Crisis Scenarios!

Crisis Scenarios!

Last week one of my public relations classes worked on interviews. Specifically we worked on camera and radio interviews in a crisis setting. This was very informational and a great learning experience for all of us in the class. On Tuesday we were assigned different crisis scenarios. These scenarios varied from an active shooter in a hospital to, a tornado on a college campus. We then had two days to prepare for our interviews. Although this is not a realistic amount of time to prepare, we had to prepare also to understand the organization on top of just the crisis. So, on Thursday we had interviews with two professors. These professors have worked as reporters or journalists and know what would occur during a crisis.

We were all very nervous about this assignment. This was something we had never done before. On top of that, crisis is something we have never been out in charge of to handle. We have all seen crisis occur and even watched someone else handle it. This exercise was a great test of what works and what does not during a crisis. Reporters will try to get the information they need and even get you to say something wrong or in a poor manner to make news. This can create a lot of stress for the representative. It was also a test for how prepared we were and how fast we could think on our feet. It was important for us to prepare so that when the interviews came, we could answer with the information we knew.

Our goal was to come across as honest, caring and knowledgeable individuals. It was not as scary as I thought because it was just about being honest with the Information you did know at the time. If we didn’t know what happened, we didn’t need to make anything up. We disclosed all that we knew about the situation and prepared key messages to show we were doing our best to keep people safe.

If you are going into public relations, it is important to understand that crisis will unfortunately happen. It was something that was scary, but a great learning experience for all of us.