Should he stay or should he go? AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain
While South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford needs a crash course in e-mail etiquette—namely that, unlike a politician’s fidelity, e-mail is forever—it was recently revealed that his staff can teach us a thing or two about crisis communication. This week, The State reported that the e-mail records of Joel Sawyer, Sanford’s Communications Director, illustrate how he attempted to keep the media—as well as politicians—at bay during the governor’s tryst with his Argentinean mistress, Maria Belen Chapur, last month.
In “The Ten Steps of Crisis Communication,” expert Jonathan Bernstein outlines the communicative steps that should be taken when the public image of a company is at risk. Since Sanford did not seem to realize that what happens with a state official in Argentina does not stay in Argentina, it was incumbent upon his staff to come up with an explanation for his disappearance—even before they knew exactly where their boss had gone for several days. Sawyer’s e-mails indicate that he followed one of the most important rules of crisis communication: He identified his key messages and stuck with them.
When reporters first queried regarding Sanford’s whereabouts, Sawyer gave the vague explanation that the governor just needed some rest and relaxation after the legislative session had ended. When he found that this message was not enough to satisfy reporters, Sawyer developed another message and kept repeating it: “The governor is hiking along the Appalachian Trail.” As Bernstein suggests, this message was short, sweet and to the point. This was the official statement until the real story came out upon Sanford’s return.
Other communicative strategies that Bernstein recommends are to have a communication crisis team assembled before an emergency, select a spokesperson and train him or her on how to manage the public, and decide on how information will be disseminated—whether it is through press releases, letters, or news conferences.
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