A presentation on crisis communication I did for a graduate course in the spring 2017 semester.

2. This chapter discusses crisis and risk management, and how to communicate with
the public and media during a crisis. This chapter looked at various crises at
organizations and events such as the ExxonMobil oil spill, the Duke University rape
scandal, the Chilean Mine Rescue, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Case
studies are provided from the Strategic Planning for Public Relations book, as well
as additional resources, such as links to articles about social media, and how the
power of social media has aided public sector agencies in times of crisis.
– University of Alabama football coach Paul “Bear”
Bryant
(Dougherty)

3. • Situation – “Is a set of circumstances facing an organization” (Smith).
• Issue – “Is a situation that presents matters of concern to organizations, what Abe Bakhsheshy of the
University of Utah defines as a trend, and event, a development or a matter in dispute that may affect
an organization” (Smith).
• Issues Management – “Is the process by which an organization tries to anticipate emerging issues and
respond to them before they get out of hand” (Smith).
• Best Practice – “This is the method of documenting and analyzing the behavior of an acknowledged
leader in the field” (Smith).
• Environmental Scanning – “A process of seeking information about events and relationships in a
company’s outside environment, the knowledge of which would assist top management in its task of
charting the company’s future course of action” (Smith).
• Risk Management – “The process of identifying, controlling and minimizing the impact of uncertain
events on an organization” (Smith).
• Crisis Management – “Is the name given to the process by which an organization deals with out-of-
control issues” (Smith).

4. • Exxon – An oil spill happened in Alaska by its freighter Valdez in 1989. This
also included other lawsuits for defrauding companies, as well as
environmental issues.
• Duke University – Many legal problems facing a 2006 rape case at the
university.
• The Chilean Mine Rescue – 33 men were trapped in a copper-gold mine in
Chile. Following a cave-in, the men were able to signal that all were alive a
half-mile below the earth’s surface. However, the government estimated that it
would take four months to rescue them.
• Deepwater Horizon – In 2010, a large oil tanker exploded in the Gulf of
Mexico. 11 men died, and BP CEO Tony Hayward shrugged it off as something
that was not his problem. He faced intense scrutiny for shrugging off the oil
spill as something that he believed he did not have a part in, when in fact, it
was his lack of planning as CEO, that was the cause of the explosion. There
were also other technical factors involved as well.

5. In 1989, Exxon, now ExxonMobil, suffered in the long term for their mishandling of the
Alaska oil spill caused by its freighter the Valdez. The lawsuit in this case lasted for over
ten years, and in 2000, a jury ordered ExxonMobil to pay $3.5 billion for defrauding
Alabama on royalties involving oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico. ExxonMobil also had
other lawsuits as well after the year 2000 (Smith). These included:
• A November 2003 lawsuit, where a jury ordered the company to pay $11.9 billion in
state damages. “Jurors said one reason for the high penalties was that the Alaska
situation showed them that Exxon was a company that could not be trusted and
deserved to be punished” (Smith).
• In 2011, ExxonMobil posted profits of $41 billion, however, the company had been
probed for its political contributions and faced other lawsuits on human rights
violations in Venezuela and pollution at a Texas refinery (Smith).
• “In another case involving a gasoline leak, a Maryland jury in 2011, ordered
ExxonMobil to pay more than $1.5 billion (more than two-thirds of that in punitive
damages), on top of a previous $150 judgement for another case relating to the same
spill. Clearly the company’s reputation makes it easy for juries to exact a price”
(Smith).

6. There were many factors involved in this ”perfect storm” as Smith puts it. The 2006 rape
case at Duke University flooded the media, and it turned into a major public relations crisis.
These were some of the factors in that case:
• Race. A black woman accused three white members of a university lacrosse team of
raping her at a team party (Smith).
• Sex. In addition to the rape charge itself, the woman was an exotic dancer and escort who
had been hired by the team as a stripper (Smith).
• Credibility. The ongoing investigation yielded much confusion and many inconsistencies,
much of this is because the accuser's story kept changing (Smith).
• Media Scrutiny. The district attorney gave at least 70 media interviews. National print
and television media converged on Durham. Even international media covered the case
(Smith).
• Premature Campus Reaction. The university tried to balance the seriousness of the issue,
compassion for the victim, cooperation with police, and support for its students. Looking
back, campus actions left the case open to criticism from all sides. The college forced the
coach’s resignation, canceled the remainder of the team’s season and announced the
suspension of the following season, which was later lifted (Smith).
• Timeline of Events

7. • In 2010, the world watched as 33 men were trapped in a copper-gold mine in Chile. Following the
cave-in, the men had the ability to signal that they were all alive a half-mile below the earth’s
surface. However, the government estimated that it would take four months to rescue them
(Smith). These are some facts:
• The 33 men were trapped underground for 69 days.
• “Communication transparency was key: videos were sent to the surface, including a 40-minute
video recorded on a mini-camera sent from the surface through the emergency shaft” (Smith).
• Shortly before the rescue, the miners were prepped for their encounter with reporters, which
helped them deal with the media attention they were going to receive. The director of the
government rescue program, a former radio journalist, gave an hour-long daily training to the
miners as they neared the end of their entrapment (Smith):
• Be yourself, speak from your heart.
• Use journalists as a way to communicate a positive message to the general public.
• Help the journalists tell your story.
• Don’t become unnerved by a barrage of questions; pick the ones you want to answer.
• The outcome was positive, and avoided who should be blamed, or why government regulations did
not protect the miners (Smith).
• The 2015 movie, The 33, depicts the story of the mine collapse.

