2008
What would you advise EnCana executives?
Posted on her “PR Perspective” blog, November 5, 2008
Canadian public relations practitioner Cindy Stephenson made good use of my thinking in this blog post on three recent attempts to blow up EnCana Corporation sour gas pipelines near Dawson Creek, B.C. But she didn’t really address what I see as a key issue in all cases of eco-terrorism: Should the company take any of the blame for attracting the terrorists’ ire and leaving them convinced that a nonviolent response would be useless? So I sent a response to her blog briefly discussing that issue, in terms of the risk communication seesaw.
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Study: Media can distort public’s views on infectious diseases
Posted on the website of CIDRAP News (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota), November 5, 2008
CIDRAP’s Lisa Schnirring asked me to comment on a new research paper showing that students take infectious diseases that have been much-covered in the media more seriously than diseases that have had less media attention. The paper’s authors interpreted this as evidence that media coverage distorts people’s perceptions of infectious diseases. I thought it was likelier that some characteristics of some infectious diseases – such as the potential to launch a pandemic! – rightly make them a bigger concern for both the media and the public than diseases without those characteristics. I sent Lisa a fairly blistering critique of the paper. She toned it down in what she published.
The title file is located off this site. My response is located on this site.
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Oilsands the poster child of bad oil
Published in the Calgary Herald, November 2, 2008
I appear only in the last four paragraphs of this long article on the escalating controversy over the environmental impacts of oilsands development, making the point that people tend to worry less about the environment when the economy sours. Bad economic times are thus a good time for embattled companies and industries to make their case.
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Businesses urged to avoid pandemic planning pitfalls
Posted on the website of CIDRAP News (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota), October 9, 2008
CIDRAP’s Michael Osterholm asked me to join him in hosting an October 9 webinar entitled “Avoiding the Big 7 Pandemic-Planning Mistakes: How Set-to-Survive Companies Sidestep These Missteps.” I focused on two of the mistakes/missteps – fearing to frighten stakeholders and failing to involve employees – and commented on the other five. I also contributed my depressing judgment that pandemic planners need to plan to be islands of preparedness. My agreement with CIDRAP provides that I may post the webinar itself (either a transcript or a video) after 90 days. Meanwhile, here is Lisa Schnirring’s summary from the CIDRAP website.
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Framing vaccines, revisited: The “empathy” gambit
Posted on “The ScienceBlogs Book Club,” October 7, 2008
There has been a lot of discussion of Paul Offit’s new book, Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure –a thorough rebuttal of the claim that vaccinations cause autism. The discussion on “The ScienceBlogs Book Club” led to an offshoot, a post by “Orac” criticizing my view that vaccination proponents (including Dr. Offit) would be more effective if they practiced better risk communication. Orac is particularly angry at two positions I have taken: (1) that proponents would be wiser to acknowledge the few valid arguments and accurate factoids that vaccination critics use, rather than ignoring or disparaging them – that claiming to be 99% right works better than claiming to be 100% right; and (2) that proponents would be wiser to show more empathy for people who still worry about a possible vaccination/autism link – for example, by acknowledging that it was a setback in the fight against autism when the hypothesized connection between autism and thimerosal in vaccines turned out to be a blind alley. Orac doesn’t really seem to disagree with me that vaccination proponents should be more empathic, though he fervently disagrees with my example. As for acknowledging the other side’s good points, he agrees that that’s a good idea too – but he’s enraged that I don’t think proponents are doing it already. Some of the follow-up discussion of Orac’s post is off-topic, but much is worth reading. Orac later reposted his comment on his own blog, “Respectful Insolence,” where it attracted quite different comments.
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PR pro advice costs Tories $35K
Published in the Calgary Herald, May 25, 2008
I think reporter Kelly Cryderman set out to write an article on how the Alberta government was spending big bucks on a U.S. spin doctor. But she did her homework, and ended up with a good, short piece on the provincial government’s effort to learn how to be more responsive in its communications about oil sands controversies. Of course the headline writer stuck to the big bucks focus, missing the point (which Cryderman got) that outrage management isn’t identical with public relations.
