Among the greatest pressures weighing on law enforcement leadership today is one that barely even registered on the radar just a few decades ago—the threat of negative public relations. And for good reason. The mishandling of a public relations (PR) crisis puts an agency’s personnel and reputation in the spotlight for the wrong reasons and can harm the reputations or careers of associated elected officials as well. Even in the face of today’s increasingly hot-tempered social media environment and the intense, often critical traditional media coverage of law enforcement, some agencies still choose to hide and hope, thinking it might be a safer or easier option to hide from the potentially reputation-damaging threat and hope no one will find out about it. In an era where transparency is increasingly becoming the rule, rather than the exception, consider the potential outcomes to being on the receiving end of a PR nightmare.
■ an enormous amount of time and resources devoted solely to managing the crisis, all the way up to the chief of police
■ protests aimed at the police department or associated jurisdiction and elected officials
■ damage to an agency’s reputation that can take years to repair
■ job loss for police leaders and elected officials
The first step for leaders is to realize when they are facing a PR crisis or about to be in the midst of one. For some police leaders, this may be obvious. For others who have been fortunate enough to not have to face a media- or social media–driven critical incident, it’s all-consuming and a challenge on many fronts.
Taking Action
Crises may vary depending on the makeup of the agency, the community it serves, and the issue at hand. Some PR crises, however, are almost universal. If a use-of-force video surfaces on Twitter involving the agency’s officers, and the person who posted it has presented the narrative that it is a horrible abuse of power, the agency is already behind the curve. There’s nothing that could have been done to prevent that video from surfacing, but now is the time to make this video on social media a top priority. There are some immediate key actions that need to be taken in this case.
1. Identify the officers involved and coordinate with their supervisors to begin the work to uncover the facts.
2. Identify the suspect and what is known about him or her and what led up to the use of force depicted on the video.
3. Ensure the agency public information officer (PIO) is monitoring social media to gauge the response not only in the community, and more broadly, the region, but beyond that too, as well as monitoring local media to see if they’ve picked up on the story.
4. Have the PIO draft messages indicating that the agency is aware of a video circulating on social media that its working to verify the circumstances involved and will update the community when the agency has confirmed information.
What can an agency do once the brand is threatened with taking a hit? When a narrative about the agency forms on social media, realize time is an enemy. The ability for the story to quickly expand far and wide and unchecked should prompt quick action to verify information. This is true whether the video surfaces at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday or 8 p.m. on a Saturday night. The sooner an agency can share its version of the story, the better. This also pertains to when perhaps it’s not clear whether departmental policy was followed. Having the agency declare that its leaders are aware of the case, looking into it, and willing and able to share what they know once they’ve pieced together some critical pieces could help on many fronts. It may tamp down the furor growing online. Silence on social media can lead some to believe that what’s being said about the officers is true, or the agency or police leaders might be perceived as hiding from the incident. The agency’s early acknowledgement of the video and some form of holding statement pronounces the agency as a player in this game, not a bystander.
What if nobody outside the agency knows yet? For example, the Internal Affairs commander brings to the chief an investigation involving numerous members of the Special Operations Division and apparent serious misconduct that occurred recently during the execution of a search warrant. A brand emergency facing an agency that hasn’t yet become public is a ticking time bomb. It will go off—the question is when and with how much force. The PR strategy should be proactive, not to lay low and see if this blows over. Leaders need to press pause on this “strategy” for a minute and ask themselves how many agencies do they know who have hidden this with great success? What are the odds the agency can get away with such a “plan” and not get caught trying to hide the bad news? Can an agency today gamble on trying to keep misconduct quiet, criminal charges against an officer mum, or burying body-worn or in-car camera video of a potentially high-profile incident? Taking the time to weigh the risks of not being transparent is an important exercise, so consider these possibilities:
■ How will we look when the media breaks our news about our issue?
■ If, and more likely, when this news gets out, what will our response be to the media’s or public’s question about why we didn’t disclose the infraction?
■ What is the worst that will happen if we come forward and share our bad news publicly?
■ What have we done to properly prepare our agency (e.g., training for the PIO, studied best practices on negative news releases and case studies, built a social media presence so there’s an audience who follows us presumably because they trust the agency and want to hear its news and engage with the department) to begin to share the sort of news that in the past we kept to ourselves?
