Impaired Crisis Communications – FEMA on California Fires
October 27, 2007 by Eric Eggertson
Filed under Marketing
A lot of crisis communications is common sense, applied with a lot of forethought and flexibility once you’re in the middle of a crisis.
That flexibility does not include bending the truth.
The sheer stupidity of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency’s fake news conference about their handling of the California wildfires boggles the mind.
I can just imagine the discussion happening at FEMA. "We want to look like incompetent boobs. Postponing until the media can get here might make us look competent. Let’s destroy any remaining shred of credibility we have by having staffers throw softball questions at Our Glorious Spokesperson, and sending out the video feed. As long as reporters and the public are mentally incompetent, we can pull this off!"
Rule of thumb for communications: If you have to painfully contort yourself to make it look like you’re not trying to deceive people, you’re probably lying.
Note to FEMA: Lying is bad for your image. Don’t lie.
There! We’ve learned many valuable lessons about communications today. Even better, the "don’t lie" rule can apply to everything you do!
Thanks to Neville Hobson for the link. Photo of a fire in Orange County October 23 by Alex Miroshnichenko.
Tags: fema, california, fires, fake, lying, deception, communications, emergency management, news conferences
I am not surprised by FEMA’s failure to give trustworthy and unbiased information. They will continue to recover from their lack of action with Katrina until they show a record of doing things right. Crisis communication can become an extremely long process when such a public organization is being scrutinized. In a completely different pr category, compare this to celebrity downfalls. Their faults are flaunted constantly until there are no more to flaunt. So, FEMA better get their act together and produce some good publicity if they want to get out of the spotlight.