ABSTRACT
Crises in government and public affairs tend to present high-profile scandals, largely unforeseen which nonetheless necessitate timely and strategic media relations responses. An overview is provided of the domain of crisis communication in which journalists clamor for answers—on behalf of the public—and crisis communicators serve the public while also attending to the needs of their government/public affairs entity, protecting proprietary information, and bolstering their image and credibility. This chapter reviews pertinent theories applicable to politics and other terrains of government/public affairs, with a focus on empirical research and scholarship that provides actionable strategies. An explication is provided of “spin” as the primary means of operatives communicating their entity’s messaging with the public through reporters, with discussions of positive ethical framing relative to outright deception that misleads the public in an attempt to salvage wrongdoers. Recent anecdotes are presented to exemplify variations in practitioners employing “good” vs. “bad” spin, and the chapter features a case study drawn from a practitioner’s experience with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and closes with key takeaways based on theory and applied practice.