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2007
Climate Risk Communication: TreeHugging Amidst The Outrage Industries
Posted on the www.treehugger.com website, September 12, 2007
As the name implies, TreeHugger is a green discussion board. John Laumer's thread in its “Business + Politics” section addresses environmentalists’ various frustrations at the communication challenges of global climate change, and applies some of what I have written about risk communication (and especially about precaution advocacy) to those frustrations. The comments at the bottom may also turn out interesting (or not – it’s too soon to tell).
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Published in ICIS Chemical Business, and on its website, September 3, 2007
Clay Boswell started out wanting to write a “profile” for the chemical industry trade journal he works for, but the article turned out less a profile than a summary of the basics of risk communication, especially outrage management. It’s a good summary, I think. The original title was “Sandman says outrage is the key to community relations,” but I like how the piece got retitled on the website: “Sandman says.” Period.
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Delay in cancer information tarnishes state Health Department image
Broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio, June 22, 2007
The Minnesota Department of Health withheld data on lung cancer deaths among taconite miners for over a year, so when the story finally came out in June 2007, people were predictably outraged. Health Department explanations that it was waiting to develop an action plan didn’t quell the storm, nor did critics take well to Commissioner Dianne Mandernach’s explanation that people would have been too likely to overreact if the department had released the data without a plan. Actually, as I tried to explain to reporter Lorna Benson in this follow-up story, people tend to overreact most when they find out the authorities have been keeping secrets. (See “When to Release Risk Information: Early – But Expect Criticism Anyway.”) Withholding urgently needed information, I told her, is unforgivable; withholding comparatively routine information is foolish, precisely because when it’s finally unearthed it will seem more pivotal than it really was. Mandernach’s apology wasn’t bad, I said, except for a pledge to “maintain” the department’s credibility and “preserve” its reputation; “restore” would have been a much better word to choose. (The audio isn’t available online; this links to the print version of the story posted by Minnesota Public Radio.)
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If the Unexpected Happens … Who You Gonna Call? Crisis Busters
If the Unexpected Happens … (page 2) Published in The Age, “Business Day,” June 16, 2007, pp. 1, 6
This article on crisis communication from Australia’s number one newspaper covers the basics of what author Vanessa Burrow calls “crisis communication” (in my terms it’s mostly outrage management). The article also includes a handful of brief Australia case studies, and a summary of my “tech specs” for forgiveness. I really enjoyed the cartoon. (The front-page version was originally in color.) Vanessa initially emailed me a list of seven questions; I answered the ones on the role of apology in crisis situations, on organizations’ preparedness for crises, and on how Australia’s AWB controversy might have played out if the company had shown contrition. I have posted the original questions and answers on this website.
These are Adobe Acrobat (pdf) files,
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Managing Outrage and Crises: Dealing with Risk by Understanding Your Audience
Published in Food Technology News (Guelph Food Technology Centre), June 2007
Over the past year I have given a presentation and a seminar at the Guelph Food Technology Centre in Guelph, Ontario. This article by Cliona Reeves is adapted from bits and pieces of the two. It focuses on the distinction among precaution advocacy (high-hazard, low-outrage), outrage management (low-hazard, high-outrage), and crisis communication (high-hazard, high-outrage). I have written about this distinction myself, particularly in “Four Kinds of Risk Communication.” But this article adds value in that it’s a little more detailed, a little more current, and particularly focused on food examples. The “quotations” in the article are actually mostly paraphrases, but Cliona checked with me before publication and they do capture my meaning, if not always my exact words.
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Physician survey shows mixed views on pandemic risk
Posted on the website of CIDRAP News (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota), June 6, 2007
This is a news report about a survey of European physicians, focusing on their estimates of the probability of a flu pandemic “in the next few years.” Slightly more than half thought it wasn’t very likely. The survey results were interpreted by the authors as indicating that the respondents weren’t as concerned as they ought to be. That might be true for all I know – but it’s not necessarily complacent to think a pandemic is inevitable sooner or later, while doubting that it’s imminent. In fact, I told the reporter, it’s a huge mistake to ground the case for pandemic preparedness in the hunch that it’s coming soon, rather than in the well-founded conviction that it’s coming. I expanded on this point in an email to the reporter.
The title file is located off this site. My response is located on this site.
