1 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders

On April 19, 1995, an explosion ripped through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building 

in downtown Oklahoma City killing 168. Former Oklahoma Govneror, Frank Keating 

(pictured above), helped the city overcome the tragedy through quick response and by 

emphazing open and honest dialect with the public. His ability to express emphathy following the horrific incident not only allowed the community to get back on its feet, but also 

allowed Keating to connet with the families whose lives had been shattered. 

Keating, along with six other leaders detail key emergency risk communication principles 

during an event in the face of a major public safety emergency in this book: CERC: by 

Leaders for Leaders. (photos courtesy of David J. Phillips - AP and Paul Whyte - USA Today) 
Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 2

Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: 

By Leaders For Leaders 

Made possible by: 

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) 

In partnership with: 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Public Health Practice Program Office 

CDC Office of Communication (OC), Office of the Director (OD) 

Project Development 

William Hall, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs (ASPA), HHS 

Barbara Reynolds, OC, OC, CDC 

Marsha Vanderford, Ph.D., OC, OD, CDC 

Written by: 

Barbara Reynolds, MA, OC, OD, CDC 

Edited by: 

William Hall, ASPA, HHS 

Marsha Vanderford, Ph.D., OC, OD, CDC 

Marc Wolfson, ASPA, HHS 

Project Consultants 

Matthew Seeger, Ph.D., Wayne State University 

Tim Sellnow, Ph.D., North Dakota State University 

Daniel Baden, M.D., OC, OD, CDC 

Graphic Layout/Research: 

Chad R. Wood, OC, CDC 

Digital Graphic Design and Development 

Pete Seidel, PHPPO, CDC 

Alex Casanova, PHPPO, CDC 

Audiovisual Production Specialists. 

Morris Gaiter............Producer

Bryon Skinner ..........Videographer

Todd Jordan ..............Videographer

Susy Mercado ...........Production Assistant

Video Clips Coordination 

Chad R. Wood 

Bindu Tharian 

With special thanks to the following

State and Local Health Department Communication Consultants:

Bob Alvey, Arkansas 

Mary Anderson, Montgomery County, MD 

Ken August, California 

Roxanne Burke, Shasta County, CA 

Jamie Durham, Alabama 

Kimberly Fetty, West Virginia 

Don Pickard, Kansas City, MO 

Richard Quartarone, Georgia 

Terri Stratton, California 

Mary Jo Takach, Rhode Island 

Melissa Walker, Louisiana 

National Public Health Information Coalition Members 

William Reynolds, Atlanta American Red Cross 

Susan Dimmick, Ph.D., University of Tennessee, Knoxville 

“The Leaders” 

John Agwunobi 

Anthrax 

Jeff Bowman 

San Diego Fires 

Douglas Duncan 

D.C. Sniper 

Julie Gerberding 

SARS 

Frank Keating 

OK City Bombing 

Patricia Owens 

ND Floods 

Ivan Walks 

Anthrax 
3 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders

Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: 

By Leaders For Leaders 

Introduction: 

This book gives leaders the tools to navigate the harsh realities of speaking to the 

public, media, partners and stakeholders during an intense public-safety emergency, including terrorism. In a crisis, the right message at the right time is a 

“resource multiplier”—it helps response officials get their job done. Many of the 

predictable harmful individual and community behaviors can be mitigated with 

effective crisis and emergency risk communication. Each crisis will carry its own 

psychological baggage. A leader must anticipate what mental stresses the population will be experiencing and apply appropriate communication strategies to 

attempt to manage these stresses in the population. 

Nowhere in this book is there an implied promise that a population or community faced with an emergency, crisis, or disaster will overcome its challenges solely 

through the application of the communication principles presented here. However, this book does offer the promise that an organization can compound its 

problems during an emergency if it has neglected sound crisis and emergency risk 

communication planning. Readers should expect to gain the following understanding: 

The Psychology of Communicating in a Crisis 

 5 communication failures that kill operational success 

 5 communication steps that boost operational success 

 How to reduce public fear and anxiety, and come to terms with “panic” 

 Why people need things to do 

 5 key elements to build and maintain public trust in a crisis 

Your Role as a Spokesperson 

 New research on the public’s perception of government 

 Applying the STARCC principle in your communication 

 Questions the public and media always ask first 

 5 mistakes that destroy stakeholder cooperation 

 How to deal with angry people 

Working with Media during a Crisis 

 Your interview rights with the media 

 Countering media interview techniques that can hurt you 

 2 things that guarantee your press conference will fail 

 3 things to say early in the crisis when the media are beating on your door 

Public Health and Media Law 

 The media’s right of publication 

 Employee access to media 

 Legal definitions of detention, isolation and quarantine 

Included in this book are excerpts from interviews so that you can hear directly 

from leaders—governors, mayors, health officials, and fire chiefs—who stepped 

up to the microphone during crises and faced their community and the world. 

Learn how they made tough decisions about how to inform, console and motivate their constituents during and after the crisis. 

Table of Contents 

Communicating in a crisis is different ........... 4 

What the public seeks from its leader ........... 4 

Five communication failures ........................ 5 

Five communication steps for success ......... 9 

During a disaster, what people feel? ........... 13 

Expected behaviors that must be confronted ... 15 

Perception of risk ........................................ 18 

First message in a crisis .............................. 20 

Audience judgments about your message ... 21 

Make the facts work in your message ....... 22 

Employ the STARCC principle .................... 23 

Crisis Comunication Plan ........................... 24 

Working with the media ............................. 25 

Successful press conferences ................... 29 

Writing for the media during a crisis ........... 30 

The Leader as a spokesperson .................. 31 

Grief and your role as spokesperson .......... 37 

Know the needs of your stakeholders ........ 38 

The dreaded town hall meeting ................ 40 

Media law .................................................. 43 

Definitions and processes .......................... 44 

Keeping fit for duty in a crisis ...................... 46 

CERC Tools ................................................ 48 

Bibliography ............................................... 53 

The need to communicate 

clearly was never more 

compelling than during the 

recovery from the World 

Trade Center attacks. 

People were desperate for 

information. The information 

had to be correct, but there 

were delicate questions of 

taste and sensitivity as well. 

-Rudolph Giuliani -Rudolph Giuliani
Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 4 

We talked about the anthrax 

attack because two members of our community had 

died. That's not a scare when 

you actually kill someone. It's 

an attack, and that sort of 

language nuance builds a 

level of connection with the 

community so you're viewing 

the incident the same way 

they're viewing the incident. 

-Ivan Walks, M.D., Health .,

Director, Washington D.C., Anthrax, 

2001 

Communicating in a Crisis is Different 

Crises can assault your community in an instant or creep slowly into your 

midst randomly wreaking havoc until it has you firmly in its grip. Conventional explosions, category-5 hurricanes, chemical releases, shooting sprees, 

deadly disease outbreaks, 500-year floods, dirty bombs, nuclear bombs, 

fertilizer bombs, earthquakes, blazing brush fires, infrastructure collapses, 

and raging tornadoes are just some of the disasters we know threaten 

somewhere at sometime and are, ultimately, outside our control. 

Leaders do control, however, how well their communities respond and 

recover from the disasters they suffer. As a leader in a crisis you can have a 

real, measurable affect on the wellbeing of your community through the 

words you say and the speed and sincerity with which you say them. Research indicates that, in natural disasters, the public perceives the success of 

the operational response by the amount and speed of relevant information 

they receive from the emergency response officials (Fisher, 1998). 

Communicating in a crisis is different. In a serious crisis, all affected 

people take in information differently, process information differently and act on information differently (Reynolds, 2002). As a leader, 

you need to know that the way you normally communicate with your 

community may not be effective during and after it suffers a crisis. 

In a catastrophic event, your every word, every eye twitch and every passing 

emotion resonates with heightened importance to a public desperate for 

information to help them be safe and recover from the crisis. In several 

surveys, the public was asked who they would trust most as a spokesman or reliable source of information if a bioterrorism event occurred 

in their community. Respondents trusted most the local health department 

or a local physician or hospital. However, respondents also trusted “quite a 

lot” or “a great deal” their own doctor, the fire chief, the director of the 

health department, the police chief, the governor and a local religious 

leader. 

What the public seeks from its leaders in a crisis 

The public wants to know what you know. The leader’s challenge is to give 

the public what they are demanding within the fog of information overload. The public wants to accomplish the following 5 things with the 

information they get from their leaders: 

 Gain the wanted facts needed to protect them, their families and their 

pets from the dangers they are facing 

 Make well-informed decisions using all available information 

 Have an active, participatory role in the response and recovery 

 Act as a “watch-guard” over resources, both public and donated monies 

 Recover or preserve well-being and normalcy, including economic security 
That’s a lot to expect from a leader “hell-bent” on making sure his community is going to get all it needs to make the crisis end and the community well again. Leaders who have faced a crisis in their community readily 

admit that in their planning for a crisis they may have invested only about 

one percent of the pre-crisis funding to public communication planning 

and then training about 10 percent of their time in drills or exercises on 

the public education component. They then found that when the crisis 

occurred they were spending about 90 percent of their time dealing with 

decisions about communicating to the public. 

Leaders lead with goals in mind 

A leader who wants to do the following will need to have a community on 

board to help them accomplish these goals: 

 Decrease illness, injury and deaths 

 Execute response and recovery plans with minimal resistance 

 Avoid misallocation of limited resources 

 Avoid wasting resources 

The fact is, in a crisis, good communication to the public is a necessity, not 

a luxury. The public needs information from its leaders and leaders need 

support and cooperation from the public. 

Leaders will make the following communication decisions 

The following are the decisions a leader will be expected to make during a 

crisis about communicating to the public: 

 What to release 

 When to release it 

 How to release it 

 Where to release it 

 Whom to release it to 

 Why release it 

A well-prepared leader will have communication plans and resources in 

place to help minimize the number of decisions about communication that 

must be made in the moment. We can predict both the types of disasters 

our communities face and we can predict the questions the public will have 

during a disaster. Plan now. Plan with your communication and public 

information professionals. Plan with your disaster-response partners. 

Five communication failures that kill operational 

success 

Communication experts and leaders who’ve faced disasters can tell others 

what is going to cripple or even destroy the success of their disaster 

response operation. 

5 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

This [fireman] was on the 

verge of emotional exhaustion. I mean he had seen a 

horror, he didn't know what to 

do. There was no living person in that building that he 

was able to save. So I knew 

that my function had to be 

one of reassurance to those 

who were risking their lives to 

help us. 

-Frank Keating, eating Governor, Oklahoma City, Bombing, 1995 
 Mixed messages from multiple experts 

 Information released late 

 Paternalistic attitudes 

 Not countering rumors and myths in real time 

 Public power struggles and confusion 

1. Mixed messages 

The public doesn’t want to have to “select” one of many messages to 

believe and act on. During the mid-90s the Midwestern United States 

suffered a spring of great floods. Response officials determined that the 

water treatment facilities in some communities were compromised and that 

a “boil water” directive should be issued. The problem developed when 

multiple response organizations, government and non-government, issued 

directions for boiling water and each of them was different. The fact is, in 

the United States, we turn on the faucet and clean water comes out. Few 

of us know the “recipe” to boil water because we’ve never had to. 

So, what’s the big ; Reality check: eality check: eality check: Unofficial experts will undoubtdeal? Just pick one edly pop up to offer unsolicited advice. First, be 

and get to it. Not so concerned about what the “official” officials are 

fast! Consider this. saying and whether these messages are consisI’m a young mother tent. Your cumulative, consistent voices may 

with an infant son and drown out conflicting messages. Also, consider 

I need to mix his identifying the unofficial experts in your commucereal with water. I’m nity and ensure they have early access to the 

a middle-aged son recommendations you will be giving. 

caring for his mother 

who is currently immune compromised because of cancer chemotherapy. 

I’m the sister living down the street from my HIV-positive brother whose 

Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 6 

T-cell count is back on the way down. Or, just maybe, I’m an average 

person who doesn’t like the thought of gambling on a bad case of diarrhea 

if I don’t pick the right boil-water instructions. 

In a crisis, people don’t want to “just pick one” of many messages, 

they want the best one or the right one to follow. When faced with a 

new threat, people want a consistent and simple recommendation to follow. 

They want to hear absolute agreement about what they should do from 

multiple experts through multiple sources. Messages do not have to be 

wrong to be damaging. If they are inconsistent the public will lose trust in 

the response officials and begin to question every recommendation. Local, 

state, regional, and national response officials and their partners must work 

together to ensure messages are consistent, especially when the information 

is new to the public. 

2. Information released late 

Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, many people wanted 

I think the most important 

thing to learn from this or any 

other tragedy that is handled 

well in the public domain is 

that unlike the frustration we 

feel sometimes on an airplane when something goes 

crack or the plane doesn't 

leave and there's total silence 

from the cockpit, that's the 

worst thing to do. The best 

thing is transparency and 

openness. 

-Frank Keating, eating Governor, 

Oklahoma City, Bombing, 1995 
7 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

I think that there is always a 

tendency for individuals to try 

to take out the bad parts and 

leave in only the good parts. 

I think it's absolutely critical as 

a leader to deliver an honest 

message, a message that 

contains all the parts, the 

good and the bad. 

-John Agwunobi John Agwunobi, M.D., State Health 

Director, Florida, Anthrax, 2001 

advice on whether or not to buy a gas mask. These calls found their way 

to CDC. Three weeks after the attack, CDC had an answer on its website. 

During the 3 weeks CDC took to develop and vet its answer, a number of 

experts were willing to give an answer—unfortunately it wasn’t the right 

one. When CDC issued advice to the public not to buy gas masks, the 

“gas-mask” aisles at the local Army-Navy Surplus stores were already 

empty. In all fairness, few of us could anticipate the consequences of a 9-

11 type attack— but all of us can now create a process to quickly react to 

the information needs of the public. If we can not give people what they 

need when they need it, others will. And those “others” may not have the 

best interest of the public in mind when they’re offering advice. 

If the public expects an answer from your organization on something that 

is answerable and you won’t provide it or direct them to someone who 

can, they will be open to being taken advantage of by unscrupulous 

or fraudulent opportunists. 

3. Paternalistic attitudes 

Putting on a John Wayne swagger and ostensibly answering the public’s 

concerns with a “don’t worry little lady, we got ya covered” doesn’t work 

in the information age. People want and expect information to allow them 

eality check: Don’t spread a rumor by holding press conferences 

every time you hear a rumor, unless it has been widely published already. 

If the rumor is circulating on the Internet, have a response on the internet 

and with your telephone information service ready to deal with the rumor. 

The media will report rumors or hoaxes unless you can answer quickly 

why it’s false. Have an open, quick channel to communicate to the 

media if your monitoring system picks up a troublesome rumor. Don’t think 

“this is preposterous, no one will believe it.” In a crisis the improbable 

seems more possible. Squash rumors fast, with facts. 

; Reality check

to come to their own conclusion. As a leader, it’s not enough to satisfy 

your own worries with copious bits of information and then turn around 

and state a bottomline unsupported with the facts you know. As difficult 

as it may be, help the public to reach the same conclusion you did by 

sharing with them what you learned to reach that conclusion. What did 

you learn that made you believe the situation wasn’t worrisome? Share 

that. 

Treat the public like intelligent adults and they will act like intelligent 

adults. Treat them any other way and they will either turn on you or 

behave in ways that seem illogical to you. You are a leader for the public, 

you are not their parent. Never tell people “don’t worry.” Tell people 

what they need to know so they can reach the decision that they do not 

need to worry. Engage the public in the process and they will follow your 

lead. 
Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 8 

It was everyday for three 

weeks. Everyday people got 

up and said this might be the 

day I get killed. When I walk 

out of my house, when I walk 

out to my car, when I pump 

gas, when I go into my store 

or office building, this is the 

day someone might shoot 

me. 

