Activity 10.3

What I want you to do now is to think about the media aspects of a major emergency or disaster and make a list of ten issues that would reflect both the concerns of the media and of others who might be involved.

In order to give you an added appreciation of the media's involvement in an emergency event, take a moment to watch an extract from the video production "A coordinated response to disaster – The Clapham rail crash" produced by the Emergency Planning College in 1993 following the 12 th December, 1998 rail disaster at Clapham Rail Junction west of London. This extract focuses on the media's involvement in the response to the Clapham rail crash.

When you have watched the Clapham video extract above and have considered the issues that you believe reflect the concerns of both the media agencies and also the response agencies, make a list in the table provided in the link below. Once completed, save your work to your Learning Portfolio for future reference.

Concerns Affecting Media and Response Agencies

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1.

The emergency services have a job to do and they do not want anyone from the media getting in the way.

2.

Many people in the emergency services do not like the media and see them as adding to their concerns.

3.

The media are paid to do a job, and if they want to keep their job they have to do it, even if it is despite the efforts of the emergency services.

4.

One of the major concerns of the emergency services is the television or press photographers taking ghoulish pictures.

5.

The photographer is directed to take as many photographs/scenes as possible. The editor decides what is published or goes to air not the photographer. In Australia the media have a policy of not publishing or broadcasting pictures of bodies or body parts in the community in which the victim resides.

The photographer is not allowed to interpret what they might think might be editorial policy; their job is just to take as many pictures as they can.

6.

The media have very strict and tight deadlines; old news is no news.

7.

The media want to get first hand accounts not sanitised versions some hours later.

8.

Journalists have been trained to get their story following a basic framework as follows:

What happened? Where? When? To whom? How? Why or whose fault is it? How much damage has been done? How much will it cost? How many dead and or injured?

9.

The media would prefer using their energies to file their stories as quickly as possible, not wasting their energies in trying to outmanoeuvre the emergency services.

10.

If the media do not get the facts, they will become creative. If there is an information vacuum they will fill the gap in order to keep their jobs.

11.

Media management plans must be developed to address the issues above and therefore enhance the management of emergency events.

Activity 10.4

Keeping your ideas and mine in mind, I want you to now consider how you believe the emergency services and response agencies could effectively manage their relationship with the media.

Once you have thought about this question for a little while, put your thoughts down in the activity document provided in the link below. Save your work to your Learning Portfolio when you have finished.

Plan for effective management of the media at the scene of an emergency or disaster.

Describe below your thoughts on how the media could be effectively managed at the scene of a major emergency/disaster event:

_____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

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1.

Take control of the information process by talking with the media as soon as possible and arrange, as early as possible, a time and place where they will be briefed.

2.

Tell them:

what happened;

where it happened;

when it happened;

how many people have been affected;

who they can interview, where and when, and who they cannot.

Activity 10.5

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