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How much risk do you live with?
Published in the Vancouver Sun, March 9, 2007
Once a month or so I get interviewed for a newspaper article on risk perception. The articles all cover the same ground: “The scary risks aren’t necessarily the ones that kill you. Here are some stunning examples. And here’s why the experts say we’re so foolish.” I don’t usually bother to post these articles. But this one struck me as unusually well done. It also focuses a lot on a hypothesis that most such articles ignore: risk homeostasis – the notion that people want as much risk in their lives as they want, and therefore compensate for safety improvements by taking more risks. On the other hand, this article – like most – steadfastly ignores a point I made to the reporter (as I always do): It isn’t really foolish to consider “outrage factors” like voluntariness, morality, and trust relevant to how acceptable a risk is; it isn’t really sensible to ignore these factors and focus exclusively on mortality statistics.
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When Worlds Collide: During Crises, Sandman Says, Politics and Government Are Separate Spheres
Published in Impact (Public Affairs Council), January 2007
Despite its misleading title, this article by Alan Crawford deals with my views on the pros and cons of candor about embarrassing information. I argued that businesses should usually be aggressively candid, wallowing in apologies when they have messed up, because their most important audiences are attentive stakeholders who will find out anyway. Politicians, on the other hand, are often talking to the much more apathetic general public. Ignoring embarrassments sometimes works for them, so they get into bad habits that backfire when the public turns attentive.
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2006
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Published in ISHN Ezine (Industrial Safety & Hygiene News), December 4 and December 8, 2006
Dave Johnson’s fascinating article on two quite different asbestos risk assessments produced by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration quotes me briefly on the risk communication implications of the story. When he sent me a draft for comment, Dave noted, “It’s got politics, greed, scandal, harassment, but no sex.” My complete response is also on this site.
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Internet rumours of bird flu case in Rimouski, Que., are ‘totally untrue’
Distributed by Canadian Press, November 29, 2006
Helen Branswell’s story focuses on the pros and cons of alarmist rumors, especially those found on the website of Henry Niman, a favorite site for people obsessed with pandemic risk. Helen didn’t use what I thought was the best line I gave her, so here it is: “Before the Internet the problem was getting information. Now the problem is vetting information.”
This file is located on this site.
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Risk Communication for Salmon Aquaculture
Submitted to the Special Committee on Sustainable Aquaculture, Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, November 24, 2006
After running across this website a year or so ago, Vivian Krause started corresponding with me about the risk communication implications of her various interests, including salmon farming and child adoption services. This PowerPoint presentation is her effort to persuade British Columbia legislators to take steps to manage people’s outrage over salmon farming, in addition to whatever they might decide to do to manage its environmental hazards. (You may also want to read the transcript
of Vivian's actual testimony.) It is always a pleasure to see people make use of my work with regard to issues I know nothing about – especially when they “get it” as thoroughly as Vivian does.This is a MicroSoft PowerPoint (.ppt) file, 3.6 MB, located on this site.
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Lessons from Ground Zero: Risk Communication
Published in ISHN Ezine (Industrial Safety & Hygiene News), September 21 and September 28, 2006
Dave Johnson sent me an email asking for my views on Ground Zero risk communication, particularly the hot controversy over whether authorities were too lackadaisical about personal protective equipment for rescue and recovery workers. I published his email and my response in my Guestbook. Johnson’s two-part column, based in part on my response, lists seven risk communication lessons from Ground Zero for occupational health and safety professionals.
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The Survivalist: How to Survive a Disaster
Posted on Slate, September 5, 2006
David Shenk has launched an eight-part series about disaster preparedness on Slate. The first part says some nice things about my website, and discusses the risk communication seesaw as a way of making his own preoccupation with catastrophe sound less paranoid.
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Published in The Australian, May 20, 2006
This is a postscript to the previous posting, which was a set of articles on my little corner of Australia’s AWB controversy. After publication of the “Draft Statement of Contrition” that AWB managers developed, based partly on my advice, a number of Australian newspapers and broadcast stations contacted me for interviews. They all wanted to ask about my work with AWB, so I declined to be interviewed. But Geoff Elliott said he’d stick to generic questions about what I normally advise companies who have attracted public outrage. So I talked to him. The resulting article is very short. But Elliott got my approach basically right. He even got right (not with my help) what virtually every other journalist on the story got wrong: that AWB’s draft statement was “an admission of moral responsibility, not an admission of guilt.”
