DISASTERS AND THE MEDIA Managing crisis communications DISASTERS AND THE MEDIA Managing crisis communications

Edited by SHIRLEY HARRISON

Foreword by George Howarth

palgrave macmillan Foreword © George Howarth 1999 Chapters 3 and 15 © Louis Munn 1999 Chapters 6 and 7 © John Jefferson 1999 Chapter 13 © Peter Hayes 1999 All other material © Shirley Harrison 1999 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 15t edition 1999 * All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, ECl N 8TS Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in , company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin's Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-14642-0 ISBN 978-1-349-14640-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-14640-6

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. For Rob with love and gratitude

v CONTENTS

List of Tables IX

List of Figures IX

List of Exhibits IX

Foreword by Ge01ge Howarth Xl

Preface xiii

Notes on the Contributors XVI

PART I: PERSPECTIVES 1 1 The Context Peter Young 7 2 Issues 5 hirlry Hamson 17

PART II: CRISIS, EMERGENCY AND DISASTER 33 3 Television News Clive Ferguson 36 4 The National Crisis Peter Whitbread 46 5 The Local News John Jefferson 55 6 The Local Crisis John Jefferson 70

V11 viii

7 Communicating in an International Emergency Tom Hardie-For!Jth 86 8 Civil Emergencies and the Media Michael Granat! 101

PART III: THE HIU~BOROUGH DISASTER 119 9 A at the Heart of the Hillsborough Tragedy AIfGreen 127 10 A Tale of Two Cities: Liverpool Paddy Marley 146 11 A Tale of Two Cities: Shirley Hamson 159 12 The Management of an Organisation in Crisis Peter Ht!Yes 173

PART IV: LEARNING THE LESSONS 185 13 Training and Rehearsal Peter Whitbread 189 14 Media Liaison: Lessons from the Front Une Shirley Hamson 203 15 Postscript Shirley Hamson 209

Appendix 1: The Emergency Planning College 215

Appendix 2: The Central Office of Information Network 217

References 219

Further Reading 221

Index 229 1X

LIST OF TABLES 1 Disasters of the 1980s 4 2 Disasters 24-31 May 1995 34 3 Differences between routine emergencies and disasters 47 4 Plane crash: timetable of events 68 5 Factory fire: timetable of events 82 6 Kurdish uprising and Operation Safe Haven 88

LIST OF FIGURES 1 The planning cycle 22 2 : special Sunday edition 131 3 Liverpool Echo 19 April 135 4 Liverpool Echo 21 April 137 5 Liverpool Echo 22 April 139 6 Interlink 154 7 Appeal logo 163 8 Sheffield Star 22 April 165

LIST OF EXHIBITS 1 The unexpected adviser 103

2 Ou~ of sight, out of mind 105 3 Bashing the phones 107 4 Government contact 111 5 With permission Madam Speaker ... 112 6 Two disasters - hundreds of questions 115 7 Report on Exercise Malign Element 190 FOREWORD

Disasters. crises and emergencies can strike suddenly and unexpectedly. anywhere and at any time. The causes may be sudden and unpredictable. One factor. however. is certain. The news media will be close behind.

Many agencies have a part in dealing with disaster and its aftermath. The emergency services. voluntary organisations. hospitals. local authorities. central government departments and companies may all be involved. But the media are always major players. for good or ill. In the prOvision of information to the public. they can be an invaluable ally.

This book draws on the experience of experts to disseminate good practice in dealing with the media and public information at a time of disaster. Lessons which have been learned - by the media. the emergency services. local authorities and others - from the Hillsborough disaster and the Dunblane tragedy are presented here with the aim of t.mproving relations between the media and organisations concerned with disaster. With advanced planning and a better understanding of each other's role. the response to a disaster can be improved. and the trauma caused to those caught up in the process can be reduced.

I commend this book to you.

