Question

Effective media relations are particularly important during a crisis or an emergency. Do some research on a either a historic crisis situation for an organization or a company, such as the BP Oil Spill, Mattel toy recall, Virginia Tech Tragedy OR any crisis that is currently in the news. Then analyze how well the organization handled its media relations.

Answer 1

It is important to have a strong media connection during the time of crisis to reach out to the world with the correct information. It all the information is correctly provided to all the stakeholders at the correct time, it leads to less backlashing from the end of the public. Strong media relations help the brands to put out to the world the real story and the position of the business post the crisis.

During the BP Oil Spill Crisis, the petroleum brand tried to cover up the mess by giving out different information at their different media platforms. This can be called a case of crisis communication or a communication failure where the company did not try to have strong relations with the media leading to different news going about it across platforms.

Hence, the crux that can be drawn about media relations with companies are:

• The brands should try to mix communication across media if they have the power to control all of them.
• The same and true statements should be given out by the brands.
• The statements should be given out by a top management official in the company.
• Over-communication should never be done by a brand.

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