This file is located on this site.
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The Australian AWB Oil-for-Food Kickback Controversy
Various newspaper clippings, 2006
In 2006, I was a peripheral part of a huge controversy in Australia over kickbacks allegedly paid to the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq through a company called AWB (formerly the Australian Wheat Board). AWB had asked (and not taken) my advice on how to handle the issue – and a government investigation made the advice public. The link is to a fuller explanation and to nine specific clips.
This introductory file is located on this site.
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Public Health and Risk Communication: A Brief Overview
Presented to a Chinese Government workshop on health and safety for the 2008 Winter Olympics, May 18, 2006
Roy Wadia, then a communication specialist at the World Health Organization in Beijing, developed this Microsoft PowerPoint® presentation in an effort to explain some key risk communication principles to Chinese officials preparing to host the 2008 Olympics. He based the presentation mostly on “Four Kinds of Risk Communication” on the handouts for “Crisis Communication: Guidelines for Action,” and on “The Flu Pandemic Preparedness Snowball.” The slides are in both English and Chinese. I don’t know how the Chinese officials in Roy’s audience responded to his talk, but they did post his slides.
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Skeptics warn bird flu fears are overblown
Posted on MSNBC.com, April 20, 2006
Subtitled “Chicken Little alert? Hysteria could sap money from worse health threats,” this article was part of an MSNBC package on pandemic flu. Reporter Rebecca Cook Dube warned me when she interviewed me that she was covering “the other side” — the people who claim the risk is overblown. My job was to represent the other side of the other side — to explain why a virus that has so far killed only a handful of people could nonetheless deserve to be taken seriously. I get awfully tired of this particular non sequitur; it’s as if somebody thought hurricane preparations were self-evidently pointless until the hurricane hit land and started claiming victims ... or self-evidently pointless so long as it remained debatable whether the hurricane would ever hit land at all. I tried to explain that people buy fire insurance not because they think it’s inevitable that their house will catch fire, and not because the fire is already raging, but because they think a fire is possible and could be devastating. Some of what I said about low-probability high-magnitude risks made it into the end of the story.
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Talking risk: avian flu advice from a risk communicator
Published in Food Chemical News, March 27, 2006, p. 29. Copyright © 2006 by Agra Informa, Inc. Posted with permission. For more information, go to www.foodchemicalnews.com.
Carole Sugarman of Food Chemical News interviewed me in March about how the poultry industry should talk about bird flu, as distinct from pandemic flu, and what I think industry spokespeople are doing wrong. I didn’t know the interview was actually published until a colleague sent me a copy in late April. Here it is. It’s a little incoherent. (I’d like to blame that on Carole’s note-taking, but it’s probably my burbling.) But the main points are clear enough, I think.
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Bird flu’s potential toll warrants alerts
Published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 17, 2006
This op-ed by the former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention argues that alerting people to the pandemic threat requires good risk communication. As his gold standard for good risk communication he cites principles I tried to urge on CDC during the anthrax attacks of 2001 (when he was its head) — pretty much the same principles covered in the crisis communication CD-ROM/DVD Jody Lanard and I produced a few years later. (The CD-ROM/DVD handouts are available on this site.) I had a couple of reactions to the op-ed that I sent to Jeff, and have posted excerpts from my email and his response.
The article and excerpts are on this site.
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The Bird Flu: How Much Fear Is Healthy?
Posted on TIME.com, March 15, 2006
Christine Gorman of Time has covered H5N1 since it appeared in Hong Kong in 1997. I figured our 15-minute telephone interview might turn into a paragraph in a roundup on the week’s bird flu news. Instead, she devoted this article to my views on the importance of warning people, of accepting that fear (not panic — that was her word) is the price of preparedness, of non-medical preparedness, of using survivors as volunteers, etc. It’s a short article that doesn’t say anything I haven’t said before. But it’s nice to see it on the Time website.
