In The Wake of Catastrophe...Warring Words and Dueling Message Points

 By Richard S. Levick and Larry Smith

Directly after the full scope of the Katrina disaster became apparent, the public found itself treated to an ideological and political contretemps which was, in many ways, unprecedented.

True, the noise over who was responsible for the hurricane response failure was not nearly as sickeningly loud as our nightly Cable TV debates about everything from abortion to the armed service records of elected officials. It has not quite been a full-blown protracted face-off between the Red State Tribe and the Blue State Tribe.

On the other hand, we know of no such instance of disaster that ever politicized faster or in which opposing political factions were so overtly ideological in their purposes. Contrast Katrina to Andrew, where FEMA’s culpability was also a front-page story as well as a political albatross for the Bush Senior administration then in charge.

After Andrew, however, the attack on FEMA did not carry with it radioactive implications about the efficacy of big government, the responsibility of state versus federal officials, or ruling class attitudes toward the poor.

Katrina blew all those implications onto the front pages and the news shows. Amid the carnage, we personally found the discussion obscenely self-serving on both sides.

Yet the messaging was intricate and powerful enough that, as communications professionals, we do really need to view the process that unfurled and define the subliminal forces at work.

Another Culture War

It began at once with a natural enough question. Who is responsible for what was obviously a public sector slip-up of tragic dimension? The administration immediately came up with a potentially effective sound byte: “This is not the time to be playing the blame game.”

The message was an attempt to exploit the understandable human instinct at such a time to mourn, hope, and pray — not to indulge in political controversy. It would subtly shift the moral burden onto the President’s critics. Any attempt to play the blame game, to hold Bush responsible, would be seen as cold-blooded exploitation.

Fortunately, the strategy didn’t work. Folks saw right through it and — largely because Bush had not by that point effectively expressed his deep sympathy for the victims — probably increased the administration’s political isolation. As David Gergen put it, there was no “bullhorn moment” for the President as there had been at Ground Zero and therefore no reason not to suspect evasiveness on Bush’s part.

So the administration discarded the let’s-not-play-the-blame-game talking point in favor of... playing the blame-game. Local officials (Democrats) were at fault. Divisiveness has, of course, worked effectively in the past, but Tom DeLay (K-Texas) was inexplicably recruited to deliver the message. The choice of an ideologue for spokesperson deprived the administration’s attack on the Mayor and Governor of credibility, except among DeLay’s ideological constituencies.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was publicly repeating, verbatim, a conversation she had with President Bush. That’s a political no-no under any circumstances and her heavy-handedness, rattier than the content of the conversation itself, became the political story of the moment.

Eventually, the President took full responsibility because he had exhausted every other media/communications option.

But let’s go back five days prior to the President’s heartfelt peroration. By September 9, the debate had become, if not uglier, a great deal subtler and much profounder than the short-term wages of party partisanship.

Shadow Warriors

The following two stories are, on one level, superb examples of corporate communications in actions. On another level, the corporations themselves are being used as shadow warriors in a larger struggle.

On September 9, the Wall Street Journal ran a B1 story, “Manufacturer Finds More Than Vacuums At Stake in Recovery,” that detailed the Herculean efforts of the Oreck Corp. to begin manufacturing its product (vacuum cleaners) less than two weeks after Katrina disabled its New Orleans home office.

Hundreds of employees were homeless and missing. But, according to the article, CEO Tom Oreck “was determined to notch one of the first victories in the aftermath of Katrina — in part to keep the company alive, but also to give its 1,200 employees something to hang onto.”

To touch on a few salient points in the narrative, the 15-year-old son of an Oreck executive built a makeshift Web site where employees were able to post messages. “That was the thing that gave people confidence we could get something done,” the boy’s father told the Journal.

Meanwhile, Oreck assigned workers to find generators and mobile homes for employees.

Mr. Oreck flew to Mississippi to treat employees to a barbecue, give them their weekly pay, and start up two assembly lines. As his deadline neared, Mr. Oreck expressed confidence that his company would begin making vacuums that very day.

What followed was high-volume press, all favorable for Oreck, that put broader emphasis on the company’s overall services to employees and their communities. We have no reason to believe that this PR coup was anything less than richly deserved. We have every reason to believe that Mr. Oreck and his lieutenants are masterful media communicators and strategists, as well as good people.

But on September 12, the Journal ran another story, “At Wal-Mart, Emergency Plan Has Big Payoff,” that took the topic of corporate responsiveness to a next level. The story’s lead read, “The Federal Emergency Management Agency could learn some things from Wal-Mart Stores Inc.”

