When minutes count: Tension and trust in the relationship between emergency managers and the media

Abstract

In crisis and disaster situations the accuracy, scope, credibility and timeliness of media information depend on relationships between journalists and emergency managers. In the chaos of an unfolding disaster this relationship relies heavily on trust. This specific area has received sparse research attention. Accordingly, we reviewed and synthesized literature on trust, and used qualitative analysis of interviews to examine how elite practitioners viewed the importance of trust in the relationships built up with one another both prior to and during disasters. Two main findings emerged: that there was a need to develop shared definitions of trust and articulation of common goals; and that institutional and personal relationships need to be nurtured in the periods between disasters rather than solely during crisis events. These findings warrant dissemination among both media and crisis managers and further research into establishing shared concepts of trust that both partners could use in more effective collaboration.

Keywords

Communities crises disaster journalism media relationships trust

How people behave in a crisis

When disaster looms, people turn to multiple sources of information. Research for the London Metropolitan Police Service found that people who feared potential danger turned to television and radio for information (Granatt, 2004). They would then ‘hop channels’ to compare advice, and ‘if it was inconsistent, they would follow their instincts and probably self-evacuate’ (2004: 358). This is the least safe course of action in a situation involving airborne hazards and is opposite to the ‘go in, stay in and tune in’ message promoted by UK authorities in the event of a chemical or similar incident (Direct.gov.uk, 2011). In the 2005 London bombings the public sought information within the first hour of a major incident, turning to radio, television and the internet (Greater London Authority, 2006). Following a significant storm, Sydney residents used local broadcast media networks, particularly radio, in communities affected by electricity interruptions, followed by friends and relatives, and then television (Cretikos et al., 2008).

Role of media in disaster: Providing and validating information

Because of audience reach, traditional media remain a vital tool in emergency management (Cohen et al., 2006; Cretikos et al., 2008; Keys, 1993), despite the proliferation of social media networks. Emergency managers saw radio as a priority medium because of its immediacy, portability and the lack of reliance on electricity (Carey, 2003, cited in Spence et al., 2009; Santos, 2005). However, television was the main source of news for most people both in Australia (ACMA, 2011) and the United States in a disaster (Pew Research Centre, 2008; Robertson, 2001). A University of Virginia survey found that local, rather than network, television stations remained the dominant source of information in a crisis, followed by radio (Wei et al., 2010).

Social media platforms, however, are growing in importance. An online survey of 1058 US adults demonstrated the growing credibility of social media, such as Twitter, as the fourth most popular source of information behind television, radio and online news sites (Red Cross, 2010). Acknowledging the growth of social media, the American Red Cross established a national social media response centre for use ‘particularly when storm victims are huddled in a basement away from other forms of communication’ (Clolery, 2012).

A survey of 1100 people about their use of social media in a disaster in Australia, New Zealand and Japan found that ‘people relied on a mix of information from official government and emergency services websites as well as informal sources’ (Mercer, 2012).

During the 2011 South-East Queensland floods affecting 40,000 homes and businesses, authorities claimed that ‘Within the first 48 hours of the flood event, social media channels proved to be a preferred communication channel for a very large number of Brisbane residents and businesses’ (ACELG, 2011). Compared to the pre-flood period, Brisbane City Council Twitter followers grew by a factor of almost three (from 2955 to 8291) and ‘likes’ on Facebook increased 16 times from 759 to 12,679 during the floods, and concurrently with a failure of the Council’s overloaded website (ACELG, 2011). However, it is difficult to know who exactly is accessing social media sites and whether they are being used alone or as an adjunct to other sources. Social media allowed emergency managers to receive information from flood-affected residents that, if verified, could be disseminated.

Currently, in a process called crisis mapping, some emergency agencies use social media platforms to source information from people on the ground to visually map the location, extent and variation of disasters (Poblet and Casanovas, 2012).

Whatever the mode of communication, the value, reliability and timeliness of information depend on cooperation between emergency managers and news-gathering journalists. This relationship has been tense or unworkable in numerous disaster and crisis situations. During Hurricane Katrina the media reported unsubstantiated rumours of snipers aiming for rescue helicopters, which impacted on emergency operations (US House of Representatives, 2006). During the Washington DC and Virginia sniper shootings the media went to extraordinary, and arguably unethical, lengths to gain information (Wexler at al., 2004). Emergency managers, too, do not always cooperate in the public’s best interests. At the Dunblane school massacre in Scotland, journalists accused authorities of deliberately delaying the official release of information already known to the media (Berrington and Jemphrey, 2003).

