Administrative Issues in Outbreak Investigations: Working with the Media OR ' ' '

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Administrative Issues inOutbreak
InvestigationsWorking with the MediaOR . . .
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How to OptimizeYour 15 Minutes of Fame

• M. Joan Mallick, R.N., Ph.D.

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Part B

• Working with the Media
• during an
• Outbreak Investigation

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Introduction

• Current discussions about relationships between
  health departments and the media seem to focus on
  the issue of strategizing how to communicate
  during emergency situations
• The term stratagem is defined as an artifice or
  trick in war for deceiving and outwitting the
  enemy (Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary
  Online, http//www.m-w.com/cgi-in/dictionary?vast
  ratagem, 2002)
• This represents a very negative approach and is
  more likely to result in poor interagency
  relationships and negative media coverage

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Introduction

• The most productive approach to working with the
  media during any situation is to consider them as
  allies who can perform various assistive
  activities during an outbreak investigation
  including
• alerting exposed persons who may not know an
  investigation is taking place
• advising the population of the measures that are
  being taken to determine the causes of an
  outbreak and their elimination
• explaining the risk of exposure to the general
  population after the initial outbreak

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Purpose

• The purpose of this course is to provide ideas
  about how to work with media during emergency
  situations so that the goals of both institutions
  are met
• The ideas come from
• practical experience
• interviews with a
• local television anchor person
• partner in a public relations firm who has worked
  with organizations experiencing health emergencies

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Objectives

• At the completion of this course the reader
  should be able to describe
• current methods used by media to collect
  information for stories
• ways to provide media access to information based
  on the needs of all organizations, including
  those being investigated
• public relations advice for organizations being
  investigated
• actions that diminish the credibility of health
  department information
• counterproductive methods of restricting access

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Scenario 1

• One Sunday morning I woke up to banner headlines
  that read something like this

Hundreds Sick After Attending Conference Banquet
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• No one from the health department had been
  advised of the incident by convention attendees,
  EMS, or local emergency room staff
• We learned of the incident from the press that
  had issued an important public health alert

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• We also learned from the press that
• no one had been critically ill
• no one had been hospitalized
• people had been transported by the citys EMS
• they were taken to three different hospitals
• Since it was the closing banquet of the
  convention, most people had left the city to
  return to their homes, all around the US,
  including Puerto Rico

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• We knew from these reports that the investigation
  would take an extended period of time because the
  exposed group was so scattered. In terms of the
  media this meant that we were in a yin and yang
  situation

More time to explain the situation
Extended media interest
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• We also knew that we had a big
• Credibility Problem

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• Because we had generally good relations with the
  media, the health departments basic credibility
  was not in question
• However, the city owned the banquet center city
  council served as the local Board of Health

City Hall
Convention Center
Health Department
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• There were grave doubts that one city department
  would carefully investigate and/or report on
  problems in another department

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How to Maximize Our Media Opportunities

• Our choices and possible consequences
• keep the media out
• raises doubts that investigation will
• be thorough
• encourages media to meet with experts for
  speculative opinions
• made it difficult to prevent disgruntled
  employees from taking advantage of the situation
  to undermine the departments
• encourages aggressive searches for secrets

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Choices Consequences

• allow them in but restrict time and place access
• has many of the same disadvantages of complete
  restriction
• makes concerns about what is not being revealed
  as important as what is being revealed
• encourages clandestine media research

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Choices and Consequences

• Allow access to various investigative activities
• Builds a trusting relationship between
  organizations
• Allows fuller understanding by the media of the
  complexity of the process and uncertainty of the
  outcome
• The role of outside experts becomes one of
  commenting on whether media staff have
  interpreted information correctly

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Providing Access

• We chose to allow a newspaper science reported to
  follow staff as they developed interview
  protocols, interviewed exposed persons, and
  analyzed data

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Establishing the Ground Rules

• Ground rules for access were established as
  follows
• All personal information was to remain
  confidential
• personal information would be restricted to the
  extent possible
• names would be masked when the reporter was
  reading interview response forms
• if the reporter overhead a name while listening
  to an interview (after informed consent of the
  interviewee), it was to remain confidential
• the reporter was not allowed to contact
  interviewees based on knowledge of their name or
  location