-Douglas Duncan, County 

Executive, Montgomery County, 

Maryland, D.C. Sniper Attacks, 2002 

4. Not countering rumors in real-time 

During a pneumonic plague outbreak, how successful will your drug 

distribution program be if a rumor starts that there isn’t enough drugs for 

everyone? What is your system to monitor what is being said by the public 

and the media? What is your system to react to false information? 

5. Public power struggles or confusion 

Did you hear about the governor who held a press conference about a 

public safety crisis at the same time the mayor of the city was holding one 

on the other side of town? It really happened and it set the tone for a lot 

of speculation about who was in charge and what was or was not true. 

In the information age, it’s easy to see how this could happen. Sometimes 

there may be a power struggle over jurisdictions or other issues. The 

important thing is to make sure these are worked out quickly and confidentially. It’s naturally disconcerting to the public to think that the people 

responsible for 

helping them are not ; Reality check: eality check The best laid plans . . . No

getting along. All matter what’s on paper and agreed upon, 

partners need to have response officials should understand that plans 

clearly defined roles need to be flexible. The trick is that the process 

and responsibilities. of creating a plan means that the response 

officials will not be strangers to each other when When they overlap, the crisis occurs and may have built relationand they do, make ships that can withstand the strain the crisis will 

sure you can settle naturally cause. 

concerns without 

causing headlines about power struggles or, worse, confused response 

officials. When all else fails, stay in the scope of your responsibility and 

refrain from declaring “I’m in charge” without being certain that you are. 

Even if everyone shows up at the same press conference, the officials 

could send the wrong message to the public. If people are jockeying for 

the microphone or looking back and forth at each other hoping someone 

will answer a question posed by a reporter, the public will be left with the 

impression that there are power struggles or confusion going on. 

Early in the sniper shooting incident in metro Washington D.C., Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose had to formally request involvement by the F.B.I. Although there were natural concerns about what that 

might mean to local law enforcement, the chief chose to involve the F.B.I. 

and did it quietly and what appeared seamlessly to the public. At no time 

did the public perceive a power struggle among the response agencies. 

This, however, was a community who had previously survived a terrorist 

attack at the Pentagon and an anthrax attack at the Capitol. They had 

learned the value of a united front with multiple jurisdictions working 

cooperatively for the good of their community. Turf wars need to end at 

the moment the crisis begins. A good plan can help avoid turf wars from 

the start. 
Five communication steps for success 

Could it be as simple as 5 steps to communication success in a disaster? 

Yes and no. These 5 steps are the keys to success, but each step is a challenge in itself. However, every bit of research in the area of successful 

communication, especially in a crisis, unanimously agrees you can’t skip 

any one of these and expect to be successful. Remember, the reason you 

as a leader are focused on better communication is because most of this 

burden will fall to you, according to peers who’ve been there before you. 

The following are the 5 steps to communication success: 

 Execute a solid communication plan 

 Be the first source for information 

 Express empathy early 

 Show competence and expertise 

 Remain honest and open 

1. Execute a solid communication plan 

Working from a communication plan is as important in a crisis as working 

from a logistics plan—stuff won’t get where it needs to go when it needs 

to be there without a good plan. (A later segment will discuss the elements of a communication plan. Consult with your communication 

director or public information officer.) As a leader, you need to know that 

the public judges the success of your operation, in great part, by the 

success of your communication. 

Any doubts? Consider what CDC experienced during the 2001 anthrax 

incident and then in the 2003 SARS outbreak. A full year after the 2001 

anthrax incident, national media were still criticizing CDC’s anthrax 

operation. However, the theme of the criticism was consistently about its 

inability to effectively communicate to its partners, important stakeholders 

and the media. In 2001, CDC did not have a crisis communication plan 

and adequate resources dedicated to the effort. 

A lot changed at CDC following the anthrax incident, especially in the area 

of crisis communication. Then in late 2002, people started dying around 

the world from an emerging disease, SARS. While the SARS outbreak was 

still unfolding, and there was great uncertainty about the magnitude of the 

outbreak, national media were praising CDC for its effective operational 

response. The change the media perceived was not in the operational 

functions, because both in anthrax and in SARS CDC had smart, dedicated people responding. The difference perceived by media, stakeholders 

and partners was the speed and consistency of its communication. CDC 

had a plan and the plan was executed and the plan made a huge difference 

in the public’s perception of its ability to do the job. 

2. Be the first source of information 

There are two important reasons to strive to be the first source of infor9 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

Leaders must find a balance 

between speed and deliberation. . . .The need for quick 

decisions . . . is strongest in 

times of crisis. People are 

afraid and uncertain, and 

need to feel that someone is 

in charge. 

-Rudolph Giuliani -Rudolph Giuliani, -Rudolph Giuliani Mayor, New York 

City, 2001, from his book Leadership 
Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 10 

Empathy is the door that 

opens your voice to the 

information that you want to 

communicate. So if people 

can perceive that you actually care about it in a genuine, human way, I think they're 

much more willing to listen to 

anything else that you have to 

say. If you don't do that, you 

have really lost your audience 

because people won't listen 

to you. 

-Julie Gerberding, Julie Gerberding

M.D., Director, CDC, SARS, 2003 

mation in a crisis. The public uses the speed of information flow in a crisis 

as a marker for your preparedness. No matter that the HAZMAT team 

showed up in 2 minutes, evacuated the scene and determined that the fire 

at the chemical plant should be allowed to burn out instead of putting 

water on it which could spread hazardous chemicals into the water table. 

The operational response was perfect. Yet, when this happened recently in 

Atlanta, the local news coverage was filled with angry families who saw the 

black smoke and wanted to know if they should evacuate but weren’t able 

to find out as quickly as they wanted. Parents, gripping the hands of their 

small children, castigated the people who knew but didn’t tell them that 

they were safe. Living in the information age, means being expected to not 

only save lives, but be able to tell people while it’s happening that you are 

saving lives. 

The second reason is a psychological reality. When a person is seeking 

information about something they do not know, the first message they 

receive carries more weight. The tendency is for people to typically 

accept the information and then if they hear a second message that conflicts with the first, they start to weigh them against each other. This is 

especially dangerous if the first message is incorrect but it sounds logical. 

For example, the news media reports that health officials are swabbing the 

noses of congressional staffers for anthrax spores to see if they need to 

take antibiotics. So, Mr. Public is exposed to a white substance in the break 

room of his factory, and he thinks he should get a nose swab too. In fact, a 

positive or negative nose swab for anthrax spores is not a reliable way to 

determine if someone should be given antibiotics. That determination is 

made with other data such as proximity to the exposure site and ventilation 

systems. Even so, reasonable people who had heard about the nasal swabs 

and were incorrectly told they were to help in a medical diagnosis would be 

expected to clamor for the same kind of care. 

So, by putting energy into getting the right message out first means that 

later incorrect messages will have to bounce up against the right message. 

That’s better than having to not only get out the right message, but having 

to spend considerable effort discounting the incorrect first message. 

3. Express empathy early 

If a leader takes only one concept from this book, this may be the most 

important and, for some, the most challenging. Your peers who have 

experienced a leader’s role in a public safety crisis and academic experts 

from around the country agree on this point: a sincere expression of 

empathy is as essential to your ability to lead the public in a crisis as the 

right key is to opening a lock. You can stick other keys or bent paper clips 

or tiny screw drivers into the lock, but it won’t open until you insert the key 

with the right grooves and edges. So it is with your message: the public 

won’t be open to you until you express empathy. So what’s empathy? 

Empathy is the ability to understand what another human being is feeling. 
Empathy does not require you to feel what that person is feeling. Empathy 

does not require you to agree that what the person is feeling is appropriate. 

Empathy is the ability to at the very least describe your understanding of 

what they are feeling. In its best form, empathy is talking from the heart 

and relating to fellow human beings as fellow human beings, not victims, 

not casualties, not evacuees or refugees or the public, but as people who, 

in a crisis, are hurting physically, perhaps, but especially emotionally. 

Research shows that an expression of empathy should be given in the first 

30 seconds of starting your message. To do otherwise is to waste your 

time, because, the public will be waiting to hear whether or not “you get 

it.” Your audience is wondering whether you understand they are frightened, anxious, confused? If you don’t articulate what they are feeling in 

the moment, your audience’s minds will be consumed with the question of 

“do they get it” and not hear a thing you are saying. A sincere expression 

of empathy early in your communication will allow people to settle down 

the noise in their minds and actually hear what you have to say. 

4. Show competence and expertise 

If you have a title and are part of the official response to a crisis, the 

public will assume you are competent until you prove otherwise. It’s not 

necessary to recite your entire resume or Curriculum Vitae at the start of a 

crisis response. According to the research, most people believe that a 

person holds a professional position because they are experienced and 

competent. 

5. Remain honest and open 

If you are a government official, there is a healthy belief in your community that the government withholds information, according to research 

done as recently as 2003 (CDC unpublished). So, before you even begin to 

communicate with the public they already assume you are holding back 

information. In criminal investigations that may be true. In all cases, treat 

people like you would like to be treated yourself. The danger comes from 

assuming you are protecting people or avoiding a bigger problem by 

keeping information away from the public. The motives may be noble, but 

the outcome could be the opposite. CDC and five universities did a series 

of 55 focus groups. Among the findings, three points were clear themes 

from the participants: any information is empowering, uncertainty is more 

difficult to deal with than knowing a bad thing; and participants are prepared to go to multiple sources for information. 

Here’s where the idea of holding back information as a way to “manage” 

the crisis breaks down. We live in the information age. It’s going to get out 

either in an up front way or a back door way. Assume that if someone 

other than you knows the fact, everyone knows the fact. Do you want to 

present the facts in context or do you want to try to clean up a mess of 

someone else’s making? 

11 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

You know, I'm struck by the 

fact that as the towers fell on 

September 11th, Rudy 

Guilliani, covered in dust 

stood there in front of the 

cameras and said what he 

saw, said what everyone had 

seen. He looked up and 

looked around him and 

basically told the world, I saw 

what you saw, it's true, the 

buildings fell. But what he 

didn't do at that early stage in 

his message delivery was try 

to put answers on all the 

questions that all of us had. 

He left us, however, very sure, 

very certain that there was a 

machine that had been set in 

place that was gathering that 

information. 

-John Agwunobi John Agwunobi, M.D., State Health 

Director, Florida, Anthrax, 2001 
Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 12 

There was tremendous pressure to place a figure on the 

casualties. The media demanded an official estimate. 

I decided right away not to 

play the guessing games with 

lost lives. I told the truth: 

'When we get the final number, it will be more than we 

can bear.' 

-Rudolph Giuliani Rudolph Giuliani, Mayor, New York 

City, 2001, from his book Leadership 

Bad news does not get better over time. There is absolute consensus 

among professionals that the faster you give up bad news the better, 

because holding back implies guilt and arrogance. 

Do we choose to withhold frightening information because we don’t want 

people “to panic?” Do we withhold the information because we think it 

will cut down the number of phone calls from the public and media requests from reporters? Not knowing is worse than knowing. People can 

cope with bad news and the anticipation of bad things to come. During a 

summit at Johns Hopkins University in 2003, one participant made the 

following point: “Do you know what the definition of panic is from the 

perspective of public officials? It’s when the public does anything they 

don’t want them to do.” 

Without question, for very good reasons, some information must be 

withheld. When that is the case, respectfully tell the public you are withholding information and why. If the answer is “because we don’t want you 

to panic,” then there is no reason to withhold the information. 

Sometimes the public will see on the TV what you can’t officially confirm. 

To be honest, would be to say, “I know what is being reported, but this 

instant I’m going to let our official channels work. I want you to know the 

steps we take to make sure what is officially reported is as accurate as 

possible. Like you, I want information as fast as possible and like you, I’d 

prefer it also to be right. We will definitely tell you what we can confirm 

and will update you as we learn more. In the meantime, let me remind the 

community to (action step).” 

Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani experienced pressure like that regarding 

the casualty numbers in the days following the terrorist attack in New York 

City. He said, “There was tremendous pressure to place a figure on the 

casualties. The media demanded an official estimate. I decided right away 

not to play the guessing games with lost lives. I told the truth: ‘When we 

get the final number, it will be more than we can bear.’” (Giuliani, 2002, p. 

25) The mayor was honest and open, and did not violate the city’s operational plan for release of casualty numbers in a crisis. 

; Reality Check: You may be an expert and not be feeling fear. That’s 

OK. But the worst thing you can do is to tell a frightened person they have 

no reason to be frightened. Never utter the words, “There’s no reason to 

be afraid.” Instead, acknowledge the fear. Make no statement about 

wanting it to go away. Simply tell them what you know that makes you less 

afraid. “I understand that anything related to radiation can seem frightening. Let me tell you what I know. . . .” Give people one good fact to 

“chew” on and then tell them where to get more information. 
During a disaster, what are people feeling inside? 

People are feeling a lot of different emotions. Each person may or may 

not feel any or all of a range of emotions. However, patterns do emerge in 

a crisis and a leader needs to expect these and understand that is why 

communicating in a crisis is different. 

There are a number of psychological barriers that could interfere with the 

cooperation and response from the public. Many of them can be mitigated 

through the work of a leader with an empathetic and honest communication style. 

Fear, Anxiety, Confusion and Dread 

In a crisis, you can expect people in your community are feeling fear, 

anxiety, confused and, possibly, dread. Your job as a leader is not to make 

these feelings go away. If that’s the goal, failure is a certainty. Instead, these 

are the emotions that you should acknowledge in a statement of empathy. 

“We’ve never faced anything like this before in our community and it can 

be frightening.” 

Hopelessness and helplessness 

Looking for a communication goal in a crisis? Here’s the number one 

objective. If the community, its families, or individuals let their feelings of 

fear, anxiety, confusion and dread grow unchecked during a crisis, psychologists can predict they will begin to feel hopeless or helpless. What 

leader needs a community of hopeless and helpless victims? 

So, a reasonable amount of fear is OK. Instead of striving to “stop the 

panic” and eliminate the fears, help the community manage their fears and 

set them on a course of action. Action helps overcome feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. 

Give people things to do. People want things to do. As much as possible, 

give them relevant things to do: things that are constructive and relate to 

the crisis they’re facing. Anxiety is reduced by action and a restored sense 

of control. 

The actions may be symbolic (e.g., put up the flag), or preparatory (e.g., 

donate blood or create a family check-in plan). Some actions need to be 

put into context. Be careful about telling people things they should do 

without telling them when to do it. Phrase these preparatory actions in an 

“if—then” format. For example, “Go buy duct tape and plastic sheeting to 

have on hand, and if (fill in the blank) occurs, then seal up one interior 

space in your house and shelter in place.” 

The public must feel empowered and in control of at least some parts of 

their lives if you want to reduce fear and victimization. Plan ahead the 

things you can ask people to do, even if it’s as simple as “checking on an 

13 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

When we first started to 

figure out what we were 

dealing with, there were two 

things that entered my mind 

right away. One was to 

support the chief and our 

police department. And then 

the other part was to support 

the public, to reassure them, 

to try to calm them, to give 

messages to them to help 

them cope with what they 

were dealing with. 

- Douglas Duncan, Douglas Duncan County Executive, Montgomery County, Maryland, October 2002 
elderly neighbor.” 

What about panic? 