George Howarth Permanent Under Secretary of State Home Offlce

Xl PREFACE

The subject matter Crisis management is of increasing importance to organisations. In a time of single-issue pressure groups, footloose consumers and tactical voters, no body in either the public or the private sector can afford to neglect preparation for dealing with the crises, disasters and emergencies in which it may become embroiled. Hence this book will be of interest to all those concerned with the management of organisations. Crises, disasters and emergencies are, and always have been, newsworthy. The stereotypical Shock! Horror! headline has become shorthand for disaster reporting, which sells more papers. Those in the media, or wanting to be, will find contributors in this book giving the view from the studio, the news-room and behind the camera. The potential for misinformation in crises and disasters is immense. Just at the time when good communication is vital, it falls apart. Hence professional communicators - those responsible for public relations and the provision of public information - will be interested in the insights offered in this book.

You - the reader This book is intended primarily for managers and would-be managers in all fields of business and the public sector, who will be able to make practical use of the chapters demonstrating good practice in a number of fields. Those working in the media, in the emergency services and in public policy areas will find their experiences reflected in this book and will also find the extended case study on the Hillsborough disaster to be of value for the lessons it provides. Management, business, media, communication and public relations specialists will benefit additionally from studying the issues raised in Part I of the book. In the current climate, which is, in my view rightly, holding organisations more to account for their behaviour, reputations will be earned and kept on the basis of that

xiii XlV Preface behaviour. At a time of crisis or disaster, organisational behaviour is under the spotlight. The book should also prove useful as supplementary reading for those studying relevant subjects: management and business, journalism and media studies, public relations and corporate communications, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

The book This book aims to help managers and potential managers to understand the importance of planning for crisis management, by raising awareness of the effect of disasters and crises on the organisations concerned, their stakeholders, the media and the public at large. It aims to improve the relationship between the media and those subject to media scrutiny by generating mutual understanding of their needs. Drawing on the experience of practitioners it aims to disseminate good practice. A number of books have been published, mosdy in the United States, which cover related topics in the fields of the media reporting of disasters, crisis public relations and disaster preparedness. Some disasters, such as Lockerbie, Bhopal and the Exxon Valde~ have generated their own literature: an extensive bibliography is provided at the end of this book. However, none of those books takes the approach of bringing together the major players in the drama of a crisis: the organisations affected, the emergency services, public relations professionals and the media. The book is made up of four sections. Part I sets the context and raises some general issues on the theme of communicating at a time of crisis or disaster. Part II looks at relationships between the media and those who are trying to manage the crisis in public relations and public information terms. It explains how the different media work, what their needs are, and how they can become allies or foes. This section contains a number of case studies, each contributed by an expert in his or her field, which clearly explain how a variety of crises and disasters were managed by the organisations concerned, and how they were reported by the media. Preface xv

Part III is an extended case study of the Hillsborough disaster, taking a candid look at what happened from the perspective of four very different people who were closely involved in the aftermath. The final section includes chapters on the value of training and rehearsal, and some of the hard-won lessons learned on dealing with the media at major disasters in the past, including Dunblane.

Acknowledgements This book would not have been written without the inspiration, support and advice of a large number of people, among them fellow media and public relations professionals, emergency planners, colleagues in the academic world and those whose research I have supervised. There are too many to list here - but they know who they are. Between them they demonstrated the need, gave me ideas, provided material, helped me to ftnd things out, and acted as a sounding board for my thoughts. To them all - thank you. Thanks also to the Emergency Planning College, and to the respective editors of the Sheffteld Star and the Liverpool Echo for permission to reproduce copyright material. I must single out a few people for special thanks. My ineptitude as an editor has been covered up by the skill of the contributors, who have made the writing of this book a social pleasure as well as an intellectual endeavour: Clive Ferguson, Mike Granatt, Alf Green, Tom Hardie-Forsyth, Peter Hayes, John Jefferson, Paddy Marley, Peter Whitbread (and Denise Vaughan), and Peter Young. Thanks also to George Howarth for contributing the Foreword; to Alan Underwood, who brought many of us together in the ftrst place; to Ian Hampton, John Parkinson and Tom Picton-Phillipps for their good humour and invaluable help; to Sam Whittaker at Macmillan for her advice and encouragement; and to Jacob Harrison, who patiently waited a long time f~r the computer. Finally, thanks to Rob Harrison, my partner in this as in so many other endeavours, and on whom I can always rely to make everything work, even the software. Shirley Hamson September 1997 NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS

Peter Young After graduating from Gonville and Cmus College, Cambridge, Peter Young worked in public relations before becoming an independent writer in 1976. He has written articles on computers, communications and management subjects; and business histories, including the centenary history of Standard Telephones and Cables, Power of Speech (1983) and Mutuality, The Story of the UK P & I Club (1995). He is currently researching the history of the insurance company General Accident. Disasters: focusing on management responsibility was published in 1993 by the Herald Charitable Trust.

Shirley Harrison Shirley Harrison has worked for 20 years in the communications industry and is a member of the National Union of Journalists, an active member of the Institute of Public Relations (sitting on its Local Government Group Management Committee) and a former in-house director of public relations. She lectures widely at undergraduate, postgraduate and professional level, while continuing to work as an independent researcher and consultant. She is the author of the standard text Public Relations: An Introduction (1995) and has had published numerous chapters and journal articles on public policy, business ethics, corporate communications and crisis management.

Clive Ferguson As Home Assignment Editor for BBC TV news, Clive Ferguson deploys crews, correspondents and resources on both diary and breaking stories. Having graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, he began working for the BBC in , on radio and television news. He produced and presented the local programme Scene around Six before moving in 1981 to London as a reporter for television news. He covered military coups, the Falklands War (from

XV! Notes on the Contributors XV11

Buenos Aires), disasters, emergencies, crashes and sieges from all over the globe before taking up his present position in 1990.

Peter Whitbread Peter Whitbread has spent most of his career within the Government Information Service, working in press, exhibitions and displays and a variety of management roles including training. In his post as director of the Central Office of Information for the south west region he deals with all chief emergency planning officers in the region and has attended many emergency exercises. He has also worked for the Employment Service, the Training, Enterprise and Education Directorate, Health and Safety Executive and ACAS.

John Jefferson John Jefferson began his journalistic career on the Bridlington Free Press and Scarborough Evening News before joining Thomson in the north east. His BBC career as a reporter and producer took him to BBC Radios Durham, Teesside and Carlisle and Radio 4's Today programme. He was programme organiser at Radio Humberside before launching Radio York as station manager. He was managing editor of BBC Radio Leeds for six years and was a member of the BBC's lO-year strategy team before retiring in 1996.

Tom Hardie-Forsyth Now a course director at the Emergency Planning College, Tom Hardie-Forsyth originally trained as a marine communications officer and electronics engineer. He was Military Liaison Officer to the Foreign Office Overseas Development Administration's Response Team during Operation Safe Haven in northern Iraq in 1991.

Michael Granatt Michael Granatt is Director, Communication, at the Home Office. He has held equivalent posts at the Departments of Environment and Energy, and the Metropolitan Police. His experience, on which he has lectured widely, includes the Marchioness disaster, Piper Alpha, the xviii Notes on the Contributors hurricane of October 1987, and Chernobyl. He is Director of the Government Infonnation Service.

Alf Green Alf Green spent 50 years with regional newspapers until his retirement as news editor of the Liverpool Echo in 1993. In that time he covered a number of major disasters, ranging from Aberfan to the Heysel and Hillsborough Stadium disasters. He was awarded the MBE in 1994 for his services to journalism.

Paddy Marley Paddy Marley, now retired, worked for Liverpool City Council for more than 30 years. In 1985 he became assistant director (administration) in the social services department where he was responsible for all personnel, ftnance, transport and general administration. This appointment led to his close involvement in Liverpool Council's response to the Hillsborough tragedy.

Peter Hayes Peter Hayes has a law degree, a master's degree in the study of organisations and was awarded the Queen's Police Medal for his work in improving the organisational health and welfare facilities available to the police. He was a police offtcer for 36 years and retired as Deputy Chief Constable of Police in 1993. The majority of his police experience was operational and he was involved with a number of major incidents, including the Hillsborough disaster.