When an agency doesn’t break its own bad news and lets others do it, it may be unable to ever gain control of the narrative. It’s highly probably that whoever broke the news (someone on Twitter, or a local TV news reporter, for example) will make the most impact on public perception because he or she got it out first, before law enforcement had the chance to share its news. If it’s not the first messenger who takes control of the narrative, it might be the loudest messenger. Whoever puts out the most sensational version of the bad news, to include video recorded on a cellphone, and then shared without any context, may become the “authority” on this incident. Or, if a reporter with a strong following on social media starts tweeting and that tweet is then retweeted by the reporter’s TV station that has 250,000 followers on Twitter, the agency will very quickly begin feeling the effects of a narrative that’s out of control. Now envision council members hearing about the incident from their constituents who saw it on social media. How quickly will the chief’s phone begin ringing?
Messaging and Timing
Messaging matters. Even if the agency shares information with the public, and does so early with the facts known at the time, the incident could still go awry in the court of public opinion if the agency doesn’t communicate effectively and address the key issues surrounding the incident. Agencies need to devote the necessary time to review the message and have the various players involved in the messaging review it. For example, if the Internal Affairs Unit oversees an officer-involved shooting investigation, ensure the commanders have read the messaging draft. If possible, run the draft by other trusted communications professionals. The director of communications for the town or county government could be one good option.
One only needs to look to an airline, coffee chain, or pharmaceutical company to see poor examples of managing a brand crisis. Those organizations have enormous marketing budgets. How is a government agency supposed to get it right on tight budgets and, potentially, with team members who don’t have communications backgrounds? Effective communication doesn’t have to cost a lot. It does, however, require the right personnel and a careful strategy.
Timing is everything, and this holds especially true when a public relations disaster is threatening. The immediacy of social media has raised the public’s expectations regarding government responsiveness. Years ago, police agencies had days or weeks to answer questions. Today, responsiveness should be measured in terms of hours at most—preferably, minutes.
While it may seem counterintuitive, owning the agency’s bad news—standing up to face the cameras and microphones to take reporter questions—often builds credibility and boosts trust, not only among the media but with the community. It also shortens the news cycle of that particular event. Once a law enforcement agency shares enough information to satisfy a reasonably information-hungry audience without compromising an investigation, there’s an organic end to the story. The media, generally, will feel satisfied its questions were answered, there’s no obvious attempt to hide from the bad news, and the focus will shift to other news. A good rule to follow and worth remembering: Get good news out early. Get bad news out earlier. Owning the story by telling the story gives you control. If the fear of a civil lawsuit alone is a great enough motivator to embrace true transparency, so be it. Families who feel their loved one has been treated unjustly can and do file lawsuits against law enforcement agencies. Their legal action becomes the fodder of media stories. If the agency didn’t speak about the incident in the first place, odds are good the agency isn’t speaking about the lawsuit either. The prolonged silence creates multiple opportunities for someone else to control a department’s narrative, which never winds up working out well for the agency, its reputation, or the relevant elected officials.
Conclusion
The power of social media’s reach and the voracious appetite of some users on those platforms for negative police stories now cause police chiefs serious and justifiable concern. Widespread use of social media has condensed the amount of time police leaders have to respond to a PR crisis in the making. There is a clear and present danger on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere to even well-established, social media–savvy, public message–focused departments who devote significant time, and personnel to effectively communicating. Those who either forego social media altogether or barely use it or only minimally interact with their local media face a far greater challenge of trying to manage a PR problem then do their more communications-focused progressive peers in law enforcement.
Hiding and hoping is no longer a viable option. There are numerous examples that should put police agencies, local governments, and elected officials on notice. Burying one’s head in the sand will not help a police leader escape bad news coverage involving his or her agency. What is likely to occur, instead, is that the agency’s silence will stir up the emotions people are feeling over the critical incident, and the media coverage likely won’t be favorable. It’s a bad day when any agency has to tell its community about something newsworthy and negative that’s taken place. It may be a bad week, a bad month or worse, if the shelf life of the agency tries to somehow avoid the media or the criticism raining down on social media instead of standing up, facing the cameras, and effectively communicating to the public. 🛡
Please cite as
Julie Parker, “Hiding and Hoping Is Not a PR Strategy,” Police Chief Online, August 21, 2019.
