Via The Globe and Mail, a devastating critique by health reporter André Picard: Communication breakdown: How Canadians were let down on E. coli response. Excerpt (but read the whole thing):
On Oct. 03, Mr. Ritz held a news conference at the plant, where he sought to reassure the public beef was safe. When questions from reporters started getting pointed, about seven minutes in, the event was cut short. Instead, the minister attended a Rotary Club luncheon, where he said of his beef entrée: “I don’t know where it came from. I don’t care. I know it’s safe.”
Company officials were invisible instead of inane. XL Foods said nothing until Oct. 04, when it posted a statement on an answering machine, saying: “We take full responsibility for our plant operations and the food it produces.”
One would hope so.
But here’s the thing: When you’re poisoning people, even unintentionally, a voice message three weeks into the outbreak doesn’t cut it, nor do ministerial blandishments, nor do CFIA press releases whining that “investigations into outbreaks of food-borne illness can be complex.”
Peter Sandman, a business professor at Rutgers University and the guru of crisis communications, says there are six strategies required during a situation like tainted beef: 1) don’t over-reassure; 2) acknowledge uncertainty; 3) treat the public’s fears as legitimate; 4) express your own feelings; 5) offer people things to do to protect themselves; 6) don’t worry about panic because panic is rare.
The company, the regulator and the minister failed on every single one of these points.
