Favour Egbogun (Nigeria)
Intern, BlackHouse Media (BHM)
It has been established that Public Relations is the art and social science of analysing trends, having the foresight of their consequences, advising organisation leaders, and implementing planned actions that will benefit the organisation and key public. It plays a major role between an organisation and its public as it aims at establishing two-way communication, seeking common ground, and establishing understanding based on truth, and accurate information. Likewise, Public Relations involves the management of problems or issues.
A crisis is any event, issue, occurrence, or situation that could be described as a turning point, for better or for worse for an organisation, individual, country, or continent. Similarly, crises are deemed to be negative changes in security, economic, political, societal, or environmental affairs, especially when they occur abruptly, with little or no warning. In Public Relations, crises are not always unexpected. According to the Research Institute for Crisis Management, only 14% of crises in business worldwide are unexpected. The remaining 86% are low-burning crises of which the organisation is aware but makes no attempt to resolve. However, the prediction and detection of potential crises are the main tasks of Public Relations. Therefore, in PR, crises should be anticipated, and communication plans must be set in place to manage the crisis of individuals, an organisation, or a nation.
Crisis management is the art and process of overcoming difficulties in times of chaos or distortion, and always being prepared to minimise the effects of a crisis (Sapriel, 2003). The services of Public Relations Consultants are very essential and are required at the crisis stage to provide the information the journalists need, to answer their questions, to confirm or refute certain stories they heard, and to generally assist them in doing their job well.
In crisis management, effective communication is a strategy because many crises are averted through effective communication with all relevant publics; employees, customers, shareholders, community leaders, top government officials, and the press. The role of effective communication cannot be discarded because it is in communication that the risks of the crisis can be mitigated. Organisations or individuals that refuse to share truthful and precise information during a crisis generally make the situation worse (Marra, 1998). A golden rule in crisis communication is the phrase, “tell everyone and tell quickly” (Arpan and Pompper, 2003).
The communication stage is highly significant in terms of overcoming crises rapidly. For this purpose, it is expedient during the communication phase, for the crisis team to have a spokesperson to speak anywhere to the public. Rogester (in Nwosu, 1990) recommends that an organisation must establish itself as the single authoritative source of information about what has gone wrong and what steps it is taking to remedy the situation.
Furthermore, in designing messages for the media (e.g., press releases), the use of jargon should be avoided, as well as highly technical language, or ambiguous statements. It is important to remain simple, direct, and concise. Lastly, at the beginning of the crisis, establish an “Emergency Control Centre,” and staff it with senior personnel trained to fulfil specific roles designed to contain and manage the crisis.
In conclusion, a crisis does not come only in the form of drastic changes or chaos; it can also turn into bountiful blessings.