Tension in the relationship

In an Australian study on media and bushfires, Cohen et al. concluded that emergency managers needed to engage with the media to deliver warnings to threatened communities. Journalists, however, made a distinction between information, relating to safety concerns, and news, involving story-telling, which allowed them some independence ‘rather than let the emergency organizations have it their way’ (2006: 6). Mogensen noted that journalists ‘considered it their duty to deliver information as a form of public service and to act in the public interest during a national crisis’ (2008: 43), but that their relationship with emergency managers was fraught with tension. Competing priorities, in that journalists were bound by deadlines while emergency managers were focused on the response to, and containment of, the situation, contributed to fractures in the relationship between the parties (Santos, 2005). Ewart (2002) claimed that, to obtain a story quickly for demanding news editors, journalists sometimes conducted inappropriate interviews with disaster victims and that unethical behaviour, unchecked in local disasters, became part of journalists’ repertoires repeated in full-scale disaster settings.

An investigation subsequent to the 2002 sniper attacks in Washington DC and Virginia highlighted two priorities of the media: to inform the public and to beat their competitors. At times these priorities led to unethical practices, a lack of trust, and defensiveness between police and reporters as ‘many reporters did not wait to receive information from law enforcement, but aggressively sought it from many sources’ (Wexler et al., 2004: 18).

The divide between media priorities and emergency response was illustrated by one emergency manager’s opinion:

I don’t use the media, I don’t rely on the media, I don’t like to deal with the media … we are working for the public, they’re working for ratings and that’s a big difference. I don’t care less if anybody likes me or if I sound good on the radio. I’m trying to save lives. (Santos, 2005: 10–11)

In the Australian bushfires, tension was inflamed when both sides ‘took control of their situations’ (Green et al., 2004). Emergency managers tried to contain and resolve the crisis, reduce loss of life and damage to property. The media focused on finding and reporting stories.

If the information officially provided does not meet journalists’ expectations, tension worsens. During bushfires in Australia, fire-fighting agencies wanted to control media access to the active fire-fighting area, while journalists wanted to get close to the ‘real’ event (Cohen et al., 2006). ‘Getting close to the action’ during the reporting of Cyclone Yasi in far North Queensland, Australia, in 2011, led commercial television reporters and celebrities to take safety risks by doing pieces-to-camera at the cyclone’s height (Media Watch, 2011). Reporting this contravention of safety recommendations, the Media Watch host said of reporters who took risks to gain dramatic footage: ‘If a cameraman or reporter had been decapitated by flying debris, you wonder what Seven (television channel) would have told their family.’

Media relations officers were employed in attempts to improve the flow of information. However, official sources became even less accessible (Cohen et al., 2006). Indeed, due to inadequate resources, media relations officers were unable to respond to all media calls during a disaster, leading to frustration over unmet information needs (Green et al., 2004). Analysts concluded that emergency managers needed to better understand how the media operate rather than perceive them as an annoyance or, at worst, a threat (Cohen et al., 2006; Green et al., 2004).

Further sources of tension derived from the inexperience of many newly graduated journalists attending a disaster scene (Green et al., 2004), and the ‘blame game’ played by journalists. Mehta argued that the media could, in a crisis situation, become the ‘guardians’ of trust by ‘reporting and questioning an agent’s roles and subsequent changes to those roles’ (2007: 163–164). However, in 1993, the then State Planning Coordinator for the NSW State Emergency Service contended that emergency managers perceived the media as being:

… very quick and zealous in laying blame for disasters or for the mishandling of them that sometimes occurs. Nobody enjoys taking the blame, especially when a case can be made that it is unfairly apportioned or ill-directed. Media people, of course, sometimes see the definition and sheeting home of responsibility as an inevitable and necessary part of the story of an event – a natural final chapter. (Keys, 1993: 13)

In 2006 an unnamed journalist from the Australian newspaper acknowledged the ‘culture of blame’ in papers other than his own: ‘It is always “whose fault is it?” … The problem is that blame is just one of these big news values in Australia’ (Cohen et al., 2006: 12).

