You received a telephone call at home early in the morning, asking you to check your emails. The following email was waiting for you:
From: William Seaton, Director of Finance
To: Finance Manager
Subject: Public relations crisis
Hi,
This email arrived from the Head of our Middle East office just now. They are a few hours ahead of us, so he rang me at home to make sure that I had seen his message.
We have a few hours before the news article will be published, so I need to make the best use of that time in order to limit the damage to Slide. Your priority is to protect our reputation because I have already woken up the engineers and geologists and they are going to deal with the actual oil spillage.
I am not thinking too clearly, so I need you to provide some initial thoughts on the following:
Should we use our business relationship with Business News to have them withdraw the story? We are a major advertiser and we spend millions with them every month. What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Should we respond with the facts as we know them? All we know for certain is that there have been reports of oil contamination in an area that has countless oil facilities nearby, and so we could deny all responsibility, at least until our experts have had the chance to get there and to investigate.
If we do decide to make a public announcement then we will need to have a plan in place. We need to assemble a team to deal with the press. How should we structure our media response team?
What are the key factors that the Board should consider when communicating with the press? Explain why the factors that you have identified are important.
I realise that it is still very early, but I need your thoughts very quickly.
Thanks
William
The email referred to above can be found by clicking on the Reference Materials button.
