Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Yes, we at Third Tuesday Ottawa have been remiss… although I blame Joe and his uncooperative appendix.

But what with work, and trying to find top speakers who were prepared to brave the Ottawa winter, the stars just never seemed to align.

But hey, we’re back! And (he says smugly) the speaker line-up is awesome!

“It seems that almost every day, we hear an announcement of a new social media tool, social network or open standard that the inventors tell us we soon won’t be able to live without. At this month’s Third Tuesday Ottawa, we have a panel of Colin McKay, Ryan Anderson and Brendan Hodgson to lead a discussion of which social media tools are most useful and which are just code looking for a reason to be.”

Hmmm… there could be some very interesting tangents to follow here.

The rest of the deets:

Monday, May 5, 2008 at 6:00 pm

Clocktower Brew Pub
575 Bank Street downstairs
Ottawa , ON K1P 5N4
613-233-7849

And kudos, once again, to our sponsors, CNW Group, who make it possible for us to keep Third Tuesdays as free events for the social media community.

I spoke at an IABC event last night on crisis communications and social media, and it prompted an interesting question (particularly given that many of the audience hailed from government organizations): How do you reconcile the importance of timely communications with the need to communicate in both official languages?

The question was posed by a communications advisor at a prominent federal agency. But it’s also a topic that has arisen several times in discussions with clients around the development of their crisis dark sites.

It’s an important question, as strict adherence to “official language” regulations could impact an organization’s ability to respond quickly to an issue.

Ultimately, my position – based on discussions to-date – is that  stakeholders will forgive uni-lingual communication if the effort is focused on pushing out vital information in as timely and transparent a fashion as possible. What they will not forgive is knowing that you intentionally withheld critical information for the sake of political expedience.

Granted, this deviation from “regulation” would tend to apply more to situations such as accidents or disasters whether man-made or natural, and where risk to health and safety requires rapid communication. Whereas, with a crises of confidence where a few hours spent ensuring communication in both official languages is coordinated, timing might be less of an issue. Likewise, this holds true in situations where you’re communicating more than a few lines or paragraphs that could easily be translated within minutes.

But when you look to how Northern Illinois University was, for example, rapidly updating their site as events of the shooting unfolded (see attached image), would anyone have complained if (and were this a Canadian institution obliged to abide by Official Language laws), they had only communicated in one language? 

Naive, perhaps? You tell me.

Earlier this week, Roy Greenslade at the Guardian summarized a talk given by Carl Bernstein to attendees of the Perugia Journalism Festival. From the perspective of better understanding the motivations of media in times of crisis, and the culture of misinformation that now dominates the information landscape – driven primarily by the web – Bernstein’s insights are powerful reinforcement for those who, like myself, believe that the traditional media is under enormous pressure from a variety of forces – both financial and sociological.

“(Bernstein) talked of consolidation by the conglomerates that ‘makes truth-seeking secondary to making huge profits’. And, given that making any profit all has become increasingly difficult, the task of carrying out good journalism is more difficult than ever before.

Good journalism, (Bernstein) explained, is “a simple matter but difficult to achieve”, namely “trying to obtain the best attainable version of the truth.” And the best way of doing that? “Being a good listener.” And? “Listening to source after source after source”. And? Knocking on doors and wearing out shoe leather.

Bernstein believes that the web is redefining “what is news” and “is taking us back towards what news ought to be.” He agreed that there was also “unchecked crap” in the blogosphere but, overall, his view of the possibilities of online journalism seemed very positive. He liked the “free-for-all, opinionated, noisy, different stuff” that is available on the web.”

Transparency is a term oft-used in the web 2.0 context. Typically, however, it applies to the application of social media by consumers/citizens to impose a previously-unattainable level of transparency on corporate behaviour. Examples are legion – Sleeping Comcast Technicians, battlin’ AOL client service reps, breakable bike locks, leaking toilets on aircraft, astro-turfing – and many more (just check out the Consumerist for the latest juice).

But from the perspective of crisis and issues management, mainstream media are also facing increasing scrutiny (as they should) from the ranks of citizen journalists. Ever since the Dan Rather hullabaloo over reporting of George W. Bush’s war record, otherwise known as Memogate or Rathergate, the impact of bloggers as media watchdogs has only intensified. 

The implications are significant and should continue to be discussed. A recent email exchange purported to be between an activist and a BBC reporter over perceived ”inaccuracies” in a story on climate change offers a fascinating insight into today’s news environment, and raises some interesting questions:

Regardless if the changes made the story more accurate or, in the words of one blogger, ”(morphed) the article’s tenor from dialogue to lecture with a minimum of extorted word processing” (and that’s not the point of this post), should the reporter – for the sake of transparency - have made the changes as a discrete ”update” to the original with an adjusted timestamp, or was he within his rights to make the changes into the existing story without reflecting the fact that the original story had in fact been altered?

Secondly, does this not speak to the importance of including a comments section (as many media outlets now do) on all stories or features in order to allow interested parties to address perceived inaccuracies without injecting their potential bias into the actual story. A less optimal solution, perhaps, but could the journalist not simply have continued the story based on the email exchange that ensued?

In a crisis environment, where media are already under incredible pressure and where the need to be first often overrides the need to be accurate, incidents such as this (assuming that this is an accurate reflection of a real exchange – and I tend to believe it is) are worth considering. From this writer’s perspective, it compromises the trust that many place in the mainstream media to be as accurate and unbiased as possible, potentially leading those audiences to seek information elsewhere. At the same time, it acknowledges the need to work closely with media to ensure that what you provide in times of crisis go beyond soundbites and are substantiated by credible information and defensible proof points (since, clearly there will be pressure on the journalist from all fronts to “get it right”). And it further reinforces the importance of relying on your own channels to communicate versus relying solely on a “filtered” media. 

You don’t need to read German to understand the point being made here… and in all the other classic examples gathered for your viewing pleasure.

Although in addition to “buyer beware”, I would also suggest that this is one more example of the power of the consumer to impose a previously-unattainable degree of transparency on the “fantasy” being sold by advertisers.

(courtesty of Neatorama)