Contrary to what one may see in the movies, people seldom act completely 

irrationally or panic during a crisis. We do know that people have run into 

burning buildings, have refused to get out of a car stuck on the tracks with 

a train speeding close, and have gone into shock and become paralyzed to 

the point of helplessness. The overwhelming majority of people can and 

do act reasonably during an emergency. How people absorb or act on 

information they receive during an emergency may be different from nonemergency situations. Research provides some clues about the receiver of 

information during an emergency. Research has shown that in a dire emergency, people or groups may exaggerate their responses as they revert to 

more rudimentary or instinctual “ flight or fight” reasoning, caused in part 

by the increase of adrenaline and cortisol in the blood system. 

In other words, that primitive part of our brains that we can credit for the 

survival of the human species kicks in. One can not predict whether 

someone will choose fight or flight. However, everyone will fall at some 

point on the continuum. “Fighters” may resist taking actions to keep them 

safe. “Fleers” may overreact and take additional steps to make them extra 

safe. Those extremes are what most of us see reflected back in the media. 

However, the overwhelming majority of people do not engage in 

extreme behavior. It just feels like they do when you’re the one responsible for getting a recommended response from the community. 

During the 2001 anthrax incident, media reported local shortages of the 

antibiotic known as “cipro” because people began to seek out prescriptions 

anticipating the threat of anthrax. Question. If I want a prescription of 

cipro in my back pocket even though I live on the other side of the country, is that a panic behavior? No, it’s my survival instinct kicking into 

overdrive. If I hear my community leader saying “don’t panic,” I think that 

doesn’t apply to me. While I’m chasing down a cipro prescription I think 

I’m rationally taking steps to ensure my survival, and someone else must be 

panicking. If you describe individual survival behaviors as “panic,” you’ve 

lost the very people you want to talk to. Acknowledge their desire to take 

steps and redirect them to an action they can take and explain why the 

unwanted behavior is not good for them or for the community. You can 

call on people’s sense of community to help them resist individual grabs 

for protection. 

When people are swamping your emergency hotline with calls, they are not 

Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 14 

panicking. They want the information they believe they need and you have. 

As long as people are seeking information, they may be fearful but they are 

not acting helpless, nor are they panicking. 

Physical and mental preparation will relieve anxiety despite the expectation 

of potential injury or death. An “action message” can provide people with 

the feeling that they can take steps to improve a situation and not become 

I think when faced with a 

crisis, the world will watch. 

-John Agwunobi John Agwunobi, M.D., State Health 

Director, Florida, Anthrax, 2001 
15 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

Most of the response to a 

naturally occurring disaster or 

a planned attack is psychological. Well the worried well 

don't show up [at the ER] and 

say 'psychologically I'm not 

feeling as I usually do.' They 

show up and say 'I've got a 

headache, I've got a stomachache,' and so they come 

into our medical system in a 

way that doesn't readily 

identify them as a psychological victim. 

-Ivan Walks, M.D., Health Director, 

Washington D.C., Anthrax, 2001 

passive victims of the threat. Action messages should not be an afterthought. Reduce the level of extreme reactions by reaching out early with 

a message of empathy and action. 

Uncertainty 

Have you ever had to wait over the weekend for the results of a life or 

death medical test? The not knowing quickly seems worse than dealing 

with a bad result. People hate uncertainty. We all spend a great deal of our 

time in life working to reduce uncertainty. The uncertainty that is inherent 

in most crises, especially early in the event, will challenge even the greatest 

communicator. Early in a crisis, typically there are more questions than 

answers. The full magnitude of the problem is unknown. Perhaps the 

cause of the disaster is unknown. Even, what people can do to protect 

themselves may be unclear. 

A danger, early in a crisis, especially if you’re responsible for fixing the 

problem, is to promise an outcome outside your control. Never utter a 

promise, no matter how heartfelt, unless it’s in your absolute power to 

deliver. We can hope for certain outcomes, but most we can’t promise. 

Instead of offering a “knee jerk” promise, “we’re going to catch the SOBs 

who did this,” promise “we’re going to throw everything we have at 

catching the bad guys, or stopping the spread of disease, or preventing 

further flood damage.” 

People can manage the anxiety of the uncertainty if you share with them 

the process you are using to get the answers. “I can’t tell you today what’s 

causing people in our town to die so suddenly, but I can tell you what 

we’re doing to find out. Here’s the first step . . .” 

Remember, in a crisis, people believe any information is empowering. Tell 

them what you know and most important tell them what you don’t know 

and the process you’re using to try and get some answers. Mayor Giuliani 

cautioned, “Promise only when you’re positive. This rule sounds so 

obvious that I wouldn’t mention it unless I saw leaders break it on a 

regular basis.” (Giuliani, 2002, p. 165) 

Expected behaviors that must be confronted? 

So if people are not panicking, why do things seem so confused and 

challenging in a crisis, especially in the early stages? Just because an action 

a person chooses to take may be driven by their survival instinct, it doesn’t 

necessarily mean it’s the best behavior for the community as a whole. 

There are a number of troublesome expected behaviors that can and do 

occur in major catastrophes. A leader should be aware of these behaviors 

and be prepared to confront them in his or her communication to the 

public. 

Dependence on special relationships 

Some people will attempt to bypass official channels to get special treat-
Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 16 

I think the most frustrating 

thing for me was clearly not 

having up to date and accurate information. My audience, when I started these 

press conferences, was the 

city of San Diego, yet I forgot, 

didn't comprehend or perceive that people all over the 

county were watching these 

press conferences. 

-Jeff Bowmen, Fire Chief, 

San Diego, California Fires, 2003 

ment or access to what they want during a crisis. This behavior may result 

from a person’s sense of privilege, or because of a growing mistrust that 

officials can’t guarantee the person’s wellbeing, or an inflated need to be in 

control, or because an information vacuum exists about what is available 

and why. Whatever the cause, the result can be damaging to the harmony 

and recovery of the community. If there is a perception that “special” 

people get special help, it invites chaos in the grab for supplies. 

In Richard Preston’s book Demon in the Freezer, neighbors and friends were 

approaching the wife of a prominent government smallpox researcher 

asking for help to obtain vaccine through unofficial channels for their 

children in case of a bioterrorist attack with smallpox. These people could 

not go to their local pharmacy and buy the vaccine, yet they wanted control 

over the safety of their families and they were taking “survival” steps to do 

that. 

Good communication can reduce some of these reactions. The more 

honest and open government officials are about what is available when and 

for whom, the better odds officials have of reducing the urge among 

individuals in the community to seek out their own options. We owe people 

affected by the crisis and people who anticipate being affected by the crisis 

enough information to help them manage their anxiety and put off behaviors that divide the community into “them” and “us.” 

Vicarious rehearsal 

In an emergency, some actions are directed at victims, and those exposed 

or have the potential to be exposed. However, those who do not need to 

take immediate action will be engaging in “vicarious rehearsal” regarding 

those recommendations and may need substitute actions to ensure that 

they do not prematurely act on recommendations not meant for them. 

Simple actions in an emergency will give people a sense of control and will 

help to motivate them to stay tuned to what you are recommending. 

Interestingly, experience has shown that, often, people farther away (by 

distance or relationship) from the threat may actually exercise less reasonable reactions than those who are facing the real crisis. The communication 

age allows some people to vicariously participate in a crisis in which they 

are not in immediate danger of harm. These people will mentally rehearse 

the crisis as if they are experiencing it and “try on” the courses of action 

presented to them. Because these “arm chair” victims have the luxury of 

time to decide their chosen course of action, they may be much more 

critical about its value to them. In some cases, these people may reject the 

proposed course of action and choose another or insist that they too are at 

risk and need the recommended remedy themselves, such as a visit to an 

emergency room or a vaccination. In its most troublesome form, these 

“worried well” will heavily tax the recovery and response. It’s a complicating factor for those who have to make recommendations about what 

people should do. Typically officials are clear and make the right recommendation for the people who are truly affected by the crisis. “You have to 
take Cipro for 60 days because you’ve been exposed to spores of anthrax.” 

This is the communication that goes on in emergency rooms, not doctors’ 

offices. But what about all the people who are watching it and, even 

though they haven’t been exposed, they think that message means something to them? Here is another wrinkle. What happens if people are 

watching officials respond to a crisis, and they are recommending something that has a downside to it, like maybe 60 days of diarrhea? They may 

decide they don’t really like the idea of having 60 days of diarrhea and 

mentally reject the idea. According to research, if a person mentally rejects 

an action, it will be harder for that person to take that action in the future. 

Officials must consider creating alternate messages for those people 

vicariously experiencing the threat, but who should not take the action 

currently being recommended to victims. The challenge is to get them to 

delay taking the same action until it’s warranted by circumstances. 

MUPS: Multiple Unexplained Physical Symptoms 

Most leaders are familiar with the concept of the worried well. Officials 

worry that during a crisis our health care systems may be overloaded 

because well people who think they are sick are going to come to the 

emergency room. Robert Ursano, M.D., from the Department of Defense, 

is a psychiatrist that has done a number of studies that have validated the 

concept of multiple unexplained physical symptoms (MUPS). It’s the 

worried sick who will, in fact, challenge the capacity of our health delivery 

system in a crisis. The fact is that stress caused by a crisis situation will 

make some people actually physically ill. They have headaches and muscle 

aches, stomach upsets and, even something easily measured, a low-grade 

fever. That kind of stress in a community is harmful as overburdened 

medical providers will have to actually try to figure out who is really sick 

and who is sick from the stress of the situation. Communication can help 

in some measure by at least alerting the community that they need to 

consider whether there symptoms are from stress and, if so, provide them 

steps to help them reduce the stress such as deep-breathing exercises, 

physical exercise and talk therapy with friends and relatives. Uncertainty 

and the anxiety that develops from uncertainty can cause great emotional 

stress in a community. 

Stigmatization 

In some instances, victims may be stigmatized by their communities and 

refused services or public access. Fear and isolation of a group perceived 

to be contaminated or risky to associate with will hamper community 

recovery and affect evacuation and relocation efforts. In a disease outbreak, a community is more likely to separate from those perceived to be 

infected. During the SARS outbreak, which was believed to have originated in China, cities reported that the public avoided visiting their 

Chinatown sections of the cities. In fact, the governor of Hawaii publicly 

had dinner in the Chinatown section of Honolulu at the time to help 

counter the stigmatization that was occurring. 

17 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

We had the complication of 

trying to take in the epidemiological information that 

was spotty at best and at the 

same time translate some 

very frightening information to 

people in the way that gave 

them the right balance between what we know or what 

we're learning without causing such alarm that people 

really wouldn't hear what we 

were saying. It was tough. 

-Julie Gerberding, M.D., Director, 

CDC, SARS, 2003 
Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 18 

I believe they called it a 225 

year flood. And we are at the 

fork of two rivers. It was coming so fast it was just taking 

the manhole covers out, and 

it was just unreal. It just hits 

you in the stomach and my 

first thought was save lives at 

all cost. 

-Patricia Owens, 

Mayor, Grand Forks, North Dakota, 

Flood and Fire 

Leaders must be sensitive to the possibility that although unintentional and 

unwarranted segments of their community could be shunned because they 

become “identified” with the problem. This could have both economic and 

psychological impact on the well-being of members of the community and 

should be challenged immediately. This stigmatization can occur absent any 

scientific basis and could come not only from individuals but entire nations. 

During the first avian influenza outbreak in Hong Kong in 1997-98 and 

during the first West Nile virus outbreak in New York City in 1999, policies 

of other nations banned the movement of people or animals, absent clear 

science calling for those measures. 

Perception of risks 

The perception of risk is also vitally important in emergency communication. Not all risks are created equally. A wide body of research exists on 

issues surrounding risk communication, but the following emphasizes that 

some risks are more accepted than others. 

 Voluntary versus involuntary: Voluntary risks are more readily accepted than imposed risks. 

 Personally controlled versus controlled by others: Risks controlled 

by the individual or community are more readily accepted than risks 

outside the individual’s or 

community’s control. ; Reality Check. First impressions are 

 Familiar versus exotic: lasting impressions. If you shoot out of the 

Familiar risks are more gate and fall flat, it won’t matter much if 

readily accepted than you get back up and flawlessly jump all 

of the hurdles in record time. This doesn’t unfamiliar risks. Risks necessarily mean having all the answers; perceived as relatively it means having an early presence so

unknown are perceived to the public knows that you are aware of 

be greater than risks that the emergency and that there is a 

are well understood. system in place to respond. A great 

 Natural origin versus message delivered after the audience 

manmade: Risks gener has moved on to other issues is a mesated by nature are better sage not delivered at all. 

tolerated than risks generated by man or institution. Risks caused by human action are less well 

tolerated than risks generated by nature. 

 Reversible versus permanent: Reversible risk is better tolerated than 

risk perceived to be irreversible. 

 Statistical versus anecdotal: Statistical risks for populations are better 

tolerated than risks represented by individuals. An anecdote presented to 

a person or community, i.e., “one in a million,” can be more damaging 

than a statistical risk of one in 10,000 presented as a number. 

 Endemic versus epidemic (catastrophic): Illnesses, injuries, and 

deaths spread over time at a predictable rate are better tolerated than 

illnesses, injuries, and deaths grouped by time and location (e.g., U.S. car 

crash deaths versus airplane crashes). 
19 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

This was the largest individual 

fire that's occurred in 

California's written history. We 

had three simultaneous fires 

burning in San Diego County 

and in the state of California 

32 fires burning in that two 

week period. So you have a 

large volume of incidents, a 

large population of people 

all of whom want to know 

right now what's going on in 

their neighborhood. And as 

the spokesperson, I did not 

have that information. It was 

very frustrating. 

-Jeff Bowman, Fire Chief, San 

Diego, California Fires, 2003 

 Fairly distributed versus unfairly distributed: Risks that do not 

single out a group, population, or individual are better tolerated than 

risks that are perceived to be targeted. 

 Generated by trusted institution versus mistrusted institution: 

Risks generated by a trusted institution are better tolerated than risks 

that are generated by a mistrusted institution. Risks generated by a 

mistrusted institution will be perceived as greater than risks generated 

by a trusted institution. 

 Adults versus children: Risks that affect adults are better tolerated 

than risks that affect children. 

 Understood benefit versus questionable benefit: Risks with wellunderstood potential benefit and the reduction of well-understood 

harm are better tolerated than risks with little or no perceived benefit or 

reduction of harm. 

The principles of risk communication are vital when developing messages 

during an emergency. If it’s the first emergency of its type—manmade, 

imposed, or catastrophic—the communication challenges will increase. 

Populations subjected to risks caused by human action and meant to 

destroy, hurt, and create terror will react with greater outrage. Unfairly 

distributed, unfamiliar, catastrophic, and immoral events create longlasting mental health effects that lead to anger, frustration, helplessness, 

fear, and a desire for revenge. 

In any discussion of risk, a scientist may perceive one risk in 10,000 as an 

acceptable risk while the listener may anecdotally be familiar with that one 

adverse outcome and believe that the risk is much greater to them. Statisticians tell us that 1 person in 10,000 will die from the anesthesia during 

surgery. Yet, many people every day undergo surgery. However, if your 

Aunt Mae just died during surgery, you might be inclined to ask a few 

more questions when it’s your turn for surgery. 

Perception of risk is not about numbers alone. These and other risk 

perceptions must be considered during a crisis. As a leader, expect 

greater public outrage and more demands for information if what 

causes the risk is manmade and, especially, if it’s intentional and 

targeted. The mistake some officials make is to measure the magnitude of 

the crisis only based on how many people are physically hurt or how much 

property is destroyed. Also, measure the catastrophe in another way, how 

much emotional trauma is associated with it.

