, communicating to a large group of wary vendors and employees while managing the media impact during a short timeframe were the company’s primary challenges. Here you can learn how Thorp & Company helped the flower and gift retailer manage its crisis communications.

Click on this link to learn more:
Gerald Stevens Manages Communications Pertaining to Bankruptcy Reorganization

While The Miami Herald Publishing Company’s flagship publications, The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, were leading the national and international coverage of the Elian Gonzalez situation in 1999, we saw an opportunity for the newspapers and their staff to be positioned as the best barometers of the city and its mood.

Thorp & Company assisted The Miami Herald by obtaining visibility for its breaking news coverage and positioning editors and journalists as commentators on the cultural nuances of the issues in Miami. The journalists helped put the issues into perspective for the nation.

For more information, click on this link for more information:
The Miami Herald Journalists Become National Spokespersons During Elián Gonzalez Situation