Page 43 - Crisis Communication Practical PR Strategies

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2 Proactive crisis

communication

planning

Plans are useless, but

planning is indispensable…

Nick Leighton (United Arab Emirates)

and Tony Shelton (United States)

Introduction

In this chapter you’ll discover how preparation is the key to success-
fully communicating through a crisis situation. While you can’t control
what the media say and write about the crisis, it is possible – through a
proactive crisis communication plan – to limit possible damage and to
largely manage the news agenda. We lay out who should be involved,
what preparations should be made and how to build the proactive
crisis communication plan. With this plan in place, we provide advice
on how it can be used to maximum advantage.

There’s no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.
Brendan Behan

Don’t believe it! If you don’t think the media have the ability to pull
down, destroy and then regurgitate everything you and your company
stand for, then you clearly have not opened a newspaper. Bad news
sells. It sells newspapers, TV news airtime and click-throughs on web
pages.