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Ground Rules

• Staff outside the immediate investigation staff
  would be accessible, but the observer should
  clear the interview with the administration first
• medical staff who might not be directly involved
  should be made available to the observer to clear
  up medical details
• The observer and administrator should meet at the
  beginning and end of each day
• to review planned events
• to provide an opportunity to discuss and clarify
  observations

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The Outcome

• Our experience with the newspaper was a positive
  one. The stories were detailed and provided a
  more serious approach to our work. What started
  out as a sensational story became one that
  informed the public not only of the details of
  the investigation but of the nature of public
  health investigations

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Scenario 2

• At about 3 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon I
  received a phone call from a pediatrician in a
  local emergency room. She said that for the
  second day in a row, students from a middle
  school were in the ER with complaints of nausea,
  headaches and lethargy. She realized the school
  had not called the health department the day
  before as they had said they would. By this time
  the media had also been notified

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The Media Issues

• This situation raised the issue of who
  communicated with the media
• the school system interpreted communicating with
  the media as controlling the media
• they wanted to limit access almost completely
• they wanted to control all information that the
  media received
• the health department, having had good outcomes
  previously was less concerned about providing the
  media access to information

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• Health department staff controlled the
  information by virtue of the fact that they were
  uncovering the details of the cause ot the
  outbreak. Therefore, we could have mandated that
  information come from them and not the school
  board. Would it have been wise to do so?

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Sounds Like Good Advice

• An Ohio public relations firm specializes in
  working with companies and organizations that are
  experiencing emergencies that affect the well
  being of
• its employees
• its customers
• its neighbors

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Sounds Like Good Advice

• It gives a three part piece of advice that should
  guide all public relations activities in
  communicating bad news
• Tell it first
• Tell it all -- Tell the truth

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• The school system had already ignored most of
  this common sense advice
• The health department and the media had not
  learned of the problem from them first
• the media had learned the second day because the
  students were sent to the ER on a school bus

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Our Dilemma? Did we want to be Jiminy Cricket or
Pinocchio?
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Our Strategy

• The school system was as reluctant to provide us
  information after the incidents were reported as
  they were to report the incidents in the first
  place
• Struggling over access to the media would provide
  another source of tension between the two
  agencies
• We decided to allow the school system to
  determine how the media would be informed

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The Results

• As we surveyed the school environment, discussed
  investigation methods, and/or traveled to and
  from investigation sites, all media eyes were
  upon us
• We saw pictures on television and in the news
  that were taken through windows of the school

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• School employees and families became a primary
  source of media information about what may have
  happened and why

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• Teachers and staff, some still angry over
  previous contract negotiations with the school
  board, took the opportunity to become anonymous
  news sources

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• As the media story of the event continued the
  news was all bad

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• School administrators eventually recognized the
  importance of regular communication with the media

!
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Revised Approach

• Though not directly intended as such the final
  method for working with the media turned out to
  be quite clever

The school board hired a consultant whose job was
described as to conduct an independent
investigation and report to the board, the
parents, and the media
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• The consultant realized he would be duplicating
  health department efforts by conducting his own
  investigation
• He routinely consulted with health department
  administrators for information updating the
  investigation
• He saw his role primarily as convincing the media
  that the whole truth and nothing but the truth
  was hereafter being told
• he realized the importance not only of describing
  the findings but describing the process

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• The consultants resources ( large consulting
  fee) allowed him to develop fancy audio visual
  presentations for press conferences and parent
  meetings

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• His polished approach presenting public health
  information assured everyone that progress was
  being made
• He was also able to present remedial actions in a
  positive light and defuse the hostility
  associated with the problems that caused the
  outbreak

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• The health department staff were relieved of the
  stresses of
• quickly solving the mystery of the outbreak
• convincing the media of its own veracity
• struggling with the school board over media
  rights
• speaking for the school system

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• Staff were disappointed that they were not give
  credit for solving the outbreak mystery
• However, administratively, the trade-off was well
  worth the sacrifice
• Encouraging use of media consultants appears to
  be a good piece of advice for use by health
  department administrators

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EpilogueA Personal Note

• I hope you enjoyed these stories and gained some
  insight into techniques to improve the
  integration of investigative efforts and media
  relations
• Questions about the technical aspects of the
  investigations or the findings may be directed to
  me through the Supercourse evaluation forms
  online

Joan Mallick