Companies must be fully prepared to communicate effectively with the media during an emergency – otherwise they risk losing their reputations and causing serious damage to their business. This was a key warning delivered at a recent seminar on emergency management, organised by Reliance Security Services, in Swindon.

The importance of taking steps to protect business reputation was emphasised by Sandy Lindsay, PR consultant with Tangerine Public Relations, who argued that: “the only thing more important than communicating effectively with the media in an emergency is preventing injury to human beings. You can insure your factories; you can insure your equipment; you can even insure against the loss of a director… but the one thing you cannot ever insure is your reputation..”

Ms Lindsay defined the greatest risk to business as hazard plus public outrage, and explained that by opening doors and showing that you have nothing to hide, trust can be built with the public, and their outrage quashed. She also outlined a number of things companies can do, when communicating with the public via the media, to diffuse a crisis situation. These included: be the first to break bad news and get ahead of it; openly take the blame; say you are sorry; offer to do something to make the situation better; and genuinely show that you care.

“The trust between industry and the public is small and you need to keep showing that you can be trusted. This means that communicating with the media is vital,” she said, pointing out that companies should train their people to deal with the media and be as ready as possible to communicate in this way in the event of a crisis.

Ms Lindsay also advised companies to be prepared to give out as much information as possible within 30 minutes of the event; use their own industry experts to comment on the incident; provide the media with any required maps, images or other visuals; and, if responsible, to immediately claim that responsibility.

She called on companies to use the media as an intermediary and work with them in a disaster; find ways of turning the crisis into a future opportunity. Never say ‘no comment’ or be unavailable for comment; and never apportion the blame elsewhere. “You should never, ever, lie,” she warned. “If you are found out, you won’t survive.” She also advised companies to treat each press interview as their first; to never ‘go off the record’; and reminded them that they are never off duty. “The best way to handle a crisis is to own it and talk about it – via the media. Ignored people get scared; scared people get angry - then you have a major problem on your hands!"