 Be careful with risk comparisons 

Be careful about risk comparisons. Never compare a risk that is voluntary 

to a risk that is imposed on people to attempt to put risk in perspective. 

Bioterrorism is high-outrage and (for most of us, so far) low-hazard. You 

can’t effectively compare it to a low-outrage, high-hazard risk such as 

driving a car—which is voluntary, familiar, less dreaded, and mostly under 

our own control. Even naturally acquired anthrax fails to persuade as a 
basis for comparison. People are justifiably more angry and frightened 

about terrorist anthrax attacks than about natural outbreaks, even if the 

Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 20 

number of people attacked is low. 

First message in a crisis 

The public will be listening for factual information, and some will be 

expecting to hear a recommendation for action. Get the facts right, repeat 

them consistently, avoid sketchy details early on, and ensure that all credible 

sources share the same facts. Speak with one voice. Again, preparation 

counts. Consistent messages are vital. Inconsistent messages will increase 

anxiety and will quickly torpedo credibility of experts. Your first official 

message as a leader in a crisis to the public, either through the media or 

directly, should contain the following six elements in the following order 

(See CERC Tools): 

1. An expression of empathy. 

2. Confirmed facts and action steps, (who, what, where, when, why, 

how). It’s not necessary to know all of them to go forward with a 

statement. 

3. What you don’t know about the situation. 

4. What’s the process. After, acknowledging there are questions unanswered, explain first steps being taken to get the answers. What help can 

people expect next. (That first statement may be simply, “we’ve activated 

the EOC.”) 

5. Statement of commitment. You are there for the long haul. You’ll be 

back to talk to them in an hour. (Be careful not to promise what is 

outside your control). 

6. Where people can get more information. Give a hotline number or a 

website. Again, tell them when you will be back in touch with them. 

Audience judgments about your message 

Expect your audiences to immediately judge the content of your message 

in the following ways: 

Speed of communication 

The speed with which you respond to the public is an indicator to the 

public of how prepared you are to respond to the emergency, that there is a 

system in place, and that needed action is being taken. If the public is not 

aware that you’re responding to the problem, then you’re not! The public 

may then lose confidence in the organization’s ability to respond, and you 

will be attempting to catch up in convincing the public that the system for 

response is working. 

Trust and credibility of the message 

Research shows that there are five basic elements to establishing trust and 

credibility through communication. You can’t fake these. They must be 

I will say that - not anyone by 

name, but I was told by a lot 

of people in this community 

when certain individuals went 

on camera, the [public] 

clued out. They didn't have 

any interest in hearing what 

they had to say because 

early on in the event they 

were not telling anything. 

They were being very superficial. 

-Jeff Bowman, Jeff Bowman Fire 

Chief, San Diego, California Fires, 

2003 
21 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

Well, first I would say I 

wouldn't wish it on anybody. 

Secondly though, if you are in 

a government leadership 

position, you just need to 

prepare yourself. Do not wait 

until the event. 

-

Jeff Bowmen, Jeff Bowmen Fire Chief, San Diego, 

California Fires, 2003 

truly present in the message. All messages, written or spoken, can incorporate these elements and should, especially when attempting to communicate during an emergency. The following are the key elements to building 

trust (You may note they repeat the important elements in executing a 

successful communication plan in an emergency described earlier): 

 Empathy and caring 

 Competence and expertise 

 Honesty and openness 

 Commitment 

 Accountability 

Empathy and caring 

Empathy and caring should be expressed within the first 30 seconds. 

According to research, being perceived as empathetic and caring provides 

greater opportunity for your message to be received and acted upon. 

Acknowledge fear, pain, suffering, and uncertainty. 

Competence and expertise 

Obviously, education, position title, or organizational roles and missions 

are quick ways to indicate expertise. Previous experience and demonstrated 

abilities in the current situation enhance the perception of competence. 

Another useful means is 

to have established a ; Reality check: The farther in distance you relationship with your are from the people who are suffering the

audiences in advance of more difficult it may be to express empathy 

the emergency. If that is initially because it seems a little abstract. 

not possible, have a However, during recent terrorism exercises, 

third party, who has the where leaders were getting fictional reports 

confidence of the about tragic events across the country, the 

audience, express his or strain began to show. These fictional reports, 

her confidence in you coming through phone calls, were taking a 

toll. We need to have a certain detachment 

or your organization. to be able to make tough decisions in a crisis 

response. But we don’t have to give up our

Honesty and open- humanity. 

ness 

This does not mean 

releasing information prematurely, but it does mean facing the realities of 

the situation and responding accordingly. It means not being paternalistic 

in your communication but, instead, participatory—giving people choices 

and enough information to make appropriate decisions. Be realistic about 

your communication systems and procedures and, if they do not permit 

you to comment on something or reveal information, don’t pretend you 

don’t have the information; tell the public why the information isn’t 

available for release at the time (e.g., verifying information, notifying 

partner organizations, not your information to release, etc.). It means 

allowing the public to observe the process while reminding them that this 

process is what drives the quality of the emergency response. 
Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 22 

The best advice . . . is to 

disclose bad news sooner 

rather than later. Whenever a 

convoluted explanation is 

offered in favor of not disclosing, overrule the advice and 

disclose. 

-Rudolph Giuliani Rudolph Giuliani, 

Mayor, New York City, 2001, from his 

book Leadership 

Commitment and dedication 

State up front what your organization’s objective is in this emergency 

response, and commit to reaching that objective. Show dedication by 

sharing in the sacrifices and discomforts of the emergency. Don’t fake 

hardship for the cameras. Effective governors know that they’d better walk 

the territory in which they’re declaring a state disaster area. Dedication 

means not leaving the emergency until the community is recovered. This 

often means staying in touch with the community long after the media lose 

interest in the story. Resolution and follow-up should be committed to 

from the start and carried through to the end. 

Accountability 

For most people that literally means “keeping the books open.” If government or non-profit money is being spent in the response to a disaster, 

sooner or later the public and media will demand to know to whom that 

money or resources are being distributed. A savvy official would anticipate 

the questions and have the mechanisms in place to be as transparent as 

possible, perhaps keeping an accounting on an Internet site related to the 

disaster and updating it weekly or monthly as appropriate. 

Make the Facts Work in Your Message 

Consider the following when creating your initial communication to your 

audiences: 

 For the general public, present a short, concise, and focused message (6th-grade level). It’s difficult in a heightened state of anxiety or 

fear to take in copious amounts of information. Get the bottom line out 

first. In time, the public will want more information. 

 Cut to the chase—relevant information only at this time. Don’t start with a 

lot of background information. Don’t spend a lot of time establishing 

yourself or your organization. One sentence should be enough. 

 Give action steps in positives, not negatives (e.g., “ In case of fire, use 

stairs,” “Stay calm,” are positive messages. Negative messages are “Do 

not use elevator” and “Don’t panic.”) Use positives, not negatives. 

 Repeat the message—repetition reflects credibility and durability. 

Correct information is correct each time you repeat it. Reach and frequency, common advertising concepts, tell us that your message is more 

apt to be received and acted upon as the number of people exposed to 

the message (reach) and the number of times each person hears the 

message (frequency) go up. 

 Create action steps in threes or rhyme, or create an acronym. 

These are ways to make basic information easier to remember, such as 

“stop/drop and roll” or “KISS—keep it simple, stupid.” Three is not a 

magic number, but in an emergency, you should expect someone to 

absorb three simple directions. Research indicates that somewhere 

between three and seven bits of new information is the limit for people 

to memorize and recall. It makes sense in the stress of an emergency to 
ask you audience to remember fewer bits of information. (For example, 

Anthrax is a bacterium that is treated with antibiotics. Anthrax is not 

23 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

transmitted from person to person. Seek medical care if you believe you 

have symptoms of anthrax: fever, body aches, and breathing problems.) 

 Use personal pronouns for the organization. “We are committed to 

. . .” or “We understand the need for . . .”

 Avoid 

 Technical jargon Cut the professional jargon and euphemisms; they 

imply insecurity and lack of honesty. 

 Condescending or judgmental phrases—(e.g., “You would have to 

be an idiot to try to outrun a tornado.” “Only hypochondriacs would 

need to walk around with a prescription for Cipro.”) Many of us are 

neither idiots nor hypochondriacs, and both ideas have crossed our 

minds. Don’t insult your audience by word or tone. That doesn’t mean 

condoning the behavior; instead, validate the impulse but offer a better 

alternative and the reasons why it’s better. 

 Attacks—Attack the problem, not the person or organization. 

 Promises/guarantees—only what you can deliver. Otherwise, promise to remain committed throughout the emergency response. 

 Discussion of money —In the initial phase of a crisis, discussion of 

the magnitude of the problem should be in the context of the health 

and safety of the public or environment. Loss of property is secondary. 

Also, a discussion of the amount of money spent is not a surrogate for 

the level of concern and response from your organization (what does 

that money provide?). 

 Humor—Seldom is humor a good idea. People seldom “get the joke” 

when they are feeling desperate. Humor is a great stress-reliever behind 

closed doors. Anyone who has responded to emergencies knows that 

sometimes inappropriate humor creeps in as a coping mechanism. Be 

careful not to offend others responding to an emergency, even behind 

closed doors. Be especially sensitive when speaking to the public. One 

person’s attempt at humor may be another’s insult. 

Employ the STARCC Principle 

Your public message in a crisis must be: 

Simple—Frightened people don’t want to hear big words 

Timely—Frightened people want information NOW 

Accurate—Frightened people won’t get nuances, so give it straight 

Relevant—Answer their questions and give action steps 

Credible—Empathy and openness are key to credibility 

Consistent—The slightest change in the message is upsetting and 

dissected by all 

And sometimes we said, we 

don't have anything to tell you 

that's happened in the last 

day in the investigation because it's confidential information, but here's some tips 

on mental health, here's 

some things you can look for 

in the community, here's 

some tips on being a good 

witness. If we couldn't give 

them information on the 

investigation itself, we tried to 

give them other information 

everyday that would help 

them get through that day. 

-Douglas Duncan, Douglas Duncan County Executive, Montgomery County, Maryland, D.C. Sniper Attacks, 2002 
Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 24 

SARS was unusual because it 

was an unknown pathogen. 

You remember at the very 

beginning we didn't know 

what was causing it and we 

had very frightening information. 

-Julie Gerberding, Julie Gerberding M.D., 

Director, CDC, SARS, 2003 

Crisis Communication Plan 

No organization should consider itself prepared to respond to a crisis if it 

does not have a communication plan fully integrated into its overall disaster 

response plan. What makes a crisis communication plan a good one? 

Simple, it’ s the process used to develop the plan that determines the value 

of the plan, not what ends up on paper. 

One communicator put it this way: “You have to know who you’re breaking bread with. It’s one thing to know the eating habits of your family. If 

you sit down to dinner with them every day, you know who hogs the 

mashed potatoes. But, when company comes to dinner, things are a little 

more dynamic. You’re not certain which way to pass the potatoes to make 

sure everybody gets some.” 

The planning process counts. Meeting with your partners and discussing 

the communication plans are most important. Don’t expect to develop 

these understandings in the moment of the disaster. In the information 

age, decisions about what to release, by whom and when are too challenging to start from scratch with people whose attitude about mashed potatoes 

you know nothing about. Don’t assume your partners see it the way you do. 

The plan should get as 

many of the questions ; Reality Check: eality Check Don’t be surprised if

as possible answered agreements made in the sunshine of busiabout the logistics of ness as usual are changed suddenly during 

communication work the bleak realities of a crisis. Keep your plan 

simple and remain flexible. Get done what’s and a clear cut under- in your control and try to move your impor- standing of who owns tant messages forward in a way that

what information in the reaches the public and your partners as 

crisis. Do you know in quickly and accurately as possible. 

your jurisdiction who 

“owns” the death 

numbers? Some of you automatically will say, the coroner or medical 

examiner? Is that always true? What about during a disease outbreak? Will 

the medical examiner be adding up the deaths or will the hospitals and 

health department? Start talking now. The key to avoiding public power 

struggles and confusion during the crisis is to get as much understood 

ahead of time as possible. Communicating to the public by the seat of your 

pants is not a plan. 

The single most important responsibility that can be assigned to someone 

in your organization is the duty to keep the plan alive. Update the plan 

regularly—all of the elements. Schedule the review; don’t just wait for so 

many changes to occur that the plan is useless when you take it off the 

shelf. 

Longer is not better. Again, the plan will be the bones of your work. It 

does not have to spell out every required task. It must be the reference that 

will keep everyone on track and enable the tasks to get done with a mini-
25 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

The one thing that surprised 

me, everyday I'd wake up, go 

to police headquarters and 

say, there's got to be less 

press today than yesterday. 

And everyday there was 

more. And we had crews 

from around the world. These 

three weeks just captured the 

attention of the world. 

-Douglas Duncan, County Executive, Montgomery County, Maryland, October 2002 

mum of scrambling. Emergencies are chaotic enough without the disorganization of a planless office. You don’t build lines of authority and relationships with your response partners during the crisis. Too often, the 

initial confusion and mixed messages that cripple an organization’s credibility come from a lack of clear role and responsibility definition, and 

undefined lines of authority. 

Working with the media 

Disasters are media events. There are two good reasons, besides your 

commitment to the First Amendment, to cooperate with media during a 

crisis. One, they are your primary tool to get public safety messages to 

your community in a hurry. Two, they know their audiences better than 

you do. In some instances that may mean they are translating your message 

into a framework that is better understood by portions of your community. Bottomline: we need media involved during a crisis. Bottomline: 

they’re going to be there whether we like them there or not, so consider 

them in your planning. 

Early mistakes with the media 

The following are some of the early mistakes leaders make when working 

with the media during a crisis: 

They play favorites or hold grudges against some media with whom 

they’ve had good or bad experiences in the past. You should give all media 

equal access to information during a crisis so the public is not limited to 

your favorite reporters for their news. 

They attempt to set arbitrary new rules about how media can interact with 

the official response group. If you have rules, state them in planning 

before a crisis. Reach out to media and explain why the rules exist and 

remain flexible. 

They attempt to tell the media how to do their job. None of us likes to be 

given direction from outsiders about our work. Media do not like it either. 

From a leader, even a suggestion can sound like an order. Unless you’ve 

worked in the media business or know it very well, be certain to start any 

suggestion with, “I’m not certain this would be helpful to you . . . .” Chief 

Charles Moose, during the D.C. metro area sniper shooting investigation 

came out to his first press conference early and told the media. “You are 

going to follow these rules.... Don’t make me look like an ass[xxxx].” It is 

not surprising that the media aired the Chief ’s directions to the media live 

as he was giving them. Really, media do not like to be told how to do their 

jobs. They will follow rules within reason. And you can enforce the rules 

within the bounds of the law. 

If the crisis is big enough for the national or international media to show 

up, some leaders forget who they brought to the dance, local media, and 

become star struck. The fact is that national media have other ways of 

covering the story. If you are a leader at the community level, don’t dis-
Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 26 

We were worried that the 

facts that we might deliver 

might not be understood by 

the public. The public is a 

very intelligent public. The 

public understands, and they 

very rarely can go down the 

wrong path if you're delivering 

honest, simple messages. 

Say the truth, say what's happening, the public will understand and will follow." 

-John Agwunobi John Agwunobi, John Agwunobi M.D., State Health 

Director, Florida, Anthrax, 2001 

count local media. Keep them high on your list. Research indicates, in 

natural disasters, local media get “it” right more often than national media. 

The national media will leave even before the disaster is fully resolved and 

then you’ll be left with your jilted local media who, without question, have 

excellent long-term memories. 

