A critical event in an organization is considered an incident that causes disruption to the normal continuity of an organization, be it through stopping normal activity, or causing eminent danger to staff or the general work environment hence affecting the activities of an organization.
Such an event can appear through various forms, which may or may not be attributed directly to the organization. These may include; natural disasters i.e. fires, floods, accidents, assaults or threats to staff, and even general insecurity in and out of the workplace. Some of these events are unpredictable in nature, that is sudden and unexpected carrying with them extreme danger which mostly challenge the going concern of the organization.
Critical events also carry with them the risk of loss whether in terms of financial loss, or property or even loss of life. The risk of loss therefore, brings about the sense of need for protection against the occurrence of such event when they do happen. It is vital that the organization finds itself in a position whereby it can manage such critical events in order to minimize loss and avoid future re-occurrences.
The media plays a major role in broadcasting critical events whenever they take place in any organization. They are responsible for the communication to the general public on the latest updates on the happenings of any organization. It is true that the media can make or destroy an organization depending on what they are willing to publicize about a given organization.
Maintaining a good relationship with the media is important in ensuring that our organization enjoys good publicity whenever we are on public scrutiny. This not only boosts our public relations with our clientele but also keeps our public affairs open and free from corruption and wrongdoing.
My organization being the banking sector, there are several events that we consider risky, and therefore fall under the category of ‘critical events’. It is important to note that even after taking all the necessary precautions to ensure that we are well prepared to tackle any arising critical events, technology advancements have made it difficult for us to cub one critical event and that is cyber- crime. Cybercrime simply refers to the use of computers and computer aided software to perform illegal transactions that amount to crime. Cyber thieves who apparently are the greatest challenge to our security normally hack into our systems and access sensitive information which we like to keep private and confidential as per the requirement of our clients, and therefore use this information without our permission.
At this point, we are faced with a critical event whereby a cyber-thief was able to hack his way into our system paralyzing all the Automatic Teller Machine’s transactions thereby gaining access to thousands of client accounts and their personal information, which is classified as highly sensitive. Having alerted the FBI on the serious security breach on our organization, it was inevitable to avoid the media from getting involved in the matter therefore we deemed it best to buy ourselves time before releasing a press release on the matter acknowledging the sensitivity of the issue at hand. The FBI amid investigations hinted to us that our critical event was unique to a previous event that had taken place the previous month whereby a group of hackers attacked the local banks and stealing volumes of customer transaction data.
The FBI advised us to release a press statement acknowledging the attack and to advice our customers not to panic as we were working on the clock to solve the problem. Before going to press, enough speculations had already filled the airwaves with some speculating that probably we had lost billions of customer money to the cyber thief. These allegations were however, cut short as we cleared the air with our press statement. The media handled our event quite positively despite the rumors that spread earlier. We attributed their positive attitude to the fact that since this was not the first case of its kind, therefore they were keener to find out who was behind the crime rather than speculating what actually had happened. It was therefore best for our organization to cooperate fully with the FBI to uphold the integrity of the organization during the pending investigations. We also ensured that all links that could be exploited by the cyber-thief were shut down. The media also assisted us in putting out a word to any of our clients that was experiencing a hard time with our systems to bear with us and accept our sincere apologies. This would go a long way in ensuring our clients understood that we were working on the problem.
During this trying time, our public relations and public affairs department were most efficient and hardworking in ensuring that the great image, name and policy of the organization stood untainted. This was witnessed especially when it came to handling the media, communicating with the media was a core function of the public relations and public affairs department. Interviews were later arranged between top end managers and the media enabling clarification of underlying issues concerning the event.
Social media has revolutionized the business sector via fast and real time communication to a large market instantly. It has therefore been the responsibility of our public relations team and public affairs department to update regularly our customers, investors and public alike on the ongoing happenings concerning the event both on the twitter feed and on our Facebook page. Such communication channels enabled us to observe public reactions towards our event and therefore were vital in decision making on the way forward. The support we received via such channels was a source of encouragement to our staff and the public at large.
We however noted that if at all any of our clients had placed a legal suit against us with respect to the cyber-crime attack, it would have been necessary for us to seek legal consultation before allowing our PR to discuss matters concerning the case outside the court. It is therefore important that the PR restrains from discussing a matter that is already pending in court, as this would lead to serious legal offences.
Overall, it was in the public’s interest to know about the cyber-thief attack and that it was the cause of the delay in processing of transactions during that business week. We found it necessary to inform the public about the event solely because it was their property that was at risk of loss in the first place. That is the first principle we took into consideration in making the decision on whether to keep the public in the dark, or let them know the truth. The necessity of keeping the public away from the truth is a tricky one, but in our organization, the impact of the truth is heavily scrutinized before it is made public. It is true that the public has a right to know the truth, but the question that remains unanswered is; What if the truth will hurt the public and the organization all together? Is it not worth withholding it from the public for its own interest? What if it is not communicated, and the organization finds a silent solution to it, will the public cry foul when it is finally revealed that such truths were held away from it?
Whenever we are preparing a press release, we always strategize to bring out a positive communication to our target group in the public. First of all, we consider the appeal of the press release, we always want the press release to be appealing to the persons we are speaking to. Secondly, the message needs to be direct and precise ensuring that it is easy to understand without further explanation. Finally, the press release should be respectful and humble in nature.
One needs to exclude long explanations that could be easily summarized, a press release also does not need to be ambiguous instead it should be direct to the point. Never include abusive language in a press release.
Various media have their tailor-made ways of reporting press conferences, therefore it is good to have a variety of media reporting on your public speeches, press conferences etcetera so as to avoid risks of being misquoted or false reporting which would be likely be the case if one dealing with one reporter. In order to mitigate them, our organization invited all the media companies and notified them in advance. The media serves a critical position in a critical event. It is advisable to utilize the media to notify the public on the current happenings in the organization at that given time. The media also can be used to gauge the publics’ response towards the happening of the event, this will enable the organization to plan and make vital decisions.
In conclusion, the organization needs the media during such times of critical events, the media is able to alert the public positively by communicating press conferences, interviews and press releases timely and even providing advise where needed to contain any arising situations. The public relations and public affairs also have a task in ensuring that they come up with timely solutions that will ensure the organizations policies are upheld, and that there is constant positive communication between the organization and the customers, investors and public to ensure that the image of the company is upheld. They also are responsible for coming up with solutions/remedies to the already done damage and communicating how the problem is being handled in order for the organization to get back to its feet.
References
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