I’m not sure how more plain to make the point, but I’ll try again anyway: The general rules of crisis management are still valid irrespective of the above myths. These are not intended as recommendations or points of advice but rather assumptions to consider before following the “rules.”

As I indicated to Ike on Twitter, in my day job I’ve been proven wrong more often than not when suggesting to tow the PR party line in responding to a crisis situation (in addition to the examples I listed in the post); hence, this post. The ‘rules’ are fine perhaps in most cases. The point of this post is to suggest that sticking to them, or recommending them, is done at one’s own peril if other courses of action aren’t also considered and the ‘rules’ aren’t looked at with a critical eye.

b

Challenging assumptions is fine. Throwing out tried-and-true tactics at least as points for consideration is dumb. I would ALWAYS start out by asking, “Is this an instance where simply telling the truth quickly, professionally and accurately will serve our interests?”

By the way, none of this is intended to placate media. The media are not your friends in a crisis. They thrive on conflict. But you do want to maintain as positive an image as possible, avoid the embedding of symbols associated with your organization produced by the crisis (think dead oil-soaked birds as a symbol for the Exxon Valdez), and survive the crisis as quickly as possible.

I recently had a local television reporter suggest that my response of “no comment” and unwillingness to immediately appear on camera to respond to unfounded allegations for a client “made us look bad”. When I inquired how those actions positioned us in such a light, her response was “you’re a professional…you should know”.

Needless to say, bullying by sensational-seeking media is a tactic that I believe has become more prominent as honest journalism has often been replaced by the desire to make an immediate deadline – when in fact, the entire scope of the crisis may not have been investigated.

Your points here are perfectly right. Thanks for offering them to us all.

Agree completely with your first four paragraphs and case-point reasons why I don’t opine on other’s crises.

However, be careful with myth/fact reasoning on the rest. I think what you mean to say is “belief/challenge” because many of the “myths” you present above may fully apply to an individual/unique crisis.