Wednesday

Honesty Is The Best Policy

I'm learning that when it comes to major problems that occur instantly to an organisation, and PR steps in to help, the ability to "Spin" isn't always the best course of action.

Crisis Management is an area of Public Relations that I have yet to study, however I have read around the subject and come across some basic principals. There seems to be a lot of reference to the ability to "Spin", which I decoded as mostly being very well trained in lying. (Most of the time).

For example the Virgin Rail crash which I mentioned as my highlight of the PR year was one such example of PR crisis management.The crash wasn't the story, the heroic driver was the story. Similarly the recent BA crash at Heathrow imprinted the vision of an amazing pilot gliding an underpowered 200 ton aircraft to a relatively safe landing, rather than a plane crash!

Another thing I've picked up on these types of crisis, is that with the BA crash for example, BA were advised to show exactly what went wrong. Initially I thought this was a disaster move by BA, allowing the public to know which engine failed at which particular moment. Passengers don't want to know what can go wrong.

Or do they? Because say for example they did not provide any information at all. People would become more sceptical about aircraft, they may think up their own ideas of what went wrong and why. They also might think that the pilot was just poor quality raising questions about the person flying the planes in the first place.

So by stripping away the spin and spaff that comes with crisis management they may have saved their business.

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