Crisis Communication Powerpoint

1. Not all publicity is good:
Managing crises,
scandals, and
reputations

2. Introduction
 Not all publicity is good
 Bad publicity severely damage sports
organizations
 Given the intensity of media coverage, it
is very difficult for sports organizations
to keep issues “confidential”
 Argument that more sports
organizations need to be transparent
and just admit when they have issues

3. Introduction
 Bad publicity ranges from minor
accidents to crises and scandals
 Managing crises and scandals is not
about “cleaning up the mess” quickly
 Managing crises and scandals is a day-
to-day process

4. Crises and Scandals
 The term crisis is used freely and
signifies a range of incidents
 Actions by sports organization leaders to
athletes’ private behavior
 Crisis – “a threat to a system or
organization” (Offe, 1984)
 Crisis suggests that an organization
must undergo significant transformation

5. Crises and Scandals
 In sport, crises range from:
 Sports teams reacting to scandals that
threaten the integrity of the sport
 In sport, crisis means – “a problem that
a club, league, association, or individual
is experiencing, which typically has the
potential to cause a negative impact or
negative publicity”

6. Crises and Scandals
 Scandals threaten status quo and
stability of sport organizations
 Integral feature of contemporary sports
landscape
 Crisis causes disruption without media
coverage
 Scandal is caused by media attention

7. Crises and Scandals
 Crises typically relate to institutional,
systemic and widespread dysfunction

8. Crises and Scandals
 Scandals more often relate to individual
instances of personal impropriety

9. Scandal Criteria
 Social Norms are transgressed
 Widely circulated via the media
 Scandals are attractive to media
 Both crises and scandals can destroy
reputations of individuals and
organizations

10. Scandal Criteria
 Sport scandals always external
 Some try to hid moral transgressions
 Is it better to suppress scandals or is
that unrealistic in today’s media age?

11. Crisis Types
 Internal
 External
 Sporadic
 Systemic

12. Internal Crisis
 Limited to internal workings of
organization
 No impact on public
 Rarely require media management
 For example, sports team recognizes
error in season-ticket holder billing
system

13. External Crisis
 Have impact beyond the organization
 Both public and media interested
 Therefore, require media management
 One becomes public, often out of
organization’s control (however, social
media mitigates this to an extent)
 Example – Athletic Department dealing
with NCAA violations

14. Sporadic Crisis
 Occur without warning, are isolated and
unique
 Usually only dealt with once
 Example – recent terrorism at Boston
Marathon

15. Systemic Crisis
 Systemic crises have been growing and
festering
 Often a result of organizational
mismanagement, cover-up
 Most dangerous for sport organization
 For example – Jerry Sandusky scandal,
PED use in Major League Baseball

16. Management
 Without effective crisis and scandal
management, media management is
difficult
 Must address not the problem, not
simply seek to minimize it
 Sport teams have to be very mindful of
their reputation

17. Management
 Sport organizations must conform to
social norms and expectations
 Must demonstrate that organization and
societal values are aligned
 If public perceives distance between the
two to be small, damage from crisis and
scandal is likely to be minimal

18. Management
 However, if difference is perceived to be
great, crisis and scandal amplify
 Actions of sports organizations = actions
of athletes, coaches, administrators

19. Crisis Communication
Strategies
 When a crisis or scandal occurs, it
threatens the reputation of the sports
organization
 Sports Organizations enact image repair
to minimize the damage to the
organization and try and put the
organization back into a favorable
position with the public

20. Crisis Communication
Strategies
 There a variety of strategies that can be
called upon when enacting image repair
 Challenge is to find the find strategy that
matches the situation

21. Denial
 Consists of two types:
 Simple Denial – denying any
wrongdoing
 Shifting the Blame – Arguing that
someone/something else is responsible
for offensive act/transgression

22. Denial
 Example:
 Major League
Baseball player
Ryan Braun denying
he took performance
enhancing drugs
(PEDs) after a
positive drug test

23. Evade Responsibility
 Consists of four types:
 Provocation – action was caused by
someone/something else inciting the
accused
 Defeasibility – action was caused due to
ignorance
 Accident – action was not intentional
 Good Intentions – Person had well-
reasoned motives for committing act

24. Evade Responsibility
 Example:
 In a press conference
discussing allegations
of taking performance
enhancing drugs,
Major League
Baseball pitcher
Roger Clemens
acknowledged he did
not know what he was
putting into his body

25. Reducing Offensiveness
 Consists of six types:
 Bolstering – Emphasizing positive
characteristics of accused
 Minimization – downplaying the
significance of act
 Differentiation – compares the act to
other more offensive acts

26. Reducing Offensiveness
 Transcendence – Accused person
discusses how prior, positive actions
outweigh recent offensive act
 Attack Accuser – attacking the person
making allegations against accused
 Compensation – paying victim or making
restitution for actions

27. Reducing Offensiveness
 Example:
 When Lance
Armstrong was
accused of doping
he attacked the
other cyclists who
made the allegations

28. Corrective Action
 Involves public declaration of steps to
ensure that act will not occur again in
the future

29. Corrective Action
 Example:
 Penn State
University
administrators
outlined steps the
school would take to
avoid another
situation like the
Jerry Sandusky
scandal

30. Mortification
 Admitting Guilt and apologizing

31. Mortification
 Example
 Major League
Baseball Player
Josh Hamilton
admitted to an
alcohol relapse in
2012

32. Stonewalling
 Re-directing attention to less significant
issues to divert public focus from the
alleged action

33. Stonewalling
 Example:
 Manti Teo used
stonewalling during
interview with Katie
Couric about fake
girlfriend to avoid
answering questions
about his
involvement in hoax

34. Conclusion
 Sport organizations must be prepared
for scandals and crises
 Media management of these incidents is
essential
 How organizations learn from these is
also very important

35. Conclusion
 Big decision for sports organizations –
admit or deny?
 Generally, trend in sports has been to
deny, then admit when evidence comes
out
 Will this change? Do sports
organizations need to be more
transparent?