Not what ‘reasonable people’ expect

Communicating with the public after a catastrophe is scary for many organizations.

It’s also a powerful and necessary act that can unite or divide, build or destroy trust, answer or create questions, clarify or obscure, create lawsuits or spark change, and reveal people as heroes or villains.

Most call it crisis communications, and it’s how people in charge try to mitigate the damages of terrible news.

After the Uvalde massacre, state and local engagement with the public has been fragmented, delayed, incomplete and sometimes incorrect. The flawed communication response echoes the failed police response, and it’s another layer of pain for those already suffering.

A few years ago, I heard a lecture from crisis communication expert and professor Helio Fred Garcia during a seminar at the Defense Information School at Fort Meade, Md.

He presented a case study on the communication failures of BP in the aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. His findings boiled down to a simple idea: Entities ask the wrong questions in crises.

The wrong question leaders worry about, he said, is, “What should we say?” The better

question is, “What would reasonable people appropriately expect a responsible organization to do in this circumstance?”

The modifiers make it sound complicated, but they knock off extreme views. The core question is, “What would people expect us to do?”

It’s a commonsense approach, and the reframed thought process, Garcia said, helps leaders get at the emotional reality of a situation. It also helps people think outside themselves and their political survival.

Local and state officials could have used this advice in the aftermath of the May 24 massacre at Robb Elementary School

in Uvalde that left 19 students and two teachers dead, and 17 others wounded.

Before May 24, “reasonable people” expected the systems, people and safeguards protecting our children to work.

After Uvalde, “reasonable people” expected and deserved honesty and transparency as much as families and friends of those involved warranted sympathy, support and protection.

We expected a unified voice and timely responses from the “responsible organizations” — state and local politicians, the Texas Department of Public Safety, local police departments and the school district. We expected

their answers to be true and accurate. We expected them to respect press freedoms.

We expected our politicians to put the welfare and will of all constituents over their own political survival or irrational allegiance to lax gun laws.

We expected tangible change to address gun violence in addition to more mental health and school security resources. We expected accountability. Our “responsible organizations” have failed to meet most of these reasonable expectations.

On Wednesday, Garcia and I spoke about Uvalde. We discussed the danger of ignoring small mistakes and how the risk of catastrophe skyrockets.

In Uvalde, the cascading failures led to tragedy.

And unlike natural disasters, the conversation after a tragedy involving firearms will always be skewed in America.

“It’s impossible to separate the aftermath of Uvalde from the national disagreement about firearms,” he said. “This isn’t a Texas thing. It isn’t a Uvalde thing on its own. It is in the context of this massive problem of gun violence that coincides with this massive division in American political life.”

From his office in New York, Garcia hasn’t been inundated with Uvalde news, but he’s been suspicious of the DPS response since its first press conference.

“They got themselves caught in some form of miscommunication or misinformation, and then they withdrew and said nothing for a while, and now they seem to be pointing fingers,” he said. “It’s easy to point fingers at the less robust, less experienced police departments when there’s been a massive failure like this.”

Garcia said agencies often focus on the short-term benefits of releasing or not releasing information versus long-term credibility. The slow trickle of facts, shifting narratives, obfuscation and blame may help these agencies in the short term, but it’s causing more pain for the people of Uvalde.

The credibility and trust these agencies have lost since May 24 will take years, maybe decades, to rebuild.

Much of it will never return.

Sam Owens/Staff photographer The credibility of DPS Director Steve McCraw and others will take years to repair.