Larry D. Lauer

In a recent post I wrote about leadership communication and the differences between crisis and normal times. This week I am suggesting that some of this same kind of thinking applies to the news media and politicians during a crisis. This is when widespread misunderstanding is most likely to occur, and  widespread panic can easily result. My concern right now is Ebola.

The 24/7 news world produces similar headlines over and over again all day long. The more you hear them the more urgent they sound. The same questions are asked over and over, even when they have been well answered in previous reports. And each time they are asked, they are asked with a tone that makes them sound more like urgent warnings than questions.

It too often is assumed that getting and keeping attention requires headlines that increase in urgency every hour, even when there are no genuinely new developments. Claims of new developments are often made anyway, even when these reports usually offer very little that is new. And intense competition between news organizations can actually accelerate this relentless search for another “breaking news” item.

As people who have concerns about how things are being handled are found, they tend to be interviewed  over and over again. Often they are politicians who are quite willing to be dramatic about their viewpoints. Then other politicians seeing partisan opportunities for themselves line up to provide “the other side.” They also are looking for a news angle from which they can become a headline. Now the news media and  the political opportunists end up advancing each other’s self interests. This may be unintended, but it often happens in a crisis.

But a crisis is a time to provide information with calm and clarity. Updates should add to our knowledge  about the issue. Public education should be the news media’s only objective. Interviewers should prefer established experts.

Canadians provided a great example during the recent shooting in parliament. Law enforcement officials handled their press conferences transparently and calmly. Elected government officials behaved like adults. And the news media behaved responsibly… even while asking the difficult questions.

I urge that anchors, reporters, politicians, and all officials should save the competition and the drama for more normal times when the stakes are not so high.