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Fear can play role in pandemic readiness, speaker says
Published on the website of the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy (CIDRAP), University of Minnesota, February 17, 2006
This article summarizes a speech I gave at CIDRAP’s groundbreaking Minneapolis conference, “Business Planning for Pandemic Influenza: A National Summit.” It focuses on two of the main points I made: that if you want to persuade people to take precautions you need to be willing to frighten them; and that frightening people shouldn’t mean claiming that a severe 1918-like pandemic is inevitable. (The probability is extremely high of a pandemic of unknown magnitude, I said; the probability is unknown of a pandemic of extremely high magnitude.)
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On Not Wanting to Know What Hurts You
Published in The New York Times, January 15, 2006
This article on diseases that kill people versus diseases that worry people concluded a New York Times series on diabetes. It’s a pretty decent quick summary of the hazard-versus-outrage basics, as applied to illness. One of the health psychology experts quoted seems to think a flu pandemic isn’t worth worrying about — but other than that it’s a good overview.
The link above is to the article on this site. The original is available online at The New York Times website (requires registration).
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Staving Off Panic in a Flu Pandemic
Broadcast on “Morning Edition,” NPR (National Public Radio), January 10, 2006
This is the second “Morning Edition” story by NPR’s Jon Hamilton that draws on his two-hour December 2005 interview with me and my wife and colleague Jody Lanard. This one uses other sources as well, and focuses on what governments should do to avoid fostering panic in (or before) a pandemic. Hamilton makes good use of our concept of “panic panic” — official fear that the public may be panicking when there is no evidence that it is doing so.
The link takes you to a written summary of Hamilton’s story, and to NPR’s link to the audio.
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2005
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Sifting Through Official Speak on Bird Flu
Broadcast on “Morning Edition,” NPR (National Public Radio), December 28, 2005
NPR’s Jon Hamilton came to New Jersey with a dozen audio clips of top U.S. officials talking about bird flu, and spent two hours going over the clips with me and my wife and colleague Jody Lanard. He put a little of what he got into an eight-minute story on what they’re doing right and what’s not so right in bird flu and pandemic risk communication. Jody and I think Hamilton did an excellent job of getting to some of the big issues: the need to find a balance between excessive fear and insufficient fear, the importance of getting the public involved rather than pretending the government will do it all, etc. The link gets you to a written summary of Hamilton’s story, and to a link to the audio.
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Published in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, vol. 78, December 2005, pp. 369–376
This article was adapted from a presentation my wife and colleague Jody Lanard gave at an October 21, 2005 symposium on “Ethical Aspects of Avian Influenza Pandemic Preparedness” at Yale University. It focuses chiefly on official opposition to Tamiflu stockpiling, official enthusiasm for vaccines and antivirals, and official reluctance to involve the public in pandemic planning.
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Are you a sitting duck for bird flu?
Published in USA Today [posted online at USATODAY.com December 6, 2005]
This story on the flu pandemic precautions people are taking is more respectful than journalists usually are of the people on one end of the bell curve — those who are preparing strenuously for the worst case scenario, stockpiling medications, food, and even weapons. The story quotes me on the wisdom of taking at least some precautions, of not being on the opposite end of the bell curve – and then getting on with life. It also quotes me on the value of thinking through what a serious pandemic might be like, so as to be psychologically prepared as well.
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Published in U.S. News and World Report, November 21, 2005; online November 13, 2005
This is an excellent summary of the dilemma authorities face when trying to alert the public to the risk of pandemic flu — a risk that could be severe or mild, imminent or far into the future. Despite its title, the article does point out that the risk of inciting panic isn’t a major problem, although the (unjustified) fear of inciting panic is. It offers justified praise to the U.S. government and the World Health Organization for their increasing willingness to sound the alarm.
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Getting Workers to Wear PPE: Communication Is Key
Published in Safety Compliance Letter, September 2005, pp. 7, 10
Employees may resist wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) for all sorts of reasons: It’s uncomfortable; it interferes with productivity; it’s not the macho thing to do; management doesn’t really mean it; the safety person’s warnings sound a lot like my mother. This article discusses some of my ideas about how to be convincing in the face of these reasons.
