By: Enem Ali Abbas
“Make an urgent call to Bureau Chief of the most watched news channel right away and apprise him of the situation in the tribal area of Balochistan where the pipeline was exploded,” Chief directs his media team to implement before media finds it on its own and they follow the orders accordingly. Once the news channel with the high TRP flashes it like a breaking news, the Chief asks the media team to share a little more details with the remaining news channels. A communique is shared with a purpose to build a narrative that the distribution company has immediately taken notice of the incident and with their quick response system in place the things in the tribal areas are under control.
Within a couple of minutes, the company returns victor. Before media could question the quality of pipeline that was laid recently, or the safety measures at the terminal joint, the distribution company gets away unhurt with a minute bashing regarding the supply restoration time. Nobody questions if the pipeline was anywhere around the residential area or even if they do, the sole informer is the company itself because it shares updates with the media before their investigation even starts.
This is an effective example of communication crisis management. Modern world had started adopting media tools and techniques to cope with communication challenges decades ago and today almost all multinationals have media management units within their organization setup. The key role of such units is not just to promote the positive image but to handle the communication crisis in order to save the company from undue embarrassment and backlash both. Governments and other key utility organizations in Pakistan have their monitoring setups in place to keep themselves posted about the law and order, and other issues decaying the country/their respective organizations.
Unfortunately, the system is not really focused on communication crisis management, latest example is Sahiwal incident. In a way, it is not totally unjust to say that Prime Minister Imran Khan or the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf as a political party have no relation with the incident and somehow the tragedy wasn’t backed by government. Instead of taking citizens in confidence, the government turned them against itself. PTI formed government in federal and provinces only a couple of months ago, PTI or the Prime Minister couldn’t be blamed directly for such a mishap unless they don’t take notice and justice is not served. But a couple of insensitive statements belittled citizens right to know and complaint. The current government hasn’t served enough time in the setup that it could be charged for not bringing reforms in police and other departments. Blame was onto the previous regime of PML-N, that led the province for two terms. But it’s obvious if you take the credit for the good, you will be blamed for the bad. What exactly went wrong here? It’s a general principle for handling a communication crisis, 1) take all stakeholders on board, 2) stay truthful and share initial information with media before they dig it out, 3) even if the preliminary report is against yourself, publish it fearlessly, 4) keep the audience, stakeholders posted with latest developments and 5) if anybody is a victim but you think he is not, don’t express it, just own your mistake and stand by him until the final investigation report is out.
Unluckily, government never followed any of these principles initially and it earned the undue hatred. This is not about PTI alone, even PML-N during its term tried being defensive in many cases that caught undue bashing and in some of the cases it was uncalled for. Political governments that are formed after proper elections need to understand that they stand for people not for the government organizations. Their backing is the power of vote, there is no point in rescuing their departments from the backlash that’s due. There is no justification for a blunder like Sahiwal incident, and the parliamentarians are public’s representatives first before being police’s spokesperson. They shouldn’t promote an environment in which a politically elected government is made a party against the people who voted them in power.
The take-home lesson for the government from this incident is to effectively manage a communication crisis, if they don’t then people won’t believe in fair investigation reports either. Stop shattering the trust and hope they have pinned on you, be fair with the people, admit mistakes, own the responsibility and rectify the problem. Otherwise, the video of people protesting and running after the policemen on Ferozepur Road is one little example when people turn against the state in pursuit of justice. The deceased were not political figures or any religious leaders but the number of people gathered for them were more than the people gather outside Kot Lakhpat jail every Thursday. Deceased’s families hadn’t given any protest call but still people came out for them, it is the power of people that we as a government should be afraid of. Most importantly, if the government is not directly responsible for the mishap but any leverage given to the culprits would be government’s biggest mistake. Even if the government wasn’t behind this encounter, the responsibility to serve justice and take preventive measures lies with the government. If it happens once again, people won’t turn a blind eye. This incident already has inculcated a feeling of fear that next time it could be me; from curbing the fear to eliminating the miscreants, it is undoubtedly government’s responsibility.