What reporters want 

Reporters, especially during a crisis, want more than you can ever give 

them. Don’t be discouraged. Instead help set reasonable expectations. If 

you surveyed reporters in your community about the ideal response to 

them during a crisis, they would tell you: “It’s simple. I want a front seat to 

the action and all information NOW. Oh, and I also want an exclusive.” 

No one can satisfy all desires from the media. So ask them what they 

expect. They expect equal access to information. They expect you to 

honestly answer their questions. They expect timely release of information. 

They expect you to squash rumors quickly or they will continue to report 

the speculation. They expect you to commit to a schedule for media availabilities and updates. They expect your organization to provide subject 

matter experts if you want an official view reported. They expect their calls 

to be returned. They expect that what you tell them is accurate or you’ll tell 

them that the information is preliminary and could change. They expect 

you to tell them if you do not have an answer and explain the process 

you’re using to get it. They expect a consistent message from your organization and your partners in the response. They expect you to have some 

modicum of understanding about how the news business works. They 

expect to be treated with respect. You can meet their expectations if you 

have a communication plan and sufficient resources committed to the 

public information and media relations work. 

Media are affected by crises too 

Experience over time in various crisis situations have shown that media, 

who, after all, are part of the community can be affected by the crisis too. 

Like everyone, they will be concerned about their safety, the safety of their 

families and their pets. However, the way they do their job changes too. 

For leaders, there are three important ways that the media change. Verification of facts goes down, media abandon their adversarial role early in the 

crisis, and many of them will lack scientific expertise. 

Verification 

Research indicates that 90 percent of first reports following a major news 

event contain errors. Journalists are taught that they should have two 

independent sources providing the same information before reporting it. 

Today, however, with the speed of electronic reporting, including the 

Internet, that concept is outdated in crisis reporting. 

In fact, experts no longer refer to what reporters do in a crisis as reporting. 

Instead, they describe is as “news gathering.” Essentially, electronic reporters are taking the public along on their news gathering process. You get to 
27 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

You're talking about hugely 

emotional events typically. I 

have angry homeowners who 

are upset standing behind 

the television cameras wanting to hear what I have to say 

about their neighborhood. If 

you don't start with empathy I 

think you're going to dig 

yourself a hole. Understand 

those people are still hurting 

from their loss. 

-Jeff Bowman, Fire Chief, San Diego, 

California Fires, 2003 

watch them make the sausage. So, they report what they’ve gathered and 

correct or change it as more information comes in. They typically caution 

that the information is sketchy, but they do not apologize for the frequent 

first reports that turn out not to be correct. 

Generals talk about the fog of war. In reporting during a crisis, it’s the fog 

of information. Information comes in quickly from many sources, and 

reporters may be sorting it out on air. It’s part of the quest to be first and 

to engage the viewer. This is another important reason to have a communication plan in place that can get official and accurate information out 

quickly in a crisis. 

Adversarial Role 

The natural order of things, at least with the media, is for them to have a 

slightly adversarial perspective toward officials. It’s their job to preserve 

democracy through constant probing and questioning of the government. 

They hold government accountable. The court system typically adjudicates 

heavily in favor of a free press when government and media clash. So, if 

you are a public official, it may feel like media have only one note to sing. 

Yet, early in a crisis, the media prove to be extraordinarily helpful to their 

communities. Here’s why. 

Early in a major catastrophe, there are typically more questions than 

answers. This early uncertainty about what is happening causes great 

anxiety. Media are not immune to that anxiety and they want the same 

questions answered that the public want answered. For the initial phase of 

a crisis, one where questions out number answers and the magnitude and 

character of the crisis may not be known, the response officials, the public, 

and the media are focused on exactly the same thing. The media, intentionally or not, will don their “public safety” hats and be ready to report 

every word from the command post. That synergy works in the favor of 

all involved. However, as soon as the uncertainty is reduced and all affected have an understanding of what is happening and even what precipitated the crisis, the media will quickly revert to normal and put on their 

adversarial cloaks once again. 

For example, during the major power outage in the summer of 2003 in the 

United States and Canada, the first question on most everyone’s mind was, 

“did the terrorists do this to us?” That was the question the media focused 

on. As soon as they were satisfied that the anwser to that question was no, 

reporters started to critique New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s performance at the press conference. They speculated he may have been “out of 

touch” with the average person’s perspective about the outage and the 

possibility of spending the night on the dark streets of New York. The 

public safety hats are taken off and those adversarial cloaks are put on 

again very quickly during a crisis. 

Take the media to school 

Evidence strongly suggests that coverage by the media is more factual 
Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 28 

Well, you have to put yourself 

in their shoes otherwise you 

wouldn't understand what 

they're going through. And I 

know I was accused at times 

of having too much empathy 

when my voice would crack. 

You need to feel for the 

people, and I know if you 

don't have the empathy for 

the people you're not a good 

leader. 

-Patricia Owens, Mayor, Grand 

Forks, North Dakota, Flood and Fire 

when reporters have more information. They become more interpretive 

when they have less information. What should you conclude? 

Simple. Do you want to reduce the number of times reporters are interviewing reporters about what other reporters have just reported? Then give 

them something more. Want to reduce the number of times you hear 

reporters and their paid experts suggest what you as the officials responding to the crisis should be doing (while you’re actually doing it)? Give 

reporters something to report. 

A crisis event provides only so much event-specific information in a day. 

Even so, media outlets have round the clock air time to fill. What are they 

going to fill it with? Consider this, not everything you share with the media 

needs to be event specific. Instead, educate the media with background 

information. Turn them into experts on the subject by teaching them what 

you want them to know to help put the situation in context. If a reporter 

hears new information about how a lab test is done to diagnose a disease, it 

isn’t news, but it feels like news because it’s new to the reporter. The public 

will feel the same way. Have the resources in place to help take the reporters and, by default, the public to school. A dirty bomb is detonated in the 

town square? Teach them radiation 101. Engage experts who you can 

partner with in advance of a crisis who can be trusted resources for accurate background information to the media. Ensure you have plenty of 

content resources available on subjects that could affect your community. 

Chemical plants in town? Have ready fact sheets on the chemical properties. If you don’t “take the media to school,” you can be certain someone 

else will and they may not be invested in the best outcome for you and your 

community. 

Another reason to take the media to school is because many of them will 

need it. Only a small percentage of reporters will be experts on issues that 

come up in the crisis. For all the rest, they will need quick remedial training. 

It’s not unreasonable to expect a health reporter would understand the 

difference between a virus and bacteria, but it may be unreasonable to 

expect the lifestyle reporter reassigned to the big outbreak story to know 

the difference. Plan accordingly and don’t assume the media know what 

you know. 

Keep reporters engaged at the command post 

Early in a crisis, media will naturally flock to the command post. However, 

they will naturally begin to fade away and seek alternate perspectives on the 

crisis within a short time. If you want to lengthen the time reporters are 

willing to invest in the official story, make it worth their time to hang out 

with you. 

If you apply the concept of taking reporters to school, you can go a long 

way in keeping reporters hooked up to the command post. Plan for some 

of your officials to take turns briefing media. Break loose subject matter 

experts to do briefings for background. 
29 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

group setting if the message doesn’t warrant a break into the daily soaps. 

If you decide a press conference is warranted, in advance, all parties who 

will participate must agree on the subjects to be covered and who will 

answer what questions. A quick ticket to obscurity is to hold press conferences that appear unplanned and confused. The public does not like to see 

its officials appearing confused during a crisis. 

Leaders must also consider what they convey to the media and public 

depending on the set up for the press conference. If you choose to line 

your experts up seated at tables, then you’re implying that you have sufficient information to share, that everyone should stop and sit down. So if 

you have plenty of information to share and are prepared to take about 30 

minutes of questions, by all means, sit your experts down at a table. On 

the other hand, if you don’t have much information to share and plan to 

The answer is to not say I 

don't know, I have no idea, 

isn't this awful, I'm ringing my 

hands with you. But to say 

listen, here's what we know 

now, we know A, we know B, 

and we know C; we're going 

to try to find out D, E and F, 

we're getting there, hang 

tough. 

-Frank Keating, eating Governor, Oklahoma City, Bombing, 1995 

And, it’s not a bad idea to make it comfortable for the media. In some 

instances that could mean sharing food and bathrooms with them. Small 

comforts can go a long way in building some rapport. 

Also, consider the timing of your major media availabilities. After the 

initial phase of the crisis turns into the maintenance phase, you may be 

holding press briefings only once a day. If you want the media to stay close 

to the command post, perhaps you should schedule them for mid-day. 

Remember, media are interested in official information, but they also will 

seek outside perspectives. 

; Reality Check: Don’t allow your feelings to be hurt if you see media 

asking the same questions to outside experts. Instead, plan to ensure 

outside experts are well informed - make information widely available 

on the Internet. When an outsideexpert is called by a reporter to set up 

an interview, you can bet the expert will immediately do an Internet 

search for specifics. Make it easy for them and you to increase the 

probability messages will be consistent. 

Successful press conferences 

Press conferences take a lot of preparation to be successful. Decide to 

call a press conference based on these considerations in consultation with 

your communication director or public information officer: 

 It’s a fast breaking crisis and the public is clamoring to know who is in 

charge 

 You have an urgent message or recommendation to give the public 

 You’ve promised to update the public on a regular basis 

 You have news 

One of the toughest decisions in a crisis is to decide when or if to hold 

press conferences. After you commit to a schedule, the next tough decision is to determine whether you’re doing too many updates, unnecessarily 

alarming the public. So don’t hold press conferences if you don’t have 

news or important messages for the public. Provide interviews outside a 
Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 30 

I've found over the years it's 

so much easier to be honest 

and tell the truth about everything that happened because three to five years from 

now when I'm in a courtroom, 

I'm not going to remember 

what I said. I'm going to just 

remember the truth. 

-Jeff Bowman, F Jeff Bowman ire 

Chief, San Diego, California Fires, 

2003 

take only a few or no questions, don’t sit down. Instead, have a single 

microphone on a stand (not a podium, if possible) where the leader of the 

press conference speaks and refers to other experts only if needed. 

Whether you’re sitting or standing, assume every microphone is live at all 

times. 

The following are guaranteed credibility crushers during a press 

conference: 

First mistake is having all the “hangers on” from your organization circling 

the back of the room where the press conference is being held. Reporters 

might have their eyes pointed toward you in the front of the room, but 

their ears are listening to off-the-cuff comments being offered in the back. 

A lot of nonverbal information can be given away by a nod or a puzzled 

look from the back of the room. Keep everyone out of the area of the 

press conference except: the media, your communication staff and the 

principals participating in the event. 

Second major mistake is thinking the press conference doesn’t begin until 

you step up to the microphone. Actually, the press conference begins the 

minute you enter the room. So any discussion, official or otherwise, you 

want to have with the others you’re sharing the stage with should be done 

in a separate room. The minute you enter the room, the press conference 

has started. After all, the media, and sometimes the public too, will be 

observing every move you make. They’re trying to gauge the mood and the 

seriousness of the situation by what you do. 

Writing for the media during a crisis 

The more information that is written in plain language and cleared in 

advance of a crisis, the smoother communication will go. The easier you 

make it for the media to do their job, the smoother communication will go. 

The media like to have things written as backgrounders that they can refer 

to when reporting. Get stuff written down that can be written down and 

clear it in advance. Work with your partners to ensure the messages are 

consistent. 

Information that is event specific should go into a one-page press release. 

Think of the press release as a crisis update for the public. All other information should be put in backgrounders and fact sheets. 

Not everything you’ll want to convey to the public during a crisis can be 

generated in advance. Not all information the public wants conveyed to 

them during a crisis will be ready for release at the same time. The mistake 

response officials make is waiting to release information until all the 

facts are in. 

Understand, you can not imagine the pressure that will come from the 

media and public to release information. It’s better to accept now that 
31 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

The older you get the more 

you understand that honesty 

is a tool. If you don't say 

things that aren't true, you 

don't have to remember 

everything that you said. So 

the older you get, the more 

important honesty is. In all 

seriousness, honesty is what 

allows you to come back the 

next time and be credible. If 

you aren't honest the first 

time, you don't have an 

opportunity to be honest the 

second time. 

-Ivan Walks, M.D., Health Director, 

Washington D.C., Anthrax, 2001 

you’re going to have to give them what you have when you have it than to 

believe they’ll wait for it until you can wrap it up with a nice ribbon. Your 

speed at releasing information is a marker for your preparedness. You 

must have a system in place to piece meal information to the public to 

some extent early in the crisis. 

Look at it this way. If you had a room of people who hadn’t eaten for five 

days and you were cooking a turkey would you make them wait the five 

hours it would take for it to be done? Or, would you cut off the turkey 

wings, that get done first, and feed them the wings? You’d be merciful and 

give them the wings, then the drumsticks, and finally the whole bird. 

In a crisis, people are starving for information. If you don’t start feeding 

them what you have, someone else will feed them, and it might be dog 

food. 

Simply, release what you know, acknowledge what you don’t yet know and 

tell them how you’re getting answers. Give them facts and give them your 

process to get more facts. 

The Expected Questions 

No matter what the crisis, the following are the questions that will always 

be asked and should be anticipated by you. Be prepared to address the 

following: 

 What happened? 

 Are my family and I safe? 

 What have you found that may affect me? 

 What can I do to protect myself and my family? 

 Who caused this? 

 Can you fix it? 

 Who is in charge? 

 Has this been contained? 

 Are victims being helped? 

 What can we expect, right now and later? 

 What should we do? 

 Why did this happen? 

 Did you have forewarning? 

The Leader as a spokesperson 

Can what you say and how you say it be the difference between life and 

death during a crisis? Yes. The overwhelming research shows that a credible spokesperson can influence behaviors that could be life saving. Oh, 

that it would be as simple as reading a prepared statement! It’s not. 

For a leader to achieve such noble aims as saving lives, reducing anxiety and 

fear, and helping the community recover more quickly depends in great deal 

on not only the words delivered but also the way the words are delivered. 
A leader who becomes a spokesperson during a crisis is endowed with 

special responsibilities. First, if you are representing a part of the official 

Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 32 

response, such as the incident commander or head of a response agency, 

you are the human embodiment of that command group or agency. You 

take the EOC or your agency from an “it” to a “we.” You’re the human 

face. That’s a hefty responsibility. Use it strategically. 

The public is looking for an expression of empathy from the “powers that 

be.” You’re it. If you express in words a sincere understanding of what the 

members of your community are feeling, you have just made a giant leap 

toward gaining their trust. Remember, you do not have to personally be 

afraid to be able to express, “I can understand this situation may be frightening. I know you are looking for answers to important questions here. We 

want answers too and were taking steps to get them, including . . . .” Or, 

“This is a confusing time for us. It’s such a horrible tragedy we face today. 

My greatest wish is that we would never have to put into action the plans 

we made for just such an event. We are in pain but we are going to work 

through this pain and keep helping the people we can. We will not stop 

until we help every one of our neighbors. I’m going to ask you to help us 

too. We may be asking you to endure some hardships here. We may ask for 

your patience as we work to get answers. We may call on you to volunteer 

in some way. We’re a strong community, built on a foundation of firm 

values and I know one of those is a willingness to help each other when 

we’re in need. I’m counting on that help from each of you today and 

tomorrow.” 

It would be unwise to try to “can” statements of empathy in advance of a 

disaster. If you are a leader whose community is suffering, the words will 

come. Trust yourself that what you speak from your heart is what the 

public needs to hear. If you shut down emotionally and attempt to appear 

unfazed by the event, you risk your credibility. Don’t shed a tear if that’s 

not you, but simply understand that some in your community are crying, 

are hurting, and want to know you understand. Be a leader, be a compassionate leader, and your community will not be victims, they will be helpers. 