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Published in The Christian Science Monitor, July 07, 2005
This short news story deals with the controversy over how much to try to alarm the public about a possible flu pandemic. Predictably, I anchor the go-ahead-and-scare-them side of the debate.
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Most Canadians have taken note of the threat of a flu pandemic
Distributed by Canadian Press, March 30, 2005
Helen Branswell initially wrote to me for my comments on a survey of Canadian awareness of avian influenza, which showed higher awareness than I’d expected but also more skepticism. My complete response is on this site.
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ISHN E-NEWS, Vol. 4, No. 1, Friday, January 21, 2005
This assessment of whether safety professionals should use fear appeals quotes me in favor.
This file is located on this site.
2004
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Psychological Barriers Getting in the Way of Pandemic Preparations: Experts
Distributed by Canadian Press, November 20, 2004
Helen Branswell initially wrote to me for my comments on the psychology of flu pandemic preparedness.
My complete response is on this site.
This file is located on this site.
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Keeping the Barricades Away from Your Refinery Gate
Published in Hydrocarbon Processing October, 2004, p. 15
Tim Lloyd Wright initially wrote to me for my comments on the oil price hike as a source of outrage.
My complete response is on this site.
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Risk Management: Not Cleaning Up Your Act Can Be Costly
Published in Treasury & Risk Management, September, 2004
This overview of reputation management focuses on corporate reputation as an economic asset – and how to protect the asset.
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Public Communications Regarding the Detection of Lead in Washington, D.C. Water
Testimony before the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, and Water, U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, Oversight Hearing on the Detection of Lead in D.C. Drinking Water, April 7, 2004
When a U.S. Senate committee decided to look at a lead-in-drinking-water controversy in Washington, D.C., it invited my wife and colleague Jody Lanard to speak. Her written testimony reviews some of our principles of crisis communication and outrage management, and applies them to the way Washington’s water utility was handling the finding of too much lead. The hearing itself can be viewed as streaming video on the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee web site at http://epw.senate.gov/epwmultimedia/epw040704.ram. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s comments about Jody’s testimony (and about risk communication) start just after 2:02:00. Jody’s oral testimony starts at 2:35:24. Her Q&A starts at 2:50:20, and includes several of her favorite teaching examples.
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Risk Communicator Says USDA Should Prepare Public for More BSE
Published in Food Chemical News, March 29, 2004
This short trade journal piece reviews some of my suggestions and criticisms about USDA mad cow risk communication.
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Scary Food News Has Us Exaggerating Actual Risks
Published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 16, 2004
This is a short overview of some of the usual risk perception and risk communication stuff, quoting some of the usual sources (including me).
This file is located on this site.
2003
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Crisis Communications to the Public: A Missing Link
Chapter 5C.6 of Learning from SARS — Renewal of Public Health in Canada: A Report of the National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health (the “Naylor Report”), October 2003
One small section of the official Canadian government report on the lessons of SARS addresses public communication – and leans predominantly on the “scathing” assessment of Sandman and Lanard.
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Fear Factory: Have the Media Overblown Canada’s Health Scares?
Published in McLean’s, June 9, 2003
When a magazine article starts by asking whether the media have overblown a story – in this case, SARS – you can bet the answer is going to be yes. But the article does quote me (and some others) saying that SARS was serious and that if anything the media were over-reassuring – which paradoxically scared people all the more.
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Published in The Toronto Star, May 30, 2003
This is an almost shockingly lighthearted piece on Toronto’s SARS epidemic. It starts out with a weird focus on the question of whether SARS is God’s punishment, but winds up making some fairly solid points.
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SARS: How Singapore outmanaged the others
Published in Asia Times, Hong Kong, April 9, 2003
I thought Singapore handled SARS risk communication a lot better than China, Hong Kong, or Canada. But I never expected to be explaining why in a Hong Kong newspaper.
This file is located on this site.
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Published in ISHN (Industrial Safety & Hygiene News), March 28, 2003
Jody Lanard and I wrote “Duct Tape Risk Communication” to analyze the weird public response to the U.S. Government advice to stockpile duct tape for use against some kinds of terrorist attacks. Dave Johnson saw an analogy to the weird way employees sometimes respond to safety messaging, and went with it.
