Crisis Management Theories and Practice Reflection

In preparing for this particular class I realized that the books I read such as Strategic Communications Management :Making Public Relations Work and Handbook of Public Relations outlined that planning is the key for effective crisis management. I agree with this to some extent but sometimes I think that planning can help only to a point. An article by Claire Murphy in PR week illustrated this about the 2005 July bombings .This crisis brought communications teams challenges they could never have foreseen. Chief among these was the almost immediate, and sometimes overwhelming, quantity of so-called 'citizen reporting'. With a public hungry for news, blogs with eyewitness reports – and wild conspiracy theories – became almost as popular as output from the major broadcasters. For PROs battling to minimise panic and misinformation it was a distraction they did not need.
This supports the point that as PR practitioners we have to bear in mind new media when setting up a crisis management programme.
An interesting point that I gained from the lecture is dealing with the media in a crisis is similar to a practitioner’s daily duties since questions will be based on who, what, where, when and how.
The crisis management exercise was very useful; I realized that a crisis might not only affect one organisation. So depending on who the issue affects that organisation might have to respond to different groups. It thus has to tailor the messages to cater for the needs of that particular audience. Also in the early stages of a crisis when little is known by the organisation its best to release press releases with factual information.