That sincere expression of empathy will help quiet anxious minds and 

allow people to hear your message. Express empathy and then give 

directions for action. These two steps, in this order, will help you and 

your community early in the disaster. 

A leader has the ability in a crisis to rally his or her community. A leader 

who is sharing the risk, a part of the affected community, can call on his or 

her community to shoulder the burden and help others. A person frightened out of their wits will respond positively to a call for action and perseverance from an empathetic and committed leader. Ask your neighbors to 

be their strongest and they will be. Interestingly, following September 11, 

2001, researchers discovered that able-bodied elderly people in lower 

Manhattan were an asset to the recovery of that community. They helped 

their younger neighbors cope with the worst tragedy of their young lives by 

The media has deadlines. 

The 4:00 news is going to start 

at 4:00 whether you're on TV 

or not. And they're going to 

report something. So I think 

establishing relationships with 

the media ahead of time, 

understanding the media is 

going to report what they 

think is news, not necessarily 

only what you tell them is 

important. And then routine 

availability is going to be 

critical. 

-Ivan Walks, M.D., Health Director, 

Washington D.C., Anthrax, 2001 
33 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

I speak to the leaders watching and listening. You don't 

have to be superman to run 

a response to a crisis. Be 

humble and don't think it 

serves the message well to 

stand up there pretending or 

acting as if you are a bigger 

person than everyone else. 

Let that humility shine 

through. It will protect the 

honesty of the message, it will 

prevent you from going down 

a road that is fraught with 

danger; that road where you 

try to know all the answers, 

that road where you try to be 

everything for everyone 

-John Agwunobi John Agwunobi, M.D., State Health 

Director, Florida, Anthrax, 2001 

telling stories about other trying times from the past. Young people 

wanted to hear that their elders faced tragedy and were able to recover. 

Stories about World War II and the depression helped the young. In fact, 

Mayor Giuliani reached back to stories about the WW II bombings of 

London to help him keep hope for his city. An early reminder that we 

must “buck up” to help each other will give people something to concentrate on besides their own fears. 

So early in the crisis, express empathy, give people things to do and ask 

more of them. 

What makes a good spokesperson? 

 Sincere expressions of empathy 

 A willingness to risk saying, “I don’t know, we’re working on it” 

 Telling the truth 

 Confidence without arrogance 

 Appropriate emotion 

 Modulated voice 

 Direct eye contact 

 Humility or a lack of defensiveness 

Any leader who has sat through media relations or spokespersons training 

has probably heard the instructor sum up the training with a last suggestion, “Just act natural.” Well, if that’s all it takes to be a good spokesperson, then why have we spent all this time and money for training? Here’s a 

better suggestion than, “just act natural,” instead, act like your agency. 

What are the best qualities of your agency? If your agency were a person, 

who would they be? Act like that person. 

CDC has a culture that, when we’re our best, is described as follows: CDC 

has a history of going into harm’s way to help people. We humbly go 

where we are asked. We value our partners and won’t steal the show.” If 

that’s the way CDC sees itself, then a CDC spokesperson, reminded of 

this, would express a desire to help, show courage (share the risk), and 

remember to acknowledge partners. The spokesperson would seem 

committed, not showy. 

What are the values of your organization? What are the values of your 

political office? Know those and you’ll know how to face the public during 

a crisis and be successful. Forget the bluster. Expect criticism. Focus on 

your neighbors. 

Another sure fired way to be a great spokesperson is to always remember 

who your audience is. One of the mistakes even good leaders sometimes 

make is to confuse the media in your mind as the audience. So, when the 

media begin to aggravate you with their questions you react defensively, or 

disdainfully, or angrily. In a crisis, remember you are talking to the people 

who are hurt, confused, anxious and possibly angry. Don’t let the intermediary between you and your public spoil the connection. 
Before you sit down to do an interview or stand up to speak in the microphone, remind yourself, actually form a mental picture of who you’re 

speaking too, and the media’s behavior won’t cause you to act inappropriately. Picture your grandmother, your son or your sister and brother-in-law 

while they hold their baby. Humanize your audience because they are 

watching every move you make in front of that camera. 

If you think you’re answering the media’s questions, you are wrong. You are 

answering the questions from the public. Forget that and you may frown or 

show anger or disbelief or impatience through your facial expressions. The 

public will think you don’t care, not that you’re tired and especially tired of 

the media questions.

 Pitfalls for spokespersons during an emergency 

 Remember that jargon obfuscates communication and implies 

arrogance. If you have to use a technical term or acronym, define it. If 

you can define it, do you need to use it? Jargon and euphemisms are 

security blankets. Try to give yours up. 

 Use humor cautiously. Humor is a minefield. Soft, self-deprecating 

humor may be disarming for a hostile audience, but be careful. 

 Refute negative allegations without repeating them. Don’t own the 

negative by repeating the accusation. 

 When possible, use positive or neutral terms. 

 Don’t assume you’ve made your point. Ask whether you’ve made 

yourself clear. 

 Ultimately, money will become an issue. During the early stage of an 

emergency, don’t lead with messages about money. 

 At all costs, avoid one-liners, clichés, and off-the-cuff comments. 

Any statement that trivializes the experience of the people involved by 

saying something such as “there are no guarantees in life” kills your 

credibility. 

 Discuss what you know, not what you think. 

Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 34 

Basic tenets of crisis and emergency risk communication 

 Give anticipatory guidance. If you are aware of future negative 

outcomes, let people know what to expect. (e.g., side effects of antibiotics). 

 Be regretful, not defensive. Say, “We are sorry . . .” or “We feel terrible 

that . . .” when acknowledging misdeeds or failures from the organization. Don’t use “regret,” which sounds like you’re preparing for a lawsuit. 

 Acknowledge people’s fears. Don’t tell people they shouldn’t be 

afraid. They are afraid and they have a right to their fears. Don’t 

disparage fear; acknowledge that it’s normal and human to be frightened. 

 Acknowledge the shared misery. Some people will be less frightened 

than they are miserable, feeling hopeless and defeated. Acknowledge 

the misery of a catastrophic event, then help move people toward the 

People seem to be able to 

tolerate you being wrong if 

you're honest about why you 

were wrong and what you 

were wrong about and what 

you're doing to correct it. But 

if you are ever perceived as 

being a dishonest broker of 

information, I think it's just 

about impossible to recover 

from it." 

-Julie Gerberding,

M.D., Director, CDC, SARS, 2003 
35 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

We had public meetings. 

And the anger was very, very 

hard to deal with but you just 

have to understand in your 

own mind that their whole life 

has been just torn apart, 

turned inside out. Most of the 

people, I'd say 80 percent of 

the people handled it very, 

very well but there were some 

that it just was too much for 

them to take because it had 

torn their lives apart. 

-Patricia Owens, Mayor, Grand 

Forks, North Dakota, Flood and Fire 

future through positive actions. 

 Express wishes. Say, “I wish we knew more,” or “I wish our answers 

were more definitive.” 

 Panic is less common than imagined. Panic doesn’t come from bad 

news, but from mixed messages. If people are faced with conflicting 

recommendations or expert advice, they are left with no credible source 

to turn to for help. That level of abandonment opens the door to charlatans and poor judgment. Candor protects your credibility and reduces 

the possibility of misbehavior, because your messages will ring true. 

 Be willing to address the “what if ” questions. These are the questions that everyone is thinking about and they want expert answers. 

Although it’s often impractical to fuel “what ifs” when the crisis is 

contained and not likely to affect large numbers of people, it is reasonable to answer “what ifs” if the “what if ” could happen and people 

need to be emotionally prepared for them. If you do not answer the 

“what if ” questions, someone at much less risk regarding the outcome 

of the response will answer them for you. If you are not prepared to 

address “what ifs,” you lose credibility and the opportunity to frame the 

“what if ” questions with reason and valid recommendations. 

What spokespersons should know when talking through the media 

The media are important during the first hours or days of an emergency. 

They are the fastest and, in some cases, the only way to reach the public 

during an emergency. Media professionals accept their community responsibilities; however, your job is not their job. Respect the differences and 

look for mutual goals. 

 Go into any media interview with a purpose. Have a message to 

deliver. If you don’t have a message, you don’t have a reason to do the 

interview. 

 Make sure the reporter gets your name and title right. Keep your 

title as short as possible. It’s better to make it descriptive of what you 

do than to give an official position title. For example, medical epidemiologist is better than “acting chief of the XXXXXXXX, section of the 

XXXX branch,” etc. 

General media interview pitfalls 

 Don’t let a reporter put words in your mouth. The reporter may use 

inflammatory or emotionally laden words. Don’t repeat them. 

 If the question contains leading or loaded language, reframe the 

question to eliminate the language and then answer the questions. 

 Don’t assume the reporter has it right if he or she claims that some 

one has lodged an allegation. Don’t react to new information a reporter 

gives you. Instead, say, “I have not heard that” or “I would have to 

verify that before I could respond.” Don’t let the reporter start a fight. 

 If a reporter leaves a microphone in your face after you’ve answered the question, stop. Do not answer the question again or add to your 

answer. Instead, say, “Do you have another question?” Say it matter of 

factly, without sarcasm or annoyance. 
Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 36 

I think it's a mistake in any 

tragedy to bring somebody in 

who doesn't have communication skills, who isn't a part of 

the community or a part of 

the state whose accent is 

very different, [who says] 'well 

we'll take care of it and we'll 

have no further comment.' 

That's very, very bad. We 

were very transparent, very 

open, very willing to share the 

limelight. Nobody was trying 

to hog the camera. 

-Frank Keating, 

Governor, Oklahoma City, Bombing, 

1995 

 Anticipate questions. Work with your public information officer to 

anticipate as many expected questions as possible and draft the answers. 

Nuances count. A word change here or there may make the difference 

in how well your answer is received. Put the answer on paper (it will 

usually be too long to give in public) and then find the bottom line— 

what is the point you want to make? What rings true and doesn’t sound 

evasive? That’s your 20-second answer. 

 Make your point first. Have prepared message points. Try to say it in 

30 seconds and in fewer than 90 words. 

 Don’t fake it. If you don’t know the answer, say so. If it’s not in your 

area of expertise, say so. Commit to getting the answer. 

 Never speak disparagingly of anyone, not even in jest. Your mother 

was right—it’s not becoming. Don’t assign blame or pass the buck. Stick 

to what you know and what your organization is doing. Don’t fight your 

battle through the media. If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t 

say anything. Remind reporters that professionals can differ in opinion 

but that does not mean they should attack each other in the media. 

There is a peer-review process to discuss differences. 

 Don’t buy in to hypothetical questions. Reframe the question in a 

way that addresses legitimate concerns of the public without being 

sensational or “entertainment.” 

 Do not ask reporters to review their articles or interviews. Offer to 

clarify information for them as they prepare their piece. If a reporter 

shows you the piece, understand that he or she expects you to correct 

errors in fact—not viewpoints that may differ from yours. 

 Break down multiple-part questions and answer each part separately. 

 Don’t raise issues you do not want to see in print or on the news. 

 Don’t say “no comment” to a reporter’s question. Instead, state why 

you can’t answer that question. Say that the matter is under investigation, 

the organization has not yet made a decision, or simply that you are not 

the appropriate person to answer that question. 

Your interview rights: 

 Know who will be conducting the interview. 

 Know the subjects the reporter wants to cover and limit the interview 

to those subjects. 

 Caution the reporter when you are not the right person to answer a 

question. 

 Know the format and duration of the interview. You can set limits. 

 Ask who else will be interviewed or has been interviewed. 

Not your interview rights: 

Do not: 

 Embarrass or argue with a reporter. 

 Tell the news organization which reporter you prefer. 

 Demand that your remarks not be edited. 

 Insist that an adversary not be interviewed. 

 Lie or cloud the truth. 
37 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

You know we doctors are 

notorious for using big words. 

I was doing the Oprah Winfrey 

show with Tom Ridge and 

Oprah asked me about the 

Brentwood Mail Facility. And I 

said, 'Oprah, it's a big old 

building.' Well that's not a 

scientific term but everybody 

understands a big old building is a big old building. Not 

trying to impress people with 

how smart you are, makes a 

big difference." 

-Ivan Walks, M.D., Health Director, 

Washington D.C., Anthrax, 2001 

 Demand that an answer you’ve given not be used. 

 State that what you are about to say is off the record or not attributable 

to you. (Only reporters can bestow “off the record” status to what you 

say - and then it’s very limited) 

Grief and your role as spokesperson 

In a catastrophic event in the United States, communities or the nation 

may face what experts call “death out of time.” The death of someone 

who is not advanced in age and sickly (e.g., the death of a child) can be 

much more difficult to cope with. Leaders communicating to an individual 

or community experiencing the extreme pain and grief that accompanies 

loss through death must be especially aware of how this grief is suffered. 

Grief is a universal emotion, but no two people experience grief in exactly 

the same manner. 

In a catastrophic event, many people are ill, dying, or in need of treatment 

and it may be your job to talk with individuals about what is happening. 

The following are some basic thoughts about communication styles in an 

intimate but highly emotional emergency situation: 

Empathize with the patient and family 

 People indulge in serious, meaningful communication only for short 

spans. 

 Chitchat is a treasure trove of meaningful “hints” about what a person 

is worried about. 

 Privacy is an important requirement. Assure that information shared 

will be kept private. 

 Allow communication free from interruptions (e.g., crying shouldn’t be 

interrupted). 

 Try not to answer questions outside your area of expertise. Get permission from the individual to refer him or her to an expert. 

Listen carefully 

 Place the speaker’s needs above your own. 

 Use open and accepting body language (e.g., no crossed arms). 

 Always be honest in responding. 

 Try not to interrupt to give advice. 

 Accept moments of silence. 

 As much as 90 percent of communication is nonverbal. 

Better communication 

 Use the person’s name in the conversation. 

 Ask a clarifying question: “Can you help me understand?” 

 Allow the conversation to evolve—don’t push it where you hope it will 

go. 

 Allow time for silence. 

 Be sensitive to a person’s nationality, ethnicity, religion, age, and feelings. 
 When possible, use the words the person uses. 

 Self-disclosure may help the person expand on the topic. 

 When responding to someone, say “you’re crying” instead of “you’re 

sad;” allow the person the opportunity to express the feeling behind the 

action. 

 How something is said is often more important than what is said. 

When speaking to grieving family members: 

Your presence is more important than conversation. Family members may 

voice feelings with such strong emotion as “I don’t know how I’m going to 

live without my husband,” or “Why would God allow this to happen?” 

Short statements of condolence, such as “I’m so sorry,” “This is a sad 

time,” or “You’re in my prayers,” are enough of a response. If a persons 

tenses at your touch, withdraw. 

Use “death” or “dying” not softer euphemisms. Many people feel patronized by words like “expired ” or “received his heavenly reward.” Use the 

same words as the grieving person to respect cultural differences. 

Know the needs of your stakeholders 

The media are demanding stakeholders during a crisis and the danger is 

you may think if you focus on satisfying the media, everyone else who 

wants communication from you will be satisfied. That’s just not the way it 

works. You can’t ignore the media, for lots of obvious reasons. You must 

plan, however, that other stakeholder groups will want a piece of you 

during and after the crisis. 

Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 38 

Stakeholders are identifiable groups of people or organizations who can be 

reached in ways other than through the media. They self-identify as stakeholders. You don’t get to decide whether they have something at stake in 

the crisis or not. They believe you are beholden to them in some way and 

they expect to communicate with you in some way other than through the 

media. 

