The Lead

(EXCERPT BEGINS HERE)

Last week, 12 miners died in the sooty bowels of a West Virginia mountain. Their deaths were tragedy enough–a knife in their families' hearts–but an as-yet unknown someone twisted the knife cruelly with the monumental miscommunication that issued from the Sago Mine's rescue command center after the miners' bodies were found. Keeping in mind that no one had a worse week than 13 families in northern West Virginia, January 4 was also a lousy day for journalism and public relations.

The Sago Mine disaster has eclipsed the 1948 "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline in the mass miscommunication hall of shame. After all, in 1948, the only losses were Tom Dewey's ticket to the White House and the Chicago Tribune's pride. In this case, people suffered because someone jumped the gun. We don't know enough yet to judge whether any news organizations deserve to be embarrassed for seizing so readily on what turned out to be horribly wrong information, but seemingly all of them ran the story, which broke on Tuesday night at just about bedtime for morning newspapers around the U.S.

The clearest view we have is that reporters quoted various sources saying the miners were still alive, but apparently no one pressed hard enough to find out how certain the information was. So, out came the news–across all media, not just newspapers. Here in the East, even after the truth surfaced, most newspapers were still on the stands, shouting the embarrassing error all day long.

Whatever the journalistic shortcuts may have been, the sharpest truth is that the problem originated within the International Coal Group's rescue command center at the Sago Mine, not in the confusion outside it.

As of this writing, no one is clear on precisely how the bad information escaped the rescue command center. It was not, apparently, "official" information issued by the mining company–and that is the crux of the problem. Most likely, someone inside the command center heard something they thought was good news and phoned a friend or loved one to tell them. Word spread, church bells rang, spontaneous celebrations spawned misguided media coverage, and the community was set up for a horrible fall.

I'm confident that the individuals responsible are suffering a very personal hell. Let's not pardon them, but let's not pile on, either. I believe they were exhausted people who meant well, but weren't trained to handle the situation.

To honor the lost miners and respect their families, one thing we–anyone in executive or communications management for any organization–should do is look over our own crisis management plans to make certain that we avoid this kind of tragic gaffe.

The International Coal Group was unarguably responsible for every aspect of managing the crisis at the Sago Mine, including communication to the anxious audiences outside the command center. They weren't prepared to handle that responsibility–and they should have been. If they had a crisis management plan, it was probably inadequate on communication. If they had an adequate crisis communication plan, they were inadequately drilled on it.

Drilled? Yes–drilling isn't just something they do in mines. It's what you do, over and over, to train people what their job is in a crisis, not only so they'll know how to do it, but to steady their nerves and sharpen their judgment when the real deal hits. Everyone wants to do the right thing in an emergency, but without training and rehearsal, what you get from even a well–intended team is confusion, lost time, and exacerbation of the crisis.

While employed by Niagara Mohawk Power Company a few years ago, I served on the joint news center team at the Nine Mile Point nuclear power plants, which they owned at the time. The joint news center was our equivalent of the command center at the Sago Mine. We were activated for two actual onsite emergencies during my time there, but we were trained annually and drilled at least twice a year–not just on a tabletop, but actually hauling ourselves and the necessary equipment to the pre-established location and working through emergency scenarios that would drag on for hours. The drills included the plant operators onsite and several dozen people at the news center a few miles away.

It's impossible to imagine and rehearse every possible thing that could go wrong, of course, but here's the good news: when the actual emergencies happened, they were almost boring when compared to our drill scenarios. We were lucky in that regard, but the drills made a huge difference in our skill in handling the real events.

Welcome to Crisis Management 101, condensed version: have a plan, dammit, and drill on it until the cows come home, so everyone knows what they're doing. If that sounds like a luxury, let's ask the execs at International Coal Group what they think of the idea.

What else is there to learn from this case study in crisis management?

What matters most is what's really happening (in the rescue operation in this case), but the anxious crowd outside any crisis has a serious stake in the outcome, so management of communication with them is part and parcel of managing the crisis.
All communication to the public should flow through one clearly designated spokesperson–the higher ranking, the better–and only after it's been vetted thoroughly within the organization. Everyone else on the crisis team needs to know who that person is–and stick to their own job.
The public authorities with jurisdiction need to be onsite, fully briefed, and available to speak for themselves with the media and the public.
This tragedy is a cinch to become classic textbook material for journalism and public relations programs, and it's also a real–time lesson for those of us working in this business today.
How a business can plan for the unplanned

We've all read news stories about workplace violence, financial peccadilloes, cruise ship passengers getting sick en masse, and other delights. Through no fault of your own, you could find yourself not only in a public relations nightmare, but in a crisis that can threaten your company's very survival. How you respond can make all the difference, and the best PR in a crisis starts now, with how you prepare for it operationally.

Marty Nott
PR Services
Buck and Pulleyn