Will your media reputation help during a crisis?

When an organization faces a crisis one of the biggest stresses is managing the media attention that can come with it. Often, the inclination is to “duck and cover” in the hope that the media interest will go away. Of course, staying silent only makes things worse. Just as important as what and how you communicate during a crisis is your communication with media when your organization is not in crisis mode. The reputation of your company or nonprofit will shape how media cover the story and how the public interprets it.

There are a number of aspects to corporate crisis communications. I’ve outlined the basics of creating a plan to cope with crisis before it hits in a previous post.

When it comes specifically to coping with the media attention associated with a crisis, the reputation you’ve cultivated through media relations and other public relations initiatives can help or hurt you at this critical time. If you’ve been responsive to media requests, extended yourself to get information to reporters quickly and treated various outlets equitably, your organization is more likely to weather the storm.

Yes, media strive to be objective, but humans are involved.  If you’ve built a positive relationship with reporters and news outlets, it will likely influence them to cover how you are handling the crisis more favourably. You don’t want the first impression of your company to be that of an organization in crisis. So strive to tell the story and good deeds of your organization on a regular basis.

Also, although it’s counterintuitive when you’re facing a crisis, make an effort to reach out to media before they reach out to you. Initiating media contact sends the message that you are transparent, concerned about getting the facts out and to dealing with the crisis proactively. Again, reporters are more likely to perceive your message positively if you reach out first than if they have to drag a few words out of  you after hounding you to make a comment. Silence leads to suspicion.

Pursuing a media relations program as part of routine business makes sense for a variety of reasons. When it comes to coping with a crisis, it’s like an insurance policy. If you have credibility and positive working relationships with reporters you’re several steps ahead of companies that don’t.

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*photo by Sasa Wolff (Flickr)

Communicators as advocates – Watch your language

If you’re communicating on behalf of your non-profit’s clients and/or stakeholders, you’re often taking on the role of advocate. When this happens, what you say and how you say it takes on increased significance. As an advocate for children and youth who are sexually exploited, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking, and arguing about, language.

For the past several years, I’ve been involved with a group trying to change the way child sexual exploitation is represented in the media. The group is called MAISEY (Media Awareness Initiative about Sexually Exploited Youth).

In a nutshell, this group has been encouraging the media to use the term “child sexual exploitation” rather than terms such as “child/teen prostitute” or worse, “teen hooker.” Why? Because these terms are victim blaming and imply a degree of choice on the part of the child. Other forms of sexual abuse don’t carry the same pejorative meaning (e.g. incest, sexual assault).

Critics of MAISEY have accused the group of arguing over semantics that really don’t have a negative result. Those of us who have worked with youth who are healing from sexual exploitation are keenly aware of the effect these terms have on them. Working through their deep level of shame and self-loathing requires them to be able to redefine what happened to them as abuse rather than it being their fault. No matter the behaviour on the part of the young person, it is wrong for an adult to have sex with a child.

We also know that sexual abuse offenders rationalize their deviant sexual fantasies and actions by telling themselves that their victims either deserve what they get or in reality wanted it to happen. These thoughts are part of what enables them to continue to offend. By using more accurate terms to describe sexual abuse, we avoid reinforcing the offender’s errors in thinking.

MAISEY’s focus is on the media because it is a conduit to our community. We beleive that media content both reflects and shapes our perceptions and attitudes about the world around us.

Many members of the media have done exceptional print and broadcast stories that manage to raise public awareness of the very complex, psychological, environmental and societal components of this massive human tragedy that destroys many young lives.

Award winning journalist Julian Sher, for example, has written extensively on the issue including commentary advocating for a change in language away from the term “child pornography” to “child abuse images”. He points out that the countless photos exhanged by sex offenders over the Net are “crime scene images” not pornography which has the connotation that they are just harmless pictures.

We need to do more, however, to ensure that children who have been sexually victimized are not re-victimized in the media. We need to guard against subtly, and sometimes overtly, blaming the child for his/her own abuse. Let’s stop coverage that emphasizes the “lifestyle” of the young person without providing the context that has placed him/her in harm’s way. When there isn’t the air time or page space necessary to do this, using terms such as “child sexual exploitation” rather than “child prostitution” can provide some context while meeting the often overriding need for brevity.

Is a change in language going to eradicate the sexual abuse of children through prostitution? No. The issue is complex and as a society we are far from placing a priority on the antecedents of abuse such as violence, poverty, addiction, mental health issues and incest, for example. However, perhaps a change in language will make it more difficult for us to discard the victim and the issue.

The bottom line is that the old terms aren’t appropriate/accurate when referring to children. Would we accept labeling someone with a developmental delay or handicap as being a “moron” or “retarded”? At one time these terms were perfectly acceptable. Did changing these terms make a difference with respect to the integration of affected individuals into full community life? I believe it did play a part in our changing perception and was also a reflection of our changing perspective.

Language evolves and as communicators and advocates we must choose our words carefully to ensure that we are representing clients and stakeholders accurately and with respect.