Since we haven’t perfected cloning yet, you’re going to have to make some 

tough decisions. The highest level of respect toward a stakeholder group is 

for the organization’s leader to meet face to face with them. As that leader, 

you need to work with your communication and policy planners to determine who, in a crisis, should be invited to meet with you, or be called by 

you or receive a hand written note or special email from you. You can’t do 

all of these things for all stakeholders. Do decide who you can delegate 

some of these activities to. Mayor Giuliani tried to attend as many funerals 

as possible for the firemen and policemen and government workers who 

died on September 11, 2001. He tried not to delegate that task. He chose 

wisely his stakeholder priorities. 

Well, credibility is everything. 

Truth is everything. If you have 

an individual who is the 

spokesman, the representative of the government attempting to respond to a 

tragedy and people view that 

person cynically or with suspicion, if anything you're going 

to create more rumor mongering, you're going to create 

other false trails, and you're 

going to create the potential 

of chaos which is terrible. So 

whoever is the spokesman 

better be credible. 

-Frank Keating, eating Governor, Oklahoma City, Bombing, 1995 
39 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

I thought the media did a 

good job. I mean there was 

some concern about releasing information but you know 

all the information they released they got from law 

enforcement. So you sort of 

expect leaks to happen. We 

were able to communicate 

to the public through the 

media and the public maintained the ability to function 

in the middle of all this fear 

and terror because the media was there relaying our 

message. So they were very 

helpful to us. 

-Douglas Duncan, Douglas Duncan County Executive, Montgomery County, Maryland, D.C. Sniper Attacks, 2002 

Stakeholders are people or organizations with a special connection to you 

and your involvement in the emergency. Anticipate and assess the incident 

from the stakeholders’ perspective. They will be most interested in how 

the incident will affect them. Stakeholders are expecting something from 

you. It could be as simple as information released through a Web site and 

email or as complex as in-person meetings with key organization officials. 

In crisis communication planning, the first step in responding to stakeholders is to identify them. Stakeholders may vary according to the emergency, but core stakeholders will be interested in every emergency your 

organization becomes involved in and will expect a response from your 

organization. (See CERC Tools) 

Not all stakeholders are supporters of your organization; nonetheless, it is 

critical to identify unsupportive stakeholders and be prepared to respond 

to them appropriately. In fact, stakeholders will fall into three categories 

based on their responses to you in a crisis: advocates, adversaries, and 

ambivalents. Your response to stakeholders will depend on which of the 

three groups to which a stakeholder belongs. The point is to anticipate 

stakeholders’ reactions based on their affinity for the organization and the 

way that similar groups have reacted in the past when this type of crisis 

has occurred. 

An emergency or crisis may be an opportunity to strengthen your partner 

and stakeholder relationships as they see you in action. A positive response 

will enhance the organization’s credibility. Don’t forget to consider existing 

stakeholder controversies or concerns and how the ongoing relationship 

will color their attitude during this incident. 

If you plan ahead and identify as many stakeholders as possible before the 

event occurs, and the means you will use to communicate with them, you 

will be organized in a way to show stakeholders respect by attending to 

their special need for communication with you and your organization. 

Expending energy on stakeholder communication during a crisis is valuable for at least two reasons besides the fact you may owe them this 

attention. First, they may know what you need to know. They have points 

of view outside your organization. Few stakeholders will be shy about 

pointing out deficiencies. Do you want them pointed out to you or to the 

media? And, they may also be able to help communicate your message for 

you. They may have credibility in some circles you don’t. Be straight with 

them and you may face fewer problems during the crisis recovery. 

Researchers tell us that leaders and their organizations make five mistakes 

toward stakeholders during a crisis according to stakeholders themselves. 

They include the following: inadequate access, lack of clarity, no energy 

for response to them, too little too late, and perceptions of arrogance. 

The truth is that most of these may actually represent a lack of resources 

and planning directed at stakeholder communication. 
Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 40 

There were a lot of times 

during SARS where we were 

trying to balance you know 

being first, being credible 

and being right. And we at 

CDC made the conscious 

decision that our credibility 

was the most important thing. 

And so that honesty of 'we 

don't know, we're sorry we 

don't know, we feel terrible 

we don't know and that we're 

all in this predicament,' it's a 

much better message than 

trying to pretend that you 

know something when you 

don't or try to reassure people 

when there really is no foundation for the reassurance. 

-Julie Gerberding, Julie Gerberding

M.D., Director, CDC, SARS, 2003 

The dreaded town-hall meeting 

Facing your community in a town hall meeting or citizen’s forum during a 

crisis may be the toughest communication task you do as a leader. Don’t 

shirk this responsibility. If you are a government official you owe the 

members of your community the opportunity to meet with you. 

However, don’t convene a town hall meeting without preparation and 

practice. You can undo good community will by blowing this meeting. 

Remember, people who come to a town hall meeting are not a cross section 

of the community. They are usually the most angry or frightened. Here are 

the basic concepts for a successful meeting. 

 Let people talk. Don’t let your experts lecture. The more people talk, 

the more successful they’ll judge the meeting. 

 Ask questions. Wait for their questions before you offer solutions. You 

may be surprised to find out that what you think are the issues are, in 

fact, not their issues. The key is not to offer solutions to problems 

rather help the audience discover solutions. 

 Every person’s input is met with respect. At least they’re willing to 

offer ideas. Never do anything to discourage participation. 

 Tell the truth. Admit when you don’t know something. And always 

follow up to get people the information they are seeking. 

 Don’t lose your temper. People show up angry usually if they have 

been hurt (even emotionally), feel threatened by risks out of their 

control, feel they are not respected, or have had their fundamental 

beliefs challenged. Set aside your anger. Instead strive to understand. 

Despite all the risks you face as a leader in holding a town hall meeting, it 

should be done. You work for the people. So, keep your goals for the 

meeting in balance. It’s not your job to have every person who is willing to 

shut off their TV and drive to the school gymnasium to leave that meeting 

happy. Sometimes your goal should be to listen, simply listen. And never 

promise what you can’t deliver, no matter how easy it would be to do so in 

the moment. Under promise and over deliver. 

No one willingly accepts a lecture, and seldom have lectures changed 

anyone’s mind or behavior. Lecturing is easy—the lecturer gets to vent his 

or her emotions and doesn’t have to take others’ points of view into 

account. A lecture does not engage the audience. If I’m upset, I want to be 

heard. Limit opening remarks from you and your experts to 5 minutes. The 

audience isn’t hearing you. They are thinking about what they want to say 

to you. Let them say it. 

Telling is easy, asking is tougher. Asking questions is a deliberate action. It 

forces the process to slow down and forces everyone to stop and think 

before replying. Instead of attempting to persuade an individual or community group to take an action, allow them to persuade themselves through a 

self-discovery process. The key is to not give the solution, but help your audience to 

discover its own solution. 
41 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

I've had some very focused 

training and that's been 

extremely useful. One of the 

things that I do is carry 

around the short version of 

that training in my wallet, and 

periodically I do still find 

myself referring back to it 

when I'm jammed and know 

that I'm going to give some 

advice on a short notice. 

Being able to refer to that 

cheat sheet helps me organize my thoughts." 

-Julie Gerberding, Julie Gerberding M.D., Director, 

CDC, SARS, 2003 

How do you help an audience discover its own answers? By asking the 

right questions. 

Using feedback as your tool, you can ask the audience questions that will 

create awareness about the situation in such a way as to empower them to 

make a difficult choice. As many therapists will attest, a person who comes 

up with his own answer and says something in his own voice will take 

ownership of that idea. It’s better for you to ask a leading question than to 

make an interpretation. The right questions can help an audience to make 

the necessary connections. This strengthens the audience’s tendency to 

claim ownership for the insight. 

eality Check: Sometimes people appear angry because they are 

advocates for a particular position on an issue. These people get angry 

when the cameras are focused on them. Sometimes people appear 

angry because they hope to litigate. It’s OK to set rules and remind 

people that in your town hall meetings every one behaves respectfully if 

they want to be heard. Don’t let hecklers take over. Remain calm and take 

a little more abuse than most people would expect you to take. Do that, 

and before you know it, the legitimately angry community members will 

soon come to your rescue, demanding that hecklers behave. 

; Reality Check

For example, if a severe communicable disease outbreak were to occur, a 

challenge for officials in emergency response and public health is the 

possibility that civil rights may need to be temporarily suspended to 

control the spread of disease. An extreme case would be the need to 

quarantine individuals or communities. It makes sense that a population 

that understands the need to quarantine will be more likely to uphold the 

curfews or quarantine requirements. 

Questions to help people persuade themselves 

 Start with broad, open-ended questions. 

Example: What challenges have (you or your community) faced that 

required consensus building to solve the problem? How did it go? What 

did you learn from those experiences? Were there difficult choices to 

make? 

 Then, ask questions to discover the explicit wants, needs, and desires of 

your audience. 

Example: What is most important to (you or your community) when 

faced with a problem to solve? Consensus building? Putting the greater 

good for the greater number first? Avoiding conflict? That the solution 

is fair and equitably distributed? Ensuring that everyone has a voice and 

is heard? That reasonable alternatives are fully explored? 

 Follow with questions that are more specific to the situation now being 

faced by the audience. 

Example: What are the ramifications to (you, your family, your community, the nation) when faced with this current problem? What conse-
quences are you hoping to avoid? What do you see as the worst out 

come for (you or your community)? What courses of action do you 

believe could mitigate this outcome? 

 Then, ask questions that encourage audience members to state the 

benefits they would like to see result from a course of action. 

Example: What benefits would (you or your community) expect if this 

disease did not spread further? Since you’ve brought up quarantine,

 what benefits would (you or your community) expect if you accepted 

quarantine as a course of action to reduce spread of disease? 

 Once the audience sees and expresses the benefits, it will be much 

easier to demonstrate how your strategy can solve the problem. 

Example: “From what I understand, you are looking for a way to 

protect (yourself, family, community) from more illness or death? If I 

can go ahead and explain how quarantine will meet those needs, are you 

open to implementing it? If you think quarantine would work in this 

effort, how do you see the quarantine being explained to the entire 

community and implemented?” 

Allowing people to persuade themselves is not an easy process. Done 

poorly, it can seem condescending or manipulative. It takes practice and a 

great deal of empathy. However, it’s worth the effort, because it is truly the 

most effective way to gain acceptance in thought and behavior. 

How to de-escalate the conflict? 

Start by trying to agree on issues that may not be core to the conflict—not 

the hot button issue that no one is willing to concede. Agree whenever you 

can. It is hard to attack someone who agrees with you. You don’t have to 

concede a thing. Find the elements that bring some agreement among both 

groups. Set up guidelines for interaction and make an effort to “humanize” 

each side for the other. 

 At all times, seek common principles on which to base a common 

dialogue. 

 Remain open to reason and allow yourself to consider that you might 

be wrong. 

 Strive for fairness in the process, especially where a real or perceived 

Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 42 

inequity has occurred. 

 Work to get input from all stakeholders. 

 Leave the community or population better off than how you found it. 

 Decision makers in the community should have access to open and 

complete scientific information. 

Try to get as many “yeses” as you can. If someone says, “Your proposal is 

totally unrealistic,” try this response: “Are you saying that you don’t see how 

my proposal can (respect citizens’ rights and stop the spread of disease)?” 

When the person says “yes,” this transforms the relationship. Each question you offer that allows a “yes” answer from the other side further 

reduces the tension. 

Town hall meetings were 

often held in schools. When 

people would scream, interrupt and bully, I would point 

out that we were in a school 

building and that this was no 

way to set an example. 

-Rudolph Giuliani -Rudolph Giuliani, 

Mayor, New York City, 2001, from his 

book Leadership 
43 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

What surprised me and 

frustrated me was that everyone didn’t understand right 

away how important it was to 

connect with the public. The 

public has to be a partner, 

and you have to get the 

public, again, to do that 

single behavior that is going 

to keep them safe. 

-Ivan Walks, M.D., Health Director, 

Washington D.C., Anthrax, 2001 

Don’t say “yes, but”—say “yes, and” 

Typically, people express their differences by prefacing their responses 

with, “but.” The other group will be more receptive if you first acknowledge their views with a “yes” and then preface your view with an “and.” 

Example: “Yes, we want to protect people’s rights and we want to keep 

them alive to enjoy those rights.” 

Media Law 

It’s helpful to understand what legal rights the media have or do not have, 

especially when confronting a crisis. Consult a media law expert if you 

have doubts about restrictions or special access you may want to offer the 

media in a crisis. It’s also a good idea to articulate, before the crisis, the 

principles of public information you embrace. For example, CDC holds 

the following as standards for releasing information to the public either 

directly or through the media. (See box below) 

The First Amendment: The founding fathers gave the free press protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press 

was to serve the governed, not the governors. 

Media’s right to acquire news: The media have the constitutional right 

to acquire news from any source by any lawful means. The media are given 

no constitutional right to special access. They have the right to know what 

the public has the right to know. Case law supports that the media do not 

The following are CDC's principles of communication regarding the public's right to know: 

CDC will make available timely and accurate information-through proactive news 

releases or in response to specific requests-so that the public, Congress, and the news 

media may assess and understand its scientifically based health information and 

programs. 

 Final reports, information, and recommendations will be made fully and readily available. 

 Communication will be open, honest, and based on sound science, conveying accurate 

information. 

 Information will not be withheld solely to protect CDC or the government from criticism 

or embarrassment. 

 Information will be released consistent with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). 

 Prevention messages will be based on supportable scientific data and sound behavioral and 

communication research principles. At all times, health messages will remain scientifically valid 

and accurate. CDC will honor embargo agreements with standards of peer-reviewed periodicals 

in the scientific and medical communities. 

 Targeted health messages will be sensitive to language and cultural differences and 

community norms. 

have the right to special access to crime scenes, disaster scenes, police 

stations, hospital labs and other places consistently restricted to public 

access. The media’s access may be restricted if it interferes with legitimate 

law enforcement actions. The media may have access to what is available 

and open to the public historically. What does that mean to your hospitals, 

jails, courtrooms, meeting rooms? 
Media’s right to publication: Once the media obtain information the 

ability to restrict the publication of that information is severely limited. It 

requires a heavy burden to prevent or prohibit publication. 

Assisting the media: The media have the right to access what the public 

has a right to, nothing more. If you invite the public onto private property, 

without permission by the owner, you could be inviting civil liability. 

Employees access to the media: Freedom of speech is constitutionally 

protected, if public value outweighs detrimental impact. Think 

whistleblower. However, the employee may be required to first follow the 

chain of command before choosing to go public with his or her information. 

Right to know versus need to know 

When releasing information, elected officials and civil servants must weigh 

the public’s right to know against the need for national security and individual privacy. Citizens expect to know how their money is being spent and 

how these resources are being used. They have a “right to know” about the 

government’s activities. 

The public’s right to know is not strictly a legal concept supported by the 

Constitution or an act of Congress. Instead, it is a concept promoted by 

officials in all branches of our government as the proper approach to the 

disclosure of information because the government depends on the support 

of those it governs. 

Keeping certain sensitive information secret is of paramount importance to 

the defense and operation of a government. The “need to know” concept 

is used to keep sensitive information in the hands of those whose duties 

require its use and away from potential enemies of the United States 

(Holsinger, 1991). 

Definitions and Processes 

Detention is the temporary holding of a person; ship; aircraft; or other 

carrier, animal, or thing. The length and location of detention is determined by the CDC director. 

Isolation is the separation of a person or group of persons from other 

persons except the health care staff on duty in such a manner as to prevent 

the spread of infection. This isolation is for the period of communicability 

of infected persons or animals from others in such placed and under such 

conditions as to prevent or limit the direct or indirect transmission of the 

infectious agent from those who are susceptible or those who may spread 

the agent to others. 

