by Ashlee Sadler 

Most companies – large or small – will at some point be faced with a crisis situation. For this reason, Elizabeth Dougall, assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, designed a course to teach public relations students how to help organizations handle disaster in the public eye.

“Imagine if there was an explosion at a city’s plant,” Dougall said. “What would you do? Students will have to go through the process of solving the communication challenges of dealing with a crisis.”

Before coming to UNC-Chapel Hill in 2003 from Australia, Dougall worked for Burson-Marsteller, the fifth-largest public relations firm in the world. She said her experience handling problems for such a large firm showed her how important it is for organizations to have a plan in place before disaster strikes.

“There are so many situations that occur within organizations where you can see that they are failing to tell their story effectively in a crisis either because they haven’t thought about it, or they are just trying to survive the major problem,” Dougall said.  

For example, JetBlue did a notoriously bad job in winter 2007 during the ice storm crisis that halted all flights, caused major delays, lost baggage and stranded passengers over a holiday weekend, Dougall explained. JetBlue focused on trying to weather the storm and failed to inform employees, passengers and the media about how the company was handling the situation.  A short time later JetBlue reversed course and took responsibility for its mistakes, apologized and created a passenger bill of rights to remedy the situation.  We’ll see how that plays out over time, Dougall said.

“Crisis Communication Management” is a service-learning course that started in spring 2007. It is funded through an $8,000 Ueltschi Service-Learning Course Development Grant, which is University grant money designated for courses in academic and health affairs.
The 15 students in the class partnered with community businesses and town leaders from Cary and Carrboro and the Tar Heel Bus Tour. The students worked with these partners to design real plans for future use.

The timing of the class couldn’t have been better, said Susan Moran, Cary’s public information officer. A plan was already in the works for Cary, but she said having the students involved offered another perspective.

The students developed nine mini-plans for specific scenarios. The mini-plans were designed to help Cary deal with potential crisis situations – such as severe weather, pandemic flu or an explosion at the town’s water treatment facility – and help the town prepare for and react to a problem.

Once the scenario plans are reviewed, they will be plugged into the town’s comprehensive crisis communication plan, Moran said.
Students treated their community partners as if they were clients, Moran said.

“We met in one of our town conference rooms,” she said. “The students arrived early, which is consistent with what consultants do for us. They were dressed in business attire. It was clear that they had communicated as a team prior to that meeting because it was well choreographed.”

Dougall wants students to understand that crisis communication is not about putting a spin on unexpected or unfortunate news. Crisis communication involves finding innovative and effective ways to communicate with key audiences – employees, members of the community, customers, partners and suppliers – when a worst-case scenario unfolds. Dougall hopes students can recognize and explain ethical and legal problems during a crisis, train company leaders on crisis-based media relations and develop a response and recovery plan.

“Professor Dougall has created a lot of opportunities for us in the class like doing a media training day where we had to do an interview during a mock crisis,” said senior Julie Wilder. “That was very fun and helpful. I realized how difficult it is.” ♦

Ashlee Sadler is a senior in the school’s news-editorial sequence.