Managing Communications in a Crisis

A crisis, say Ruff and Aziz (both of The Aziz Corporation, a communications consulting company), is any situation, real or rumored, which can focus negative attention on a company internally, before the media, or before key audiences such as consumers or politicians. Crisis management is therefore a crucial part of any public relations practice. Noting that many crises are not sudden, they describe the four stages of crisis management: preparation, notification, communications management, and recovery. Of crucial importance to them is the identification and categorization of different audiences and the tailoring of messages in response. Distributed by Ashgate. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

About the Author

Peter Ruff's media career began at a local newspaper, then onto local radio and into the BBC, where he worked for 18 years on news and current affairs for both radio and televsion. For four years he was the BBC's Moscow correspondent and, in 1986, informed the world of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. After leaving the BBC he became Director of Communications for a major international waste company that was under pressure from environmental campaigners. Later he took charge of media relations for the chemical industry, dealing with environmental crises involving the chemical, oil, pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. Through The Aziz Corporation, he advises major FT 250 companies on crisis management communications. Khalid Aziz spent the first twenty years of his career in the media. Trained by the BBC, he went on to work for a range of news and current affairs programmes from Newsbeat on Radio One to Panorama. He worked extensively as both presenter and producer, receiving industry awards for his broadcasting excellence. Khalid founded The Aziz Corporation in 1983 and today it is the UK's leading spoken communications consultancy. Crisis management is a key element in the company's consultancy portfolio, along with other areas of communications such as media handling and presentation skills.