Media and Crisis Issues

We have entered into a very unique era where the media has a huge amount of power over how different events are viewed by the public. In the past, there was a considerable lag time between when an event occurred and when the public learned about it. This was because it took time for the media to get the information about the incident, it took more time to format and publish the information and then it took additional time to distribute the printed media to the public. Today all of these steps occur almost in real time. (Fink, 2002, pg. 92). This means that the media is able to present the public with information about an incident as it occurs. This reduces the amount of prep time corporations and individuals have to react to a crisis and shape their response before the media goes live with their coverage. However, in order to be an effective manager you need to be pre-positioned to take advantage of the media's communication capabilities and ability to shape public opinion, other wise it will become one of your worst enemies.

Uncontrolled Media Involvement

There are two different paths to take when it comes to the media and dealing with a crisis. The first path is to allow the media to run with whatever information they can gather about the situation unchecked, and the second path is to take control of the media's flow of information. While it requires the least amount of effort on your part initially, taking the first path can be the most detrimental to your company's interest during a crisis situation.