1. Get your facts straight, don’t knee jerk!
At times, we can all be found guilty of speaking before we think. However, there is a huge difference between accidently blurting out a friends secret and broadcasting that a senior politician from the 1980s had committed a serious crime.
One of the BBC’s flagship news programmes, Newsnight, aired a mistaken allegation this month that a politician from the Thatcher era (who was not named, but was easily identified) was involved in an incident with a minor. As we can see the BBC is now in meltdown over this damaging and reputation crushing ‘gaffe’.
Non-considered knee-jerks can ruin lives and reputations!
2. Communicate internally.
The BBC had already issued a full apology on Friday, but on Saturday it’s director-general had to admit (under questioning from his own journalists) that he had not known in advance about the Newsnight report, weeks after being accused of being too hands-off over the previous scandal on the same programme.
According to Panorama, BBC Entertainment planning and Newsnight have offices that commission and develop programmes in the same building. Neither had any idea what each other were planning. Last Christmas the BBC aired a tribute to Jimmy Saville whilst the Newsnight broadcast was shelved.
In the world of PR, finding out what is going on upstairs or across the corridor is vital.
3. Reputation and trust.
The BBC’s reputation reflects the management team’s ability to deliver on their promise as a corporation. From a PR angle, for the BBC to regain the trust of the viewers and listeners worldwide, they must admit their mistakes and prove that their high standards have not been lost irretrievably.
Mark Borkowski, one of Britain's leading public relations experts, said the BBC were "the architects of their own crisis". He continues, "The BBC ... is now culturally inept at dealing with a situation of this size”.
Gaining back trust is often the scaffolding to maintaining a strong PR stance in times of crisis. It can take time to earn this back with a strategic PR plan.
4. Take responsibility, reflect and move on.
"If people made mistakes, and they made bad mistakes, they will have to answer for them," Enwistle told BBC TV. He continues, "If disciplinary action is necessary, it will be taken”.
Entwistle’s departure over the weekend came after an expected barrage of bad publicity slamming the BBC and its journalistic integrity. Newsnight are taking responsibility only days later with a unique on air debate about what went wrong and what the future holds in their own studio.
Moving forward and admitting errors is key to being seen as honest facilitating an opportunity to get through the worst corporate nightmares.
5. Restore the BBC Brand.
In order for the BBC to recover from this, we believe that they must restore trust in their brand. Credibility and news values are central to the corporations ‘product’ so the best thing that the BBC can do is to concentrate on what they’re producing is factually sound. The BBC has a global duty, as a public service provider and a reliable recognised brand.
Brands build perception, the relationship between brand and reputation ultimately defines the integrity of the corporate story.