8. Out of all the crises listed in this chapter, this was the worst for many reasons, but specially
for the lack of leadership on the part of BP. The company was also lacking any crisis
communication or crisis management plan in their organizational structure as well. These
were some of the problems associated with this oil spill:
• BP CEO Tony Hayward did not take responsibility for the oil spill, he instead stated that
he “wanted his life back.” In the midst of the crisis, Hayward was seen in a yacht race,
which did not make him look good at all in the eyes of the public (Smith).
• Early news releases tried to blame others, which included drillers it hired, owners of the
rig and government regulators. This violated one of the standards of good crisis
communication: “accept responsibility for fixing the problem and don’t get caught up in
laying blame” (Smith).
• BP eventually backed away from laying blame, and began in a crisis management plan,
which was really to ”clean up” the company’s image, which just showed that BP was in
“panic mode.” These included being visible at special events, placing ads on Google, and
donating money to the Dauphin Island Sea Lap, shortly before the organization reported
that dolphin deaths in the gulf were caused by the cold water, and not the oil spill (Smith).
• BP violated a very important rule of crisis management; “imagine the worst thing that
could happen, then prepare for it” (Smith).

9. • This is a journal article on crisis communication and the
Deepwater Horizon oil spill: It is the first download on
Google.
• De Wolf, Daniel and Mohamed Mejri. “Crisis
Communication failures: The BP Case Study.”
International Journal of Advances in Management and
Economics. vol. 2, no. 2. 2013. pp. 48-56.
• https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-
8#q=deepwater+horizon+crisis+communication&*
• An informative video on the mistakes made leading up to
and after the oil spill

10. • Handing a crisis is an essential skill for anyone in business or
government, and since there are more ways to communicate in
the 21st Century, organizations need to train their employees to
react to those crises when they arise through new digital and
social platforms. This could have been a huge benefit to BP,
seeing that the oil spill happened in the digital age, with digital
and social media platforms at their disposal. The following two
slides will illustrate how social media was used during
Hurricane Sandy and the Boston Marathon Bombing.
• Crisis Communications in the 21st Century
• Infographic on how social media is used to help in emergency
situations

11. “Throughout Hurricane Sandy, the public turned to social media for updates and assistance,
and more than ever before, response agencies, organizations and community groups used
social media to organize and direct resources where needed.
Twitter and Facebook were used extensively
by individuals, first responder agencies and
utility companies to relay messages and
information, share evacuation orders and
provide updates on the storm. For example,
the New York Office of Emergency
Management provided hourly updates and
evacuation orders via Twitter, and New
Jersey Gov. Chris Christie relayed updates
about the storm, aid and evacuation orders
via his personal Twitter account.”
– Sara Estes Cohen
Image from Pixabay – Creative Commons
Social Media and Hurricane Sandy

12. “Within 10 minutes of the bombing, Boston
Police Department (BPD) Commissioner
Edward Davis told his department to start
using social media and to let people know
what had occurred. The importance of social
media as a policing tool, in particular Twitter
and Facebook, soon became apparent.
Misinformation, spread by professional
media outlets and social media itself, was
quickly corrected by the BPD. It didn’t take
long for the media to realize that the most
accurate information about the bombing was
coming from the official BPD Twitter
account”
– Tod Newcombe
Social Media and the Boston Marathon
bombing http://www.fox8live.com/story/22029409/soc
ial-medias-role-in-boston-manhunt
Image from:

13. • A crisis can happen at anytime or anywhere, and when it comes to natural
disasters, crisis situations happen without a warning. However, not all crises
happen without warning. Corporations and government agencies can take steps
to build a crisis management plan, and practice it with all levels of their
organization/agency.
• As the Deepwater Horizon oil spill illustrated, BP did not have a crisis
management plan in place, which hurt their reputation in the oil business. On
the other hand, when the miners were rescued after 69 days underground in
Chile, the director of government rescue trained the miners on what to say to the
media, near the end of their entrapment. Most importantly, the talk with
reporters avoided blame, or why government regulations did not protect the
miners.
• A good movie to check out about crisis management, and the lack of preparing
for a crisis, is the 2011 film Margin Call, which is closely centered around the
financial crisis in 2008. Margin Call is a prime example of why corporations need
to prepare for crises, before they start to effect employees, shareholders, and
investors.

14. • Crisis Management in the Public Sector book
• Case study on how social media was used by emergency response
personnel during a Nor'easter in Nashua, NH
• Your Crisis Response Plan: The Ten Effective Elements by Michael
Watkins
• Ready.gov
• This is how Deloitte helps companies prepare for crises
• When Hurricane Sandy struck the Northeast in October 2012,
FEMAAdministrator Craig Fugate was ready to respond with what
FEMA had been working on to respond to the public when an
emergency situation presented itself. That response was social media,
and it was also used by various public safety agencies as well. Read
the full report: Lessons Learned: Social Media and Hurricane Sandy

15. • Cohen, Sara Estes. “Sandy Marked a Shift for Social Media Use in Disasters.”
Emergency Management. http://www.govtech.com/em/disaster/Sandy-Social-
Media-Use-in-Disasters.html. 7 March. 2013. Web. 27. March. 2017.
• Dougherty, Jim. “6 Social Musts from Crisis Communication.” Cision.
http://www.cision.com/us/2015/06/6-social-media-musts-for-crisis-
communication/. 8 June. 2015. Web. 30 March. 2017.
• Newcombe, Tod. “Social Media: Big Lessons from the Boston Marathon
Bombing.” Government Technology. http://www.govtech.com/public-safety/Social-
Media-Big-Lessons-from-the-Boston-Marathon-Bombing.html. 24 September.
2014.
• Smith, Ronald D. Strategic Planning for Public Relations. New York: Routledge,
2013. Print.