Analysts have thus described an adversarial culture where journalists are focused on the completeness and timeliness of their stories, and emergency managers are focused on public safely and to some degree in safeguarding their own reputations from future media attack. Parties frequently see the other group as having contradictory goals. They operate in a constant state of distrustful wariness, fearful of trusting those who, from the journalists’ perspective, may be slow in giving them access to information, and, from the emergency managers’ view, may be seizing the chance to get behind the scenes and gather information they will later use in allocating blame for what journalists judge to be inadequacies in how the emergency or disaster was handled.

Thus, tensions exist in relationships between emergency managers and the media in which blame, information sharing, roles and responsibilities and work conditions are cited as obstacles to collaboration based on trust (Berrington and Jemphrey, 2003; Santos, 2005; Wexler et al., 2004). Healthy working relationships upon which the fate of lives and property in a crisis or disaster may rest must be lubricated by trust (Earle, 2010). We now examine research and theory relating to trust.

Defining trust: A labyrinth to be negotiated

Few scholars agree on a definition of trust. Rawlins argued that trust ‘is something we can all sense, but may have a hard time describing’ (2007: 3) and is strengthened when ‘openness and transparency contribute to an increased sense of trust’ critical to the functioning of organizations (2007: 10).

Definitions of trust vary between disciplines. In an economic and organizational context, Sabel described trust as: ‘The mutual confidence that no party to an exchange will exploit another’s vulnerabilities’ (1993: 1133). Other factors such as culture and personality differences, the characteristics of the institution, type of risk involved and how the information is perceived also influence levels of trust (Chryssochoidis et al., 2009).

Many approaches to trust include elements of social exchange theory, which identifies the need of parties to a transaction to perceive an exchange of benefits:

Social behaviour is an exchange of goods, material goods but also non-material ones, such as the symbols of approval or prestige. Persons that give much to others try to get much from them, and persons that get much from others are under pressure to give much to them. This process of influence tends to work out at equilibrium to a balance in the exchanges. (Homans, 1958: 606)

Rousseau et al. distinguished between relational and calculative trust: ‘Trust is a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behaviour of another’ (1998: 395). In relation to trust in web-based electronic commerce, Ratnasingham (1998) defined trust as ‘an ongoing, market-oriented, economic calculation whose value is derived by determining the outcomes resulting from creating and sustaining the relationship relative to the costs of maintaining or severing it’ (1998: 164). This definition echoes both Rousseau et al.’s (1998) concept of calculative trust and Homan’s (1958) social exchange theory.

Seligman also made distinctions between confidence and trust: ‘Control or confidence is what you have when you know what to expect in a situation: trust is what you need to maintain interaction if you do not’ (1998: 1). For Seligman, things like kinship obligations, qualifications supporting status, sanctions, sameness or knowledge of what to expect through familiarity support confidence. However, a world of free and autonomous strangers whose background and expectations may be unknown or unpredictable is much more risky and requires trust. ‘Trust is not only a means of negotiating risk, but it also implies risk (by definition, if it is a means of negotiating that which is unknown)’ (1998: 398). In this new environment Seligman suggests that we ‘are in need of system experts, that is, lawyers and often social workers, to help mediate the most minimal sets of system obligation and definitions of role performance’ (1998: 400). Indeed, it is in their role as ‘system experts’ with mediation skills that our informants in this study can be seen to have developed trust in crisis environments.

Reviewing empirical research on trust in risk management, Earle (2010) examined the relational/calculative dimensions of trust labelled warmth/competence, communion/agency and morality/competence. He concluded that the first of these dimensions in each case related to the other’s intentions, and the second to his or her abilities. For Earle, relationship-based trust was more ‘tolerant of risk’ while ability-based trust was ‘more demanding and risk averse’ (2010: 542). For Earle the function of the ‘gamble of trust’ was to ‘reduce the uncontrollable complexity of the present for the future benefits of cooperation’ (2010: 542). Earle explored the distinction between trust and confidence. Trust was forward-looking and based on judgments of how similar we believe the other to be to us in terms of such things as group identity, intentions, values and feelings. For Earle, trust was relational and referred to the intentions of the other, whereas confidence was calculative or based on an assessment of abilities. The confidence model judged past behaviour by outcomes or performance. This trust/confidence model helps distinguish and structure the many different behaviours that can be labelled ‘trust’. Trust is more reliant on perceived similarity of values leading to social risk-taking about the future, while confidence is concerned with abilities as indicated by past performance and seeks to prevent past problems re-occurring and thus to control the future.

