This is a difficult question for me, since most of the companies I have worked for have not had communications departments. I also have never been directly involved in any form of media relations. The closest experience to this, which I have personally witnessed, is with the gas and oil drilling company for whom I previously worked. The company had a pair of people that were supposed to address general issues with the public. They regularly attended meetings, conventions, dinners etc… to represent the company in a positive light. There was not any negative publicity at the time to cause a great deal of concern or to make the company focus more attention on establishing an actual media relations / communications department. Random interviews were done without any real input from a communications professional. This particular company assumed the old view of trying to avoid publicity.
The inner workings of the company were very hush-hush. Employees were told not to divulge information about the company to anyone. The gas and oil industry is a very cut throat business, so employees did not question the do not tell policy. In retrospect the company should have invested in some media research that could have established a connection with a reporter that would spin things in their favor. Shortly before I left the company a television reporter used only certain parts of a conversation with an employee and portrayed the company in a very negative light.
The company then established a very generic website that included a link for constituents to email the company. Unfortunately, this link did not send email to a trained media relations or even a communications professional. A better done website could have provided this company with a sounding board against various media attacks. Other media venues should also have been identified, so appropriate positive contacts would be in place, when and if needed, during media crisis interventions. The company never considered which communications venues might have posed the most benefit or how they compared to others in the industry from a communication’s perspective. In the end the corporate reputation suffered.
Honesty Is Still the Best Policy--
ReplyDeleteIn a day and age where greed and overall incompetence rules much of corporate America it is not too much of a surprise that situations such as these exist. The company failed to cultivate a relationship with media when times were economically good. They were more interested in profits and lacked regard for proper staffing, and suffered accordingly. Now as industry has been struck by incident and a public outcry exists companies are recognizing that positions in public relations are essential. Some may have positioned themselves better by addressing this lack of staffing and support but this all comes at a cost. A company more concerned with profit that also had a hush hush policy towards disclosure of information was bound and determined to shoot themselves in the foot. It is no surprise that they were in this position and failed to cover all of their bases. In the end honesty is still the best policy.