Category: crisis communications

Friday Five: Virginia Tech

Note: This is not the typical Friday Five. That is, this post is not formatted in typical fashion. There are not five interesting links in a bulleted list below. After what happened at Virginia Tech on Thursday, I don’t even want to think about bullets. Not even on a blog. – AC

Thursday’s shooting incident at Virginia Tech, in which a campus police officer was killed by a gunman, brought thoughts of “not again” to the minds of many in the higher ed community. Comparisons to the April 2007 massacre on that campus were unavoidable for many of us as we watched the situation unfold from afar on our Twitter streams and other social networks.

“That campus just can’t catch a break,” was one statement I read from a higher ed colleague on another campus. As though shooting incidents at Virginia Tech were commonplace, or that the two incidents, separated by more than 4 1/2 years, were somehow related.

I guess that’s how our minds work. We tend to look for patterns or trends, even in the absence of no patterns or trends. One Washington Post columnist this morning even called Thursday’s incident evidence of an “unshakeable curse” for the campus.

A little perspective, please?

Yes, the murder of Virginia Tech police officer Deriek W. Crouse is sickening and heartbreaking. There is no doubt. He was only 39, and he left behind a wife, five children and stepchildren, and many, many friends and loved ones. But to connect Thursday’s incident to the 2007 massacre of 32 people is more than unfair. It is unfair to Virginia Tech, to Officer Crouse and to the families of those 32 who died in 2007.

* * *

Today, many of us began our mornings by scanning media reports and analyses to see what lessons we can draw from Thursday’s incident. The big question on our minds — Did Virginia Tech’s mass notification warning system work? — seems to have been answered. It did. Thank goodness, it did.

The incident was “a test like no other” of the campus’s new emergency alert system, as the Chronicle of Higher Education reported this morning. (Thanks to Karine Joly for pointing this out to me this morning.)

And yet, I worry about our campuses and the false sense of security many of us have, post-Virginia Tech massacre, that a mass notification system and “secure in place” measures will protect us from someone who is intent on doing harm.

What PR won’t fix

In light of everything that has transpired at Penn State these past few days — with the child sex-abuse scandal, the resignation of the president, the firing of football coach Joe Paterno and the students rallying, then rioting, in support of the ousted coach — now would be a good time for public relations folks in higher ed to remind their bosses about the value of PR during times of crisis.

It’s also a good time to think about what PR can’t fix.

The Public Relations Society of America was on it with this timely post: Public Relations Won’t Fix Penn State’s Crisis. (I owe Joe Bonner [@bonnerj] a thanks for tweeting the link last night.) The PRSA post came out before last night’s big announcements at Penn State, but the message is still relevant.

It’s time we stop describing gross managerial missteps, operational failures, lying, cheating, fraud and, in this case, systematic legal and moral failings as public relations (insert “disaster,” “nightmare” or “debacle”). Frankly, a public relations disaster is trying to set the Guinness Record for the world’s largest Popsicle on a hot summer day.

Anyone who thinks public relations can be counted on to “sweep up after the parade” and serve in the role of savior for something as tragic and awful as the recent events at Penn State is fooling themselves. In the immortal words of Arthur W. Page, public relations is 90 percent what you do, and only 10 percent what you say.

There’s very little a public relations professional could say that would fix this mess.

Public relations is not a whitewash to cover up ethical failure. That’s an important message for campus administrators to hear from those of us who serve as their public relations advisors.