As soon as Katrina was reclassified as a storm, Wal-Mart’s director of business continuity camped out at an emergency command center. By Friday, when the hurricane touched down in Florida, he was joined by 50 store managers and support personnel, from trucking experts to loss-prevention specialists.

As the story reports, company warehouses were then ordered to deliver emergency supplies to designated areas before Katrina hit land. When Wal-Mart’s computerized inventory system was disabled, phone operations successfully filled the gap. A replenishment team reordered essential products and scores of Wal-Mart trucks, some escorted by police, were delivering generators and tons of dry ice to stores throughout the Gulf.

By September 9, all but 15 of the 89 stores affected by the storm reopened. “Wal-Mart frequently beat FEMA by days in getting trucks filled with emergency supplies to relief workers and citizens whose lives were upended by the storm,” according to the article.

“Whereas FEMA has to scramble for resources, Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart has it own trucks, distribution centers and dozens of stores in most areas of the country, It also has a specific protocol for responding to disasters, and it can activate an emergency command center to coordinate an immediate response.”

Wal-Mart’s “better than the government” operation was a life saver, not only for itself as a business, but for everyone who depends on private enterprise to provide for their needs. According to the Journal, “Edmond Collins Jr.,...and his wife, Kywana ...have come every day to restock supplies for his family and the 14 people staying at his cousin’s house. ‘We’re just buying food to survive,’ Mr. Collins says.”

Wal-Mart’s superior business operation — the best communications job the retail behemoth has done in recent years and, to be sure, sorely needed at this point in its history — also underscored the company’s philanthropic contributions to relief centers in three states. Innumerable businesses have been contributing, but Wal-Mart had a story to tell about itself that allowed its own philanthropy to stand out from the crowd.

The Journal story ends with one more jibe at Big Government. Sheriff Bob Buckley of Union Parish praises Wal-Mart for providing truckloads of flashlights, batteries, food, gear, and ammunition. The story ends, “And when did FEMA arrive? ‘Who?’ Sheriff Buckley asks.”

Again, we have no reason to suspect cynicism or disingenuousness on Wal-Mart’s part. Again, we have ever)’ reason to detect superior crisis management and highly effective media communications.

The Big Agenda

We doubt Sam Walton would be upset to learn that his company’s triumph amid adversity was used as fuel in an implicit attack on government in favor of private sector efficacy.

Yet we would suggest that conscientious pro-business conservatives might be unsettled by the messaging. They certainly should be.

At best, it’s a self-serving effort to support an ideological agenda in the wrong way and at the wrong time. It’s also meaningless. What does a public sector failure amid disaster mean? — that we should continue to simply despise the government on general principle? Yet it is that very contempt and loathing for the power of government that made the government so powerless after Katrina.

We’re not the first to make this point. The problem, though, is that it’s a point much harder to make.

There are no stunning pictures or powerful narratives to show what happens to an entity like FEMA after — not just a single administrative step, like the consolidation with Homeland Security—but years of official policy polarized around the supposition that, when things really count, count on private enterprise to do it right.

The Oreck and Wal-Mart examples prove just how “right” effective private sector response can be. Indeed, the whole saga reinforces a few best practices in corporate communications:

• Have a story to tell (and be sure there’s a happy ending).
• Tell it as a narrative (a riveting day-to-day chronicle of decisive actions taken is perfect).
• Cast the narrative effectively (a 15 year-old web maven is right out of central casting).
• Use third-party supporters (in this case, an African-American couple who needs what Wal-Mart is selling is ideal).
• Leverage your story (in this case, with more publicity for corporate giving than what corporate giving usually gets)

Alas, however, such weapons in the hands of expert corporate communications — doing their jobs honestly and conscientiously — create perilous imbalances. It further wounds a crippled public sector and ensures that, with the next disaster, neither federal nor state officials will be in any better position to respond.

Richard S. Levick, Esq., rlevick@levick.com, is President of Levick Strategic Communications, which has directed the media in the highest-profile matters, from Guantanamo Bay to the Catholic Church controversy as well as the ongoing Vioxx, CELEBREX, and OxyContin litigation. Larry Smith is the firm’s Director of Strategy. Their books, including Stop the Presses: The Litigation PR Desk Reference, are available at Amazon.com.

Larry Smith is the Director of Strategy for Levick Strategic Communications and one of the profession’s leading consultants on media strategy as it directly affects the marketing of legal services. Smith is also a leading crisis and litigation communications consultant, working with C-suite executives throughout the world on reputation management and brand protection. His many high-profile engagements include the Catholic Church scandal, the Napster litigation, and the Rosie O’Donnell Hosie magazine lawsuit.