Advice for the Mining Industry: Assemble Your Crisis Communication Team Now
In reading the recent tragic news about the Crandall Canyon mine collapse in Utah, I was reminded of an editorial written in the West Virginia Gazette right after the Sago mine collapse. ‘Mine Safety: Deaths Preventable‘ asserted that the Sago Mine tragedy ‘…was not a surprise–both because the mine had a disturbing safety record, and because the Bush administration in Washington has been undercutting mine safety.’
The editorial concluded with a warning:
‘The demand for coal is currently high, and so is the price. That creates an incentive for companies to return to marginal mines that weren’t worth running in leaner times. It creates an incentive to reopen mines with safety problems and to try to scratch some profit out of them. It also creates the incentive to cut costs, take shortcuts, to err on the side of danger instead of caution…Until the nation gets serious about enforcing safety rules, miners and their families will continue to suffer to satisfy the nation’s energy appetite.’
Nineteen months after the West Virginia editorial was published, six miners were trapped in the Crandall Canyon mine in Huntington, Utah.
As the tragic story of the Utah mine collapse continues to unfold, mine owner Bob Murray has returned to serve as company spokesman. From a crisis communications standpoint, Murray made a strong start–he immediately flew to the scene, assessed the situation and served as the human face of the crisis, communicating directly to family and media. But, to be kind, Murray also made a few missteps along the way:
- He did not apparently have a crisis communications team in place ahead of time and appeared not to have one in the early days of the crisis: When he was in the air flying to the crisis, his crisis communications team could have been on the ground preparing his messages and implementing the communications strategy. Mr. Murray, along with UtahAmerica Energy and Intermountain Power Agency (co-owners of the mine), deserve no end of sympathy for their efforts and empathy. It is the very fact of how tragic and difficult a crisis this is that speaks to the need to have these professionals in place and to be trained and ready before a crisis occurs.
- He held on to his own theory: Mr. Murray initially theorized that an earthquake had caused the mine collapse; then, he insisted on sticking with that hypothesis even as evidence mounted to the contrary.
- He attacked the media: Mr. Murray lashed out at the Associated Press and Fox News for allegedly reporting false information. It’s never a good idea to pick a fight with people who, proverbially, buy ink by the barrel and pixels by the pound. Particularly when it turns out that they are right.
That fact is that coal is becoming increasingly difficult to mine, and that government-imposed safety regulations won’t take effect quickly enough to prevent future disasters. As Sago and Crandall Canyon have made headlines, they’ve also shown the American public the ugly, tragic face of mining’s current standard operating procedure. Not happy with what they see, the public may soon begin to pressure the mining industry to change the way that they do things–and with this increased public scrutiny, business as usual, whether in Washington, DC, with the media, or in local venues, may not be enough to protect mining companies in the ever-important court of public opinion.
The mining industry is reaching a tipping point; they are moving yet another step closer to transforming from local heroes–local employers that offer jobs and benefits and put food on many families’ tables–to national villains. There is still some way to go before the tipping point but, as the industry moves toward this point, there is all the more reason to have crisis plans, teams, training, and a proactive media approach integrated with a government relations strategy in place now, before the next crisis. The mining industry needs to show leadership today or else it can expect to be cast as the culprit with each new disaster.
You needn’t be in the mining industry to benefit from the lesson. No matter what your industry, you must track and observe trends and prepare and redeploy accordingly.