Quarantine restricts the activities of well persons or animals exposed to 

communicable disease during its period of communicability in order to 

Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 44 

I think once again you have 

to recognize that if there's no 

information, if there is a 

vacuum of information, it is 

likely to be filled with speculation and with incorrect messaging. It's tougher to take 

down the incorrect messages 

that are out there, to replace 

them with the correct messages. So I think it's important 

that you recognize the importance of speed. Let the public into the process, let them 

understand how the information is gathered. 

-

John Agwunobi John Agwunobi, M.D., State Health 

Director, Florida, Anthrax, 2001 
prevent disease transmission during the incubation, if infection should 

occur. There are two types of quarantine: 

Absolute or complete quarantine limits the freedom of movement of 

those exposed to a communicable disease for a period of time not longer 

than the longest usual incubation period of that disease, in such a manner 

as to prevent effective contact with those not so exposed. 

Modified quarantine is the selective, partial limitation of freedom of 

movement of contacts, commonly on the basis of known or presumed 

differences in susceptibility and related to the danger of disease transmission. This type is designed to meet such specific situations as the exclusion 

from school, exemption of those known to be immune, restriction of 

military to post, etc. This includes personal surveillance and segregation, 

defined as the following: 

Surveillance of a person is the temporary supervision of someone who 

may have or has been exposed to a communicable disease. It is the practice 

of close medical or other supervision of contacts in order to permit 

prompt recognition of infection or illness but without restricting their 

movements. 

A surveillance order is a notification delivered to a person who may have 

been exposed to a communicable disease, advising him or her of the 

potential exposure, the need for surveillance of the individual, the authority to perform the surveillance, and providing compliance instructions for 

the person being placed under surveillance. Instructions may include 

information about the symptoms, actions should symptoms occur, who to 

contact if the person relocates, time period of surveillance, penalty for 

noncompliance, etc. 

Segregation is the separation of some part of a group, persons, or 

domestic animals from others for special consideration, control, or observation. Segregation includes removal of susceptible children to the homes 

of immune persons, or the establishment of a sanitary boundary (to 

protect the uninfected from infected portions of a population). 

A cordon sanitaire is a sanitary cord or line around a quarantined area 

guarded to prevent the spread of disease by restricting passage into or out 

of the area. 

45 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

These concepts may be critical in the response to suspected or confirmed 

large-scale bioterrorist events. Questions about people with active cases of 

illness and those who may be incubating the disease and infectious agent 

would have to be considered to protect non-exposed healthy people. 

The public health response, timing, and degree of the response would 

depend on the following aspects of the outbreak: 

 Number of cases and exposed persons 

 Associated illness and death from the disease (severity of the disease) 

Leaders ought to be as 

accurate as they can be 

about projections and, if they 

are going to err, make it on 

the side of underpromising. 

-Rudolph Giuliani Rudolph Giuliani, 

Mayor, New York City, 2001, from his 

book Leadership 
 Ease and rapidity of the spread of the disease (some spread so easily 

that these disease control measures may not be feasible). 

 The degree of movement in and out of a community (how isolated the 

community may or may not be). 

 Resources needed to separate sick or exposed people from well people 

 Risk for public panic. 

For individuals who are sick, the appropriate response may be isolation 

(home or congregate settings) and respiratory isolation. Sick people would 

need to be monitored to detect new cases and monitor disease treatment. 

Keeping fit for duty in a crisis 

People who respond to crises are typically extremely committed individuals who think of others before themselves. While it is precisely their generous outlook that calls them to this work, it is imperative that they—and 

those who care for them—be encouraged to pay close attention to their ; Reality Check: Research 

physical and emotional well-being. indicates that after more than 24 

hours without sleep, job perforRemember that your response efforts mance is roughly equivalent to 

are a gift of yourself—your time and that of someone who’s legally 

your caring—that you couldn’t give if drunk! 

you, too, were a victim. Few of us have 

experience with mass death or destruction. Workers need to understand 

and appreciate the intensity of their emotions, and those of others. 

Although workers may function in superhuman ways during a disaster 

operation, the stress associated with this work takes its toll. Workers get 

tired, confused, hurt, and scared. It is critical for both the workers and 

those they are trying to help them understand the effects of stress and 

make an effort to deal with it. 

Stress-relieving activities are not as difficult or time-consuming as we may 

think. A 15-minute walk, talking to someone, taking a “brain break” by 

going out to dinner or a movie, or just using deep breathing exercises, can 

significantly reduce stress. 

During the operation, it’s important to eat nutritional foods, avoid drinking 

large amounts of caffeine and alcohol, get some exercise whenever possible, and get as much sleep as possible. 

Spokesperson resources—think redundancy 

If the media interest is intense or enduring—what you’d expect in a crisis—stagger your spokespersons, too. Fatigue creates mistakes. Attempt to 

arrange interviews when you are most fresh (e.g., not at the end of a shift). 

Reduce stress with lots of support from the public information officer. 

Initially in a crisis, a top leader may need to do a number of media availCrisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 46 

We have done a lot of postsniper training with our police 

department about the importance of communicating with 

the public, about the importance of working with the 

media. If you're not helping 

[the media] do their job they 

will question the job you're 

doing and that will lead to 

public distrust and start to 

make everything collapse. 

-Douglas Duncan, County 

Executive, Montgomery County, 

Maryland, D.C. Sniper Attacks, 2002 
abilities (think press conferences), especially at the community level if the 

status of the event is variable. However, as the crisis evolves, top leaders 

should expect to do no more than four separate TV interviews in a day, 

along with 2 or 3 telephone interviews if they’re not too in-depth. That 

pace, however, can not be sustained day after day, and an organization 

director or hands-on leader of the response can’t afford to do continuous 

interviews. You must save the big guns for important moments when the 

public expects to hear from a real policy-maker or decision-maker. If 

possible, substitute lower-level organization leaders or subject matter 

experts for more routine interview requests. The director should be 

reserved for the greatest possible reach and for pivotal moments. Overexposure of the top director may lead to accusations of grandstanding or 

perceived power struggles. 

The media would love unlimited access to exclusive in-person interviews. 

Use your assets wisely and save leaders for the times that they’re really 

needed. 

47 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

Decision-making would be 

easy if it were always a 

choice between good and 

evil or right and wrong. In the 

real world, leaders have to 

make decisions . . . usually 

between two or more imperfect remedies. 

-Rudolph Giuliani Rudolph Giuliani, Rudolph Giuliani Mayor, New York 

City, 2001, from his book Leadership 
CERC TOOLS

CERC: Leader Pre-event Checklist 

The following are keys to successful crisis communication. Discuss these 

with your communication director. 

I know:  Public information and media response is perceived b

y us as critical to 

our operational success 

 Spokespersons (by topic) are identified and trained (e.g., empathy, 

honesty, commitment) 

 Crisis Communication plan is integrated into overall operational plan 

 A written procedure and agreement on clearance procedures is in place 

These clearance procedures take 15 minutes or less to accomplish 

These clearance procedures ensure accurate information is released 

These clearance procedures have been tested in drills/exercises 

These clearance procedures allow for authority delegation to speed 

response 

 Contact information (including after hours) for primary media is handy 

to all who need it 

 Adequate manpower and equipment is set aside to keep a 24-hour 

media operation going for up to 10 days 

 Our information telephone number (hotline) for public inquiries is 

ready with trained operators 

 Our response partners are identified and know our communication role 

and expectations 

 Our stakeholders are identified and know how we will respond directly 

to them 

We have the capability of holding a national press conference if needed 

We can monitor media reports and public inquiries for rumors and 

respond to rumors in real time 

 Strategic National Stockpile communication tools are in place  Our emergency response plan notifies the communication director in first wave of calls/pages  As an important stakeholder, we know our elected officials will want to 

communicate to constituents about this crisis and we have a plan to 

ensure a consistent message is delivered to the public 

 Our Internet site can post media and public information materials 

within 45 minutes of final clearance 

We have an accountability plan to public/media about resource alloca-

tions during and after the crisis such as a web page that shows where 

disaster response funds are going that is updated routinely 

We can conduct a meaningful town hall meeting during crisis recovery 

 All potential incident command or department leaders are fully trained 

in Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication and understand their 

role as a spokesperson 

Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 48 
CERC TOOLS

__________________________________________________________ 

_________________________________________________________ 

__________________________________________________________ 

__________________________________________________________ 

CERC: Crisis Leader—First Message 

Build credibility with these 6 emergency message components: 

1. Expression of empathy (e.g., understand you are hurt, confused, 

anxious, frightened): 

______________________________________________________________________________

2. Clarifying facts (Fill in only VERIFIED facts, skip if not certain): 

Who________________________________________________________ 

What (Action)________________________________________________ 

Where_______________________________________________________ 

When_______________________________________________________ 

Why________________________________________________________ 

How________________________________________________________ 

3. What we don’t know:______________________________________ 

4. Process to get answers:_____________________________________ 

5. Statement of commitment:_________________________________ 

6. Referrals (If possible, skip if not yet ready): 

For more information_____________________________________ 

Next scheduled update____________________________________ 

Finally, check your message for the following: 

49 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 

Positive action steps 

Honest/open tone 

Say “we” not “I” 

Careful with early promises (can you do it?) 

Avoid jargon 

Avoid judgmental phrases 

Avoid humor 

Avoid extreme speculation 

Delivered: _________Time _________ Date 
CERC TOOLS

CERC TOOLS

_ ________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

CERC: First Response to Media Inquiries 

By phone to media: 

 “We’ve just learned about the situation and are trying to get more 

complete information now. How can I reach you when I have more 

information?” 

 “All our efforts are directed at bringing the situation under control, so 

I’m not going to speculate about the cause of the incident.” How can I 

reach you when I have more information?” 

 “I’m not the authority on this subject Let me have XXXX call you 

right back.” 

 “We’re preparing a statement on that now. Can I fax it to you in about 

two hours?” 

 “You may check our web site for background information and I will 

fax/e-mail you with the time of our next update.” 

At incident site or press availability: 

Response to Inquiries (you are authorized to give out the following information) 

Date: _________

Time: __________

Approved by: ________________________

This is an evolving emergency and I know that—just like we do—you 

want as much information as possible right now. I wish I could answer all 

of your questions here. While we work to get your questions answered as 

quickly as possible, I want to tell you what we can confirm right now: 

; At approximately, ________ (time), a (brief description of what happened) 

; At this point, we do not know the number of ___________________ 

(persons ill, persons exposed, injuries, deaths, etc.). 

; We have a system (plan, procedure, operation) in place for just such an 

emergency and we are being assisted by __________________ (e.g., 

police, FBI, EOC) as part of that plan. 

The situation is (under)(not yet under) control and we are working with 

(local, State, Federal) authorities to (e.g., contain this situation, determine 

how this happened, determine what actions may be needed by individuals 

and the community to prevent this from happening again). 

We will continue to gather information and release it to you as soon as 

possible. I will be back to you within __________________(amount of 

time, 2 hours or less) to give you an update. As soon as we have more 

confirmed information, it will be provided. We ask for your patience as we 

respond to this emergency. For more information: __________________ 

Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 50 
CERC TOOLS

CERC TOOLS _________________________________________________________ 

_________________________________________________________ 

_________________________________________________________ 

_________________________________________________________ 

_________________________________________________________ 

_________________________________________________________ 

_________________________________________________________ 

CERC: Stakeholder Reaction Assessment 

Stakeholder group __________________________________________ 

Importance to success of communication in this incident (circle): 

Least 1 2 3 4 5 Most 

Advocate _________ Adversary___________Ambivalent___________ 

Importance of this stakeholder group? 

Likely initial reaction? ______________________________________

What would cause a change in position?

Key messages: ____________________________________________

Key contacts: ______________________________________________

Opportunities for feedback: ___________________________________

Agreed on strategies to inform/involve stakeholders:

Products to provide: ________________________________________

Contact updates: ___________________________________________

Date, with whom, and how: __________________________________

51 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 
CERC TOOLS

CERC TOOLS

CERC: Media Expectations in a Crisis 

What do the media expect from you and your organization? No one can satisfy all 

desires from the media. So ask them what they expect. 

 They expect equal access to information. 

 They expect you to honestly answer their questions. 

 They expect timely release of information. 

 They expect you to squash rumors quickly or they will continue to 

report the speculation. 

 They expect you to commit to a schedule for media availabilities. 

 They expect your organization to provide subject matter experts if you 

want an official view reported. 

 They expect their calls to be returned. 

 They expect that what you tell them is accurate or you’ll tell them that 

the information is preliminary and could change. 

 They expect you to tell them if you do not have an answer and explain 

the process you’re using to get it. 

 They expect a consistent message from your organization and your 

partners in the response. 

 They expect you to have some modicum of understanding about how 

the news business works. 

 They expect to be treated with respect. 

You can meet their expectations if you have a communication plan and 

sufficient resources committed to public information and media relations. 

Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 52 
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Cohn, Victor. (1990). Reporting on Risk. Washington D.C.: The Media 

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Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 

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Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 

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Tyndale House Publishers. 

Holsinger, Ralph, L. (1991). Media Law. New York: McGraw Hill. 

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Harper & Row, Publishers 

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Health Risk Communication Principles and Practices. Atlanta: Division of 

Health Education, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease 

Registry. 

53 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 
CERC TOOLS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 54 
BIBLIOOGRAPHY

CERC by Leaders for Leaders was adapted from the HHS/CDC Crisis 

and Emergency Risk Communication course book and from 2 

years of course lecture by Barbara Reynolds, CDC Crisis Communication Specialist. The full text book (267 pages) is available at 

www.phf.org/bookstore. 

Suggested further readings 

Reynolds, B., Hunter Galdo, J., & Sokler, L. (2002). Crisis and Emergency 

Risk Communication. Atlanta: Centers for Disease Control and 

Prevention. www.phf.org/bookstore 

Journal of Health Communication. Special Issue: Public Health Communication During the September 2001 Bioterrorism-Related Anthrax 

outbreaks: CDC Activities and Lessons Learned Volume 8, 

Supplement 1, 2003 

Biosecurity and Bioterrorism : Biodefense Strategy, 

Practice and Science. Working Group on "Governance 

Dilemmas" in Bioterrorism Response, Volume 

2, Number 1, 2004 

Giuliani, Rudolph (2002). Leadership. New York: Miramax 

Seeger, M.W., Sellnow, T.L., & Ulmer, R.R. (2003). Communication and 

Organizational Crisis. Westport, CT: Praeger 

55 Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 
Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication: By Leaders for Leaders 56 

Playing DVD’s from your PC 

DVD is an acronym for digital video disc or digital versatile disc, an 

optical disk storage technology that has become enormously popular. 

These discs can store video, audio, and computer data. Movies are stored 

on DVD in DVD-Video format. Your Windows 2000/XP-based computer can play DVDs as well, if it’s got a supported DVD drive and a 

supported DVD decoder installed. 

When you insert a DVD movie into your DVD drive for the first time, 

you’ll be prompted to play the DVD movie, as shown in the figure below. 

If you select the Always do the selected action check box, you won’t see 

this dialog box again when inserting a DVD. Click Play DVD Video, and 

then click OK to start Windows Media Player and start the playback. 

At this point, one of two things will happen. Either your movie will begin to play 

right away, or you will get a Windows Media Player error message, saying 

that a compatible DVD decoder is not installed on your computer, so the 

DVD will not be played. 

If you get this message, you need a DVD decoder. If you bought a PC 

equipped with a DVD drive, check with the computer manufacturer or 

with your IT personnel to install the appropriate player.