Every so often, a sea change occurs in our communication world.
Sometimes without us realizing it. We tend to notice major sea change, when its impact makes recognition and understanding unavoidable. But some changes sneak up on us and change our world without us realizing it.
In the FX television series “The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”, the prosecuting attorney’s office was portrayed as confident of their capability to win the case. They had the evidence, the chain of custody, the motive and the method. Yet the series portrays how, through a series of missteps, they lost the case badly.
As I watched the series (binge-watched – all 10 episodes over a single weekend!), I was struck at the lesson for communicators: If we don’t remain aware of the world changing around us we won’t even know the peril we’re in. Instead of watching and learning, we will try to address new issues with the same old strategies and tactics. We’ll end up losing before we even start.
In the show, the prosecution team failed to realize that the defense was launching an unforeseen strategy. The defense team contested neither facts, timeline or evidence. Instead they challenged the veracity of the witnesses and used outside events to cast doubt in the jury’s minds. The prosecution didn’t lose because O.J. was innocent, they lost because they gave away the confidence of the jury. The prosecutors failed to establish a narrative leading to O.J’s guilt for the jury, instead they depended on the facts. The defense did provide a narrative regardless of the facts, and their narrative led the jury to doubt the prosecution’s case.
As expressed in the LA Times review of the series: “The explanation for the phenomenon was addressed in the “Conspiracy Theories” episode when Alan Dershowitz (Evan Handler) instructs his Harvard law class that, “You need to provide a narrative, not just in the courtroom; in the world” before saying, “Look at what the culture is becoming. The media, they want narrative too. But they want it to be entertainment.” It’s a meta moment in a television series filled with them.”
As proof of point, consider that O.J. lost the subsequent civil trial with the same evidence, where a judge, not a jury, rendered the verdict.
Dealing with Sea Change
New tactics that weren’t foreseen by the prosecution decided the ‘trial of the century’. The prosecution didn’t recognize the sea change, to a world where opinions and innuendo could neutralize facts. In the same way, if we don’t adapt to emerging communication realities we will lose our effectiveness. If we don’t recognize the sea changes that impact communication strategy, we’ll expend scarce resources on the wrong actions and lose resources for the right actions. Sea change leads to new strategies and tactics – old ones need to be discarded as relics of another time. We need to recognize our relics – the old ways of doing business we keep using – and address them.
What are today’s response communication relics?
In today’s world some of ‘what we’ve always done’ is fruitless at best and wasteful of scarce resources at worst. Much traditional response communication strategy won’t help us succeed at effective stakeholder communication when we need it the most. Yet response structures tend to enforce and rely on the following relics:
1) The Press Release: Developed in the day when we depended on the Press to multiply our message, the press release gave members of the media key information and statements they could use to write their stories. It’s an anachronism today. The news cycle doesn’t follow media publication schedules, nor do progressive media use content of press releases to generate news stories. Today’s instant demand for the latest information forces media outlets to find and publish instant news. Media will publish or air longer stories when they can, but first they need a flow of information that helps them keep their viewers.
Crafting a press release for distribution wastes time and resources that could be used to disseminate facts and justification of response activities. Better for you to establish a flow of facts, as short as single statements. Give your stakeholders the ‘what’ first; then provide regular releases explaining why Command decisions are made with subsequent actions taken. The media you depend on to multiply your information will be happier and more cooperative if you are giving them the fact-flow they need for relevance.
2) The media packet: Today’s media packet is easily defined as ‘everything they can find online about you’. Response communicators must ensure an online presence of pertinent information, immediately posted for global use:
- What spilled? Post the product MSDS and other safety information or fact sheets.
- Are you using dispersants? Post the dispersant MSDS and any pertinent fact sheets about dispersant use.
- Are you mobilizing SCAT (Shoreline Cleanup and Assessment Technique) Teams? Publish local Ecology agencies’ SCAT fact sheets.
- Do you have equipment deployed? Are you cleaning a specific beach? Post images of it.
- Is Command making critical decisions about sensitive issues? Provide information that supports an understanding of these decisions.
- Questions about your financial capability? Make sure your latest Annual Report is available.
- Questions about your commitment? Post your latest Sustainability Report
3) The Press Conference: Who is going to wait for a scheduled Press Conference to gather information or ask questions? Media don’t have the luxury of waiting for you to tell them what is happening. They need information now. Reporting resources are ever more scarce in the news business; the media outlets most affected by your incident may not even be able to expend news staff time and travel funds to attend your press conference.