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Candour, not PR, will calm virus fears
Published in The Straits Times, Singapore, March 27, 2003
Early in Singapore’s SARS epidemic, the country’s dominant English-language newspaper published this article on how two American risk communicators thought it should manage the crisis.
This file is located on this site.
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Weighing Your Risks of Becoming a Terror Victim
Published in The New York Times Week in Review, March 23, 2003
I’m quoted here on just one point, but it’s an important one: the need to get people accustomed to their fear of terrorism, to show them how to cope with that fear rather than trying to relieve them of it. (There, now you don’t have to read the article.)
This file is located on this site.
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2000–2002
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Managing Best Practices: Been there, done that?
Published in ISHN (Industrial Safety & Hygiene News), November 27, 2002
This short column endorses my advice to investigate “yellow flags” instead of ignoring them, and links that advice to the work of Abraham Maslow and Stephen Covey (good company).
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Environmental & Safety Issues: Managing Risk
Published in Industrial Heating, November 2002
This file is located on this site.
Based on a speech I gave, this short article summarizes my “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” formula and my six key strategies for managing outrage.
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Published in The BSCS Newsletter [Biological Sciences Curriculum Study], Fall 2002
How should teachers talk to kids about terrorism? This short article has my views and the views of others.
This file is located on this site.
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Published in the Denver Post Sunday, August 04, 2002
I am one of the experts quoted in this brief article on a 2002 meat recall.
This file is located on this site.
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Published in The Trenton Times, July 12, 2002
I think this is my wife and colleague Jody Lanard’s first risk communication publication, a newspaper op-ed urging that people who want to be vaccinated against smallpox get sent to “vaccination camp.”
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Published in Zurich Risk Engineering’s magazine the linkbetween, Issue 33, Jan 2001
Because of the insurance industry focus, this summary of my “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” formula picks up on some aspects that are usually ignored, such as the very different reasons why employees and employers can get outraged at efforts to improve corporate safety.
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From the Director (presentation summary)
Published in ABSP Linkages, the Newsletter of the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project based at Michigan State University, Third Quarter 2000
Ag biotech leader Catherine Ives heard me speak at a biotechnology conference. Her short column summarizes my presentation and draws some conclusions for reducing people’s outrage at biotechnology.
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Risk Communication and Education of OHS Professionals
Published in Occupational Hazards, September 1, 2000
In this short column Steve Levine argues that risk communication should be part of the industrial hygiene curriculum.
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Chapter 11, “Media Campaigns” in Environmental Education & Communication for a Sustainable World
Published by the Academy for Educational Development, 2000
Brian Day was my graduate student before going on to do communications for Environmental Defense Fund, GreenCOM, and other environmental advocacy efforts. In this chapter from a book he co-edited with Martha Monroe, Brian outlines a persuasion theory I taught him back in the 1970s – an approach to precaution advocacy that uses both an information-based component and a need-based component.
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Published in Reputation Management, May 2000
I am one of several experts quoted in this analysis of what the food biotech industry has done wrong in its management of public outrage.
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1995–1999
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Restocking the Shelves: Recovering from A Recall
Published in Food Quality, June/July, 1999
This is a pretty good overview of various expert opinions (including mine) on how food companies should behave after a recall.
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Running risk of public outrage
Published in The London Times Business Section, 1 June 1999
Though its news peg is my then-new “Outrage” software, this article is more an outrage management overview. I’ll love it forever for calling me “the Red Adair of the world of corporate reputations.”
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Don’t Be Gun-Shy: PR Experts Advise the Gun Industry
Published at ABCNEWS.com from TheStreet.com, May 27, 1999
In this short article on how the gun industry should cope with school shootings, I am predictably on the side of responsiveness.
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We can work it out with Outrage
Published in New Scientist, 1 May 1999
This extremely short squib on my “Outrage” software assumes that outrage management and spin doctoring are the same thing.
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Risky Business: Spin doctors may be obsolete
Published in The Guardian, Saturday May 1, 1999
This amusing take on my “Outrage” software begins with how Pharaoh should have handled his Moses problem.
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Published in New Scientist, 27 March 1999
Instead of criticizing the public for getting outraged about biotech, this short piece criticizes the industry for ignoring and mishandling the public’s outrage.
