STATES OF EMERGENCY - Patrick Lagadec

Organizations with their backs to the wall 31would surely lead to an endless succession of revelations. This situation is ahorror for the officials, and offers a field day to the media, who have ahandle on a soap opera that will guarantee their audience ratings for quitesome time.This domino effect, which could also be called the "media disasterscenario," is often followed so conscientiously that it is worth dwelling onfurther. It can also be explained on structural grounds. In the camp of thosein charge, there are several particular causes of paralysis:- fear of sensationalism and its potential for provoking the disseminationof false (or even correct) information;- the excessively technical nature (or what is perceived as such) of theproblems to be discussed, especially issues of probability;- cringing before the potential collapse of a brand image or public image;- refusal to deal with the media, because they seem to be businessenterprises ready to do anything to win greater market shares, rather thantools for informing the citizenry;- rejection of the media as uncontrollable forces, acting with completeimpunity: it is impossible to offset the media syndrome that quickly saturatesall potential for receiving messages in a crisis; impossible to hold journalistsaccountable for what they write or say, or the headlines they choose (evenwhen these are in contradiction with an article's contents);- prudence or even deep suspicion of a press organ that seems to bemanipulated by one of the actors in the conflict.On top of all this comes some surprising reading material. A specialistwho reads in the lead of an article from a major weekly magazine that the2000 deaths in Bhopal were caused by dioxin will be more than dissatisfied -a mockery is being made of the very notion of precise information and clearreasoning. There is also an overlay of burning personal memories or fearsaroused by anecdotes passed around by word of mouth. Take the experienceof an Electricité de France official who intelligently called the local presswithout delay to inform it of a minor incident, and who saw the headline,"Terror on the Tarn River" in the next day's paper. The source of thedistortion? The newspaper had had a little problem because the President ofthe Republic was scheduled to visit the area and a sizable amount of space hadbeen reserved for coverage of the event. At the last minute, the trip wascancelled, and the editorial staff seized upon the incident supplied by EDF tofill in the gap. As for the title, the temptation had simply been too great.Such accounts must be accepted as evidence in the case, but with threeadditional observations. First of all, while such experiences do pose a realproblem, it should not be forgotten that they often have a disproportionateimpact in the minds of officials - they enter into a process of self-justificationthat cannot be ignored. Second, as a top industrial public relations managertold his engineers, "Journalists may say stupid things sometimes, but are yousure you've never led them down the garden path ?" Finally, it is important torealize that a crisis simply amplifies the way things work under normalconditions. If people are accustomed to being condescending with the press,