GRAND PIER, WESTON-SUPER-MARE
Handling national publicity for the new architects designs for the Grand Pier at Weston-super-Mare. Coverage throughout the region and nationally on BBC Radio 4, Sky TV, BBC Radio 2 and others.
30 OCTOBER 2008
NEWS TRAVELS FASTER AND FASTER
When I started as a newspaper reporter a wise old journalist told me: “Don’t do the follow up before the story” in a bid to curb my enthusiasm.
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SOMETIMES THE CRISIS HAPPENS!
I spend a lot of time creating crisis scenarios for people who want to rehearse what it would be like if things went horribly wrong in their business and the press are on the doorstep.
The more enlightened realise that how you deal with the media in such situations is usually more important than how you deal with the crisis itself. Perception is reality and if everyone thinks you did well because the media told them so…then you did well.
Thankfully the crisis doesn’t happen that often and the business continuity manuals and hours of rehearsal are thought-provoking but never used in anger.
So it has been something of a shock to be appointed by the Grand Pier at Weston-super-Mare and stand looking at the wreckage of the business – a smouldering heap of blackened twisted steel where the main revenue earning centre used to be.
You can’t get more of a crisis than that. You also can’t get a business that is more visible in every way. Literally millions of people watched the building burn via the magic of the internet and television and every move you make on a pier is scrutinised by the public as it is the most visible structure in Weston-super-Mare.
The owners have been impressive in their reaction to the disaster. They don’t hang about and want that pier back up and running as soon as possible, so it has been a busy few weeks for us.
We are enjoying the challenge and to be so heavily involved in a project in the town where I started my career on the Weston Mercury is also great fun. The Mercury in my day was a huge newspaper with tiny headlines. It had a column for women called “Over The Teacups” but no women staff and carried every result in the local flower shows.
Today it is a tabloid with a lively website that has a webcam trained on the pier so anyone can look at any time and the editor is a woman. So much has changed since the late 1970s!
The changes in the media through the internet, blogging, on-line comment, webcams and citizen journalists have made dealing with a crisis a game of quick-thinking and fast decision making. The first films of the Weston Pier fire were on Youtube before any mainstream media got there.
However the rules on how to survive a crisis have changed little and those who prepare through training and rehearsal and have a plan will survive and thrive.