Where will you hold the press conference? At Unified Command? Why would any media come to the Command center? Every response plan includes identification of a location for Press Conferences, usually close to Command but not in Command. Planners seem equally concerned with allowing media to get close, yet keeping them away. But nothing ever happens at Unified Command.
The action is all ‘out there’. If you invite media anywhere, they should be invited to visit any location where command activities are underway. The only restriction of media access should be for safety reasons.
Think of responding to an incident that impacts shorelines: Why would media want to come to the command center? The action is on the shore. Instead of Press Conferences, hold Press Briefings, where they’re needed, on a scheduled basis. Use the Press Briefing entirely for the ‘why’. Expect media to have the latest facts, and use the time with them to provide and explain Command perspective.
4) Prime time or drive time interviews: Countless exercise injects include provision of interviews at selected times. There is value in providing sound bites or video footage for media use, but there is no value in providing it only at specific times. Media can’t wait for a quote or image – they need it NOW.
You need to provide a constant source of quotes, images and video. This is one function of the Command location; Open a Media Center at Command facility where media can visit with subject matter experts, assigned information officers or command staff. Keep this center staffed with one or more spokespersons for an extended time, and for heaven’s sakes serve coffee and meals. Treat it as a drop-in center for wayward media. Welcome them with food and conversation – and it is all on-the-record conversation.
5) ‘Off the record’: Off the record doesn’t exist at any level. Remember this with community meetings, agency briefings or elected official briefings (Liaison). Anything you say can and will be used against you. Period. This does NOT mean you don’t talk. It just means you never consider any discussion to be ‘off the record’.
6) The photo pool: The Internet killed the photo pool, and cell phones and drones drove the nails into its coffin. Response communication today must include provision of high quality imagery and video, not by selected media but by trained response personnel. Communication plans and resourcing must include this capacity. YOU are the photo pool!
Don’t yield to sea change and give up the battle for imagery; providing high quality imagery from within the response is a powerful communication advantage. Media will use any images they can get, but they will replace them with better quality and better perspective images, that only response personnel can provide. There is no better source of high quality, in-demand images than a trained photographer can provide from locations only accessible to responders. They will be used, and they will replace the ubiquitous and impersonal distance shots.
7) The flight restriction: Drones. Enough said. The flight restriction may keep piloted aircraft and news helicopters out of a safety zone, but you can’t control drone images and video. This is another major sea change when every study shows the massive impact of video on stakeholder understanding and acceptance.
All the more reason to provide quality imagery and video.
And don’t accede to any suggestion to announce Command’s intention to disable or down drones to neutralize their intrusion. This ‘reasonable’ command impulse is death to Command reputation. Flight restrictions do apply to drones, as well as numerous other regulations for safe flying. But not all drone pilots follow them. Let law enforcement deal with this, and do not comment on it. Do you really want to be known as the people who shot down drones? Or arrested people for flying them?
8) “No comment”: Many organizations coach line staff to defer media questions to an ‘authorized spokesperson’. This is common in responses as well, when Command instructs all physical responders to defer any media questions ‘to Command’ or ‘to the PIO’. The problem with this fourfold:
- The media is on-location. Media want to be where the people are and the action is. They’re not going to leave the people and action to ask someone else, somewhere else, their questions. They will either keep asking until someone talks, or they will report ‘a spokesperson was not available for comment’ – allowing themselves full reign to determine your reputation. If you want response personnel to defer to a spokesperson, the spokesperson needs to be where they are.
- It sounds evasive. Why don’t you want response personnel to talk? Are you trying to hide something? Any deferral requires careful coaching, and it won’t stop additional questions. Better to empower personnel to share specific comments and give them suggestions for how to defer if they really don’t want to talk.
- Someone else will talk. There is always someone who will talk. If not response staff, a bystander will always be willing to become the ‘instant expert’. Instructing people who know something about what is happening to refuse to talk simply ensures that a less knowledgeable and less qualified person can become the voice of the response.
- ‘Your people’ still talk. Even if ‘your people’ don’t talk to the media on location, they still talk. They talk on Twitter, Facebook, across the fence, at dinner, out for drinks. This may be the greatest sea change; every person is now the media, multiplying your message on multiple platforms. You simply are not going to staunch the flow if information, and it will inevitably end up as public comment. Far better to include all responders in the response information flow so they know the big picture of what’s going on, and to provide solid guidance in what to say in response to media inquiries.
How about you?
What response communication relics caused by sea change do you know of? What tactics have you used to be effective in today’s communication world? Share them here!