Stupid is as stupid does.

To begin this post, I would like to quote an exact line from the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff:

"I think it was one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I've seen since I've been in government," Michael Chertoff (pictured on left) said. (CNN).

If you have not yet heard, watched, or read in the news, FEMA made a PR boo boo. Pat Philbin, FEMA's external affairs director, held a fake news conference to address FEMA's response to the victims of the wildfires in SoCal. "The agency — much maligned for its sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina over two years ago — arranged to have FEMA employees play the part of reporters at the event Tuesday and question Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy director" (FOXNews).

To see the entire news conference, including questions from phony media personnel, feel free to play the video below, compliments of YouTube.



Now comes the exciting part. Utilizing our knowledge of Guth and Marsh's (2005) RACE and RECAP, let's analyze how FEMA has handled the national exposure of this case:

After reading both the CNN and FOXNews articles, it appears as if some informal research was conducted by FEMA Director David Paulison. Paulison probably did not have any time to engage in formal research, but he most likely questioned Pat Philbin to see what exactly happened and why the fake news conference even took place. Through their informal research, FEMA probably identified their key publics as the American public, including the media and FEMA employees. The CNN article suggests that more formal research will be conducted in the form of an investigation of this incident.

The research that FEMA conducted allowed them to formulate a plan to handle the situation. Their main goals were most likely to a) publicly address Philbin's (pictured on right) decision to hold the phony conference by removing him of his duties and b) regain their credibility by releasing video coverage of the fake conference to the media and disclosing all information about the case. The message that FEMA wanted to send out to America was that of disapproval and apology for Philbin's "error in judgment" (FOXNews).

FEMA communicated its messages via the release of an internal memo from David Paulison (check the left side of this NY Times article for the pdf. of this memo), and via their formal letter of apology. This memo communicated Paulison's (pictured on left) disapproval of the incident, and highlighted the mistakes that were made. This memo was intended to reach its internal audience, the FEMA employees; since it was released to the media, its scope then widened to address the American public. Overall, the main message of FEMA (their disapproval and letter of apology) were communicated by using the memo, removal of Pat Philbin, and letter as tactics, and the mass media and FEMA website as a channel of communication to its publics.

Since this event has just become public over the past two days, FEMA has not yet had the opportunity (in my knowledge) to evaluate the success of their PR strategy for this case.

After analyzing this case in depth, I have a couple recommendations for how FEMA could, and still can handle this situation more effectively:

• The should have publicly addressed this situation much earlier. It took them six days to release their knowledge of this. A speedier response might have helped to better preserve their credibility. A speedy response is crisis management 101 (Seitel, 2006).
  
• FEMA should issue a formal, publicly televised statement of apology to the media, FEMA employees, and the American public. It was not until six days after the incident that FEMA issued any formal apology and that was only on their website.