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Published in CAREline® Global Responsible Care® News, Volume 16, 1999
Nothing new here – but it’s convenient if you want my six principal outrage management strategies, my four stages of a risk controversy, and my twelve principal outrage components all in one spot.
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PR Watch Volume 6, #1, First Quarter 1999.
This is an entire issue of the quarterly PR Watch, devoted to a variety of articles critiquing me and my approach to risk communication, nearly all of them by Bob Burton. PR Watch watchdogs the public relations industry from a generally left perspective; Bob Burton writes mostly about the mining industry from that perspective. Obviously, I don’t share the author’s and publisher’s view that helping corporate polluters listen better is a dangerous new sort of “greenwashing” manipulation. But the quotes are all accurate and the description of my positions is mostly on-target. (Corporate dinosaurs also tend to see my approach as dangerous; maybe the polarizers always detest the compromisers.) Anyway, who wouldn’t be flattered to be the subject of a whole magazine issue?.
The articles:
- Flack Attack
- Advice on Making Nice: Peter Sandman Plots to Make You a Winner
- Some Clients of Peter Sandman
- Chilling and Gassing with the Environmental Defense Fund
- Community Advisory Panels: Corporate Cat Herding
- Mad as Hell? This Program May Have Your Number
- Packaging the Beast: A Public Relations Lesson in Type Casting
Letters responding to the PR Watch issue:
- Letter in volume 6, no. 2 (second quarter 1999)
- Letter in volume 6, no. 3 (third quarter 1999)>
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Published in The Times (UK), February 19, 1999
This op-ed complains about inaccurate media coverage of mad cow disease. It cites me to make the point that reporters cover both sides of controversies without worrying about which side is right.
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The Dangers of Ignoring Public Ire
Published in Business Review Weekly, 31 August 1998
This quick overview of my “Outrage” software was written for a business audience.
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Copepodology for the ornithologist, or what BSE can tell us about RCD
Paper presented to CSIRO Workshop on RCD and Rabbits, Canberra, 29 April 1997
I don’t know anything about Rabbit Calcivirus Disease (RCD), which the Australian government apparently used in an effort to control its rabbit population. This article argues that the Australian government was making the same mistakes with regard to RCD that the British government had made with regard to BSE (mad cow disease) – and that these mistakes are best understood in terms of my work on the hazard-versus-outrage distinction.
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Published in Australian & New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 1997
The authors did a qualitative content analysis of Australian media coverage of controversies over mobile telephone towers, searching for my various “outrage factors.” They found plenty of good examples to support their conclusion that the media pay more attention to outrage than to hazard.
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Our ‘Stolen Future’ and the Precautionary Principle
Published in Priorities, American Council on Science and Health, vol 8., no. 3, 1996
This short article by the President of the American Council on Science and Health criticizes the Precautionary Principle and a book on endocrine disruptors that invokes the Precautionary Principle. Then it segues to an off-topic criticism of an article I had coauthored that explained why people were outraged by Alar (a growth regulator that used to be sprayed on apples) even though it wasn’t very hazardous. Whelan takes umbrage at technical precautions against low-hazard, high-outrage risks. That’s not what I advocate; I push clients to try harder not to get people so upset about such risks in the first place. This is a common misunderstanding of my position, made in this case by an eminent policy advocate – which I guess justifies a gloss that’s almost as long as the part of the article where I’m criticized.
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Notes from a class by Dr. Peter Sandman
Posted originally on Elenor Snow’s personal website, 1995
In 1993–1995, I had a contract with Westinghouse to do training and consulting in association with the company’s contract to manage the cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation (a key weapons manufacturing site during the cold war). Elenor Snow was then a technical editor at Hanford. She attended one of my seminars in September 1994, and later posted her notes on her personal website. Over the years, I got periodic referrals from Elenor’s website – and she became a website designer. So in 1999 when I decided to launch a website of my own, it was natural to ask for Elenor’s help. Almost a decade later, she is still my webmaster – and her “Notes from a class” is still a good summary of what I was telling people back in the 1990s about where outrage comes from and how to reduce it, particularly at a nuclear cleanup.
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