On Tuesday, May 24th, 19 children and two adults were killed in a shooting at a school located in Uvalde County, Texas. This was the deadliest school shooting in Texas’ history and a sad addition to an increasingly long list of school shootings in the United States. Aside from reports about the disturbing facts from that day, details about the shooter, and the ensuing debates over gun regulations, there is increasing public attention on the accuracy of the information that law enforcement released to the public. This is an unfortunate example of crisis communications gone wrong.
A primer on crisis communications
Crisis communications is the “collection, processing, and dissemination of information required to address a crisis situation.” It involves delivering thoughtful messages to targeted audiences “at moments of heightened pressure.” Crises usually happen unexpectedly and trigger feelings of fear and uncertainty. For organizations, crises can upset normal business functioning and harm brands and business images. They can also create financial losses or cause businesses to shut their doors.
According to the Institute for Public Relations, “A crisis can create three related threats: (1) public safety, (2) financial loss, and (3) reputation loss.” Public relations professionals should address these threats sequentially, beginning with the most serious, threats to public safety.
In the world of crisis communications, there are stages for each crisis: the pre-crisis stage, the crisis, and the post-crisis stage. Before a crisis arises, organizations should be thinking about how to prevent and prepare for a crisis. During a crisis, publicists should gather information, train leaders who will be speaking to employees, the public, and the press, and carefully craft messages. After a crisis is over, clients need to know whether the crisis management effort was effective and provide follow-up messages as needed.
Inherent in crisis communications is the need to stay true to corporate values; to engage in effective, timely, and empathetic communications; to (typically) avoid criticism; to make quick decisions; to safeguard confidential information; and to ensure accurate information flows across the organization and to the necessary media outlets.
Uvalde’s crisis communication response
The recent tragedy in Uvalde highlighted a communications strategy fraught with flaws, or possibly the absence of any strategy. As reported by local media, “The investigation into what really happened at Robb Elementary . . . has been plagued with issues. People across the country are demanding answers, but they’re getting different stories every few days.” For instance, officials provided conflicting information about how the shooter got into the building, among other things. As a result, the Uvalde community expressed outrage and Governor Greg Abbott stated, “I am absolutely livid.”
This was a crisis that posed a direct threat to public safety—the highest level of threat when it comes to crisis communications. This failure threatens to diminish the public’s trust in law enforcement and its ability to respond to and investigate incidents like this.
On May 31, 2022, The Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, issued a press release stating:
At this time, The Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, or CLEAT, is advising our members to cooperate fully with all official governmental investigations into actions relating to the law enforcement response to the Uvalde mass shooting. . . . There has been a great deal of false and misleading information in the aftermath of this tragedy. Some of the information came from the very highest levels of government and law enforcement. Sources that Texans once saw as iron-clad and completely reliable have now been proven false. This false information has exacerbated ill-informed speculation which has, in turn, created a hotbed of unreliability when it comes to finding the truth. The truth we all can trust. For this reason, we believe that a strong, independent investigation by the U. S. Department of Justice with assistance from the FBI will discover what really happened, thus helping agencies everywhere to understand how best to stop a similar compounded tragedy from happening again.
Following this crisis and CLEAT’s missteps in responding to it, CLEAT will need to focus on regaining the community and public’s trust, which was deeply damaged. In short, it will need to put a lot of attention on its post-crisis response.