How Communicators Should Navigate in an Era of Constant Crisis

President Donald Trump fired Rex Tillerson the morning of Tuesday, March 13, a few hours before I moderated a SXSW panel discussing “Communicating in an Era of Constant Crisis.” Tillerson’s firing was both poetic timing and merely another data point for our dialogue centered on how communicators should navigate a news cycle of perpetual breaking news.

I was joined by Joe Lockhart, formerly of the NFL, Facebook, Glover Park Group and the White House; Daniel Lippman, reporter for POLITICO and co-author of POLITICO PLAYBOOK; and Tim Miller of Definers Public Affairs, Crooked Media and the Jeb! Bush 2016 campaign. The three of them offered opposing views on the role of media, the role of communicators and how social media plays into our daily lives. Here are a few of the comments that stood out to me:

Apologies still count, perhaps more than ever.

“So many crises can be avoided by a company apologizing, authentically. You don’t have to do a full page advertisement to say sorry. Just say it, and mean it. CEO’s don’t want to apologize or acknowledge because they don’t want to make the story worse. Journalists are going to go after companies that don’t acknowledge crises.” — Lippman

“A great corporate apology is authentic. Where companies mess up is by half-assing it, and giving half apologies.” — Miller

Know who you are before a crisis hits.

“The critical thing is understanding your own brand. As a consultant I thought it surprising that many companies didn’t understand that. They had a sense of their customers, but if you don’t understand your own brand, you don’t know what the threat is. They can’t understand what an existential threat to their brand is. If you’re an airline, cancelling 1,000 flights in a day is an operational challenge, not a crisis. But if a plane crashes and lives are lost, customers won’t fly. They won’t trust you. That’s a crisis.” — Lockhart

And that includes Trump tweeting about you.

“A real danger is the risk of getting sucked into the vortex of Donald Trump. Today, many corporation’s biggest concern is that Donald Trump will tweet about them. That’s about the worst thing that can happen when you’re managing a crisis. If he tweets about you, you’re constantly in the news.” — Miller

“That’s where knowing your brand before the crisis hits is important. You shouldn’t be worried about taking a stand.” — Lippman

Build relationships with the press in the quiet time.

“I recommend engaging journalists on the front end, as you go about your day-to-day business. Get to know the reporters on your beat in an off the record fashion. Do coffees and lunches, build those relationships. If you ever do face a crisis situation, having those reporters who know you and trust you will be invaluable.” — Lippman

Fake news isn’t new.

“Some of the fake news phenomenon is overblown. Fake news is intrinsic to human nature. It’s not like fake news is new — It’s the National Enquirer, not The Economist, at the checkout counter. The change is the speed at which fake news moves.” — Miller

Partisan news isn’t going anywhere.

“News is now entertainment and broadcast especially shouldn’t be seen as traditional news. One of my favorite things to do now is turn on the TV at 8 or 9 o’ clock. If you switch between FOX, MSNBC and CNN, you realize people are living in alternate universes. If something is too good as a partisan, you know it’s not true.” — Lockhart

Trump’s actions aren’t seen as a crisis by his voters because they bought into his brand.

“We want everything to be brand new — and it’s not. It goes back to understanding your brand. Why do these ethical things not cause a big stir in D.C. now? The people that voted for Trump didn’t vote for him because of high ethical standards. His voters voted for him for different reasons. So ethics didn’t get into it. The polls showed that people felt he wasn’t ethical or honest. So his base isn’t surprised, or disappointed, when these stories come out.” — Lockhart

It’s our responsibility as adults and parents to teach our kids the difference between news and propaganda.

“When it comes to news, you have to ask whether you want to be entertained or whether you want to be informed. The people who want to be entertained believe the propaganda because it’s fun and funny.” — Lockhart

“Civic engagement is so important right now. We have obligations as citizens regarding fake news and propaganda. We don’t teach media literacy in schools the way we should. We can’t stop technology or roll back time. We need to educate ourselves and our kids and teach them to recognize the difference.” — Miller