Shapiro et al. (1992) categorized three kinds of trust: deterrence based, knowledge based and identification based. Deterrence-based trust explains why most people can be trusted to drive within the speed limit in the presence of penalties for speeding. In the context of a disaster, an emergency manager could say: ‘If you don’t follow the safety rules, we will ban your reporters from the area.’ It could be argued that deterrence-based trust is, in fact, not trust because even setting up the punishment shows an expectation that the other party may behave in an untrustworthy way unless reined in by the fear of punishment. Further, Thompson (2009) argued that deterrence-based trust could lead to a reaction opposite to what was intended, leading those threatened with punishment to find ways of circumventing the rules. An example of reactance occurred during Victorian bushfires when some reporters dressed up as volunteer fire-fighters in order to get closer to the action in potentially unsafe areas. Journalists argued that it was their job to get the news, and in the face of rules they judged too strict, reporters circumvented disaster managers’ control of the scene (Muller, 2010).

Shapiro et al.’s knowledge-based trust derives from familiarity through constant dealings with the other person or group, enabling predictions about how they will behave. Past trustworthy behaviour is likely to lead to trust in the future. Shapiro et al.’s identification-based trust results from the parties’ recognition of shared values, goals and attitudes (such as a religion or a national group), leading to predictions about what the other would do.

However, even if not initially present between different groups, trust could be developed. In research developed from 1958 and beyond, focused on the concept of ‘superordinate goals’ (Sherif, (1958), Sherif et al. (1961) found that if previously antagonistic groups could develop goals in common (or superordinate goals) they could be united to work in a cooperative way to achieve those goals. In the face of a common disaster, unity and trust in one another could develop. The skill in promoting this cooperation and trust lay in convincing each group that they would both be affected by the impending disaster and would both benefit from combined efforts to combat it.

Drawing on an analysis of previous writing about the concept of trust, Koehn (2003) combined these into four categories.

Goal-based trust – two parties shared a common objective; they trusted each other believing the other was also committed to achieving the goal. This shared some dimensions of Sherif et al.’s (1961) superordinate goals.

Calculative trust – each party sought evidence for the other’s trustworthiness (past history of keeping promises; a good reputation). The would-be trustor calculated the perceived benefits and liabilities of trusting, similar to the explanation provided by social exchange theory.

Knowledge-based trust – two parties were familiar with each other and/or interact frequently. The relationship was similar to a friendship and was dependent on personalities.

Respect-based trust – two parties had a similar love of virtue, excellence and wisdom and were willing to engage in dialogue and ongoing conversation.

Koehn argued that ‘by anticipating problems, parties can reduce the odds trust will be betrayed’ (2003: 15). Further to this, Conchie and Burns (2008) suggested that open communications increased levels of trust in high-risk organizations.

Trust in the relationship between emergency managers and the media

Given that problems and tensions between the parties existed, as identified above, we asked which of the categories of trust identified by Koehn (2003) were involved and whether Sherif’s superordinate goals and Conchie and Burns’ notion of open communication would strengthen relationships. Within these broader parameters, the following research questions were devised to explore the relationship between emergency managers and the media:

How do media representatives and disaster managers relate during a crisis?

In what ways could relationships between media representatives and disaster managers be improved?

What part does trust play in relationships between the media and disaster managers; what kinds of trust was it in Koehn’s 2003 terms, and how could trust be improved?

Methodology

The first author conducted qualitative in-depth interviews with ‘elite’ sources in the field in 2010 and 2011. Interview subjects comprised 14 senior media and disaster managers in the UK, USA and Australia, selected on a deliberative basis in order to provide cases illustrative of a range of disaster management situations (Hampe, 1997; Wimmer, 2006). Quotations from 11 interviewees are used in this article. The average time of each interview was one hour. Details of each interviewee are listed the first time they are quoted in this article.

The following interview questions were used:

Given social media platforms, how relevant is traditional media in emergency communication?

How effectively do you think the relationship between your agency and the traditional media is working at present?

From your perspective what role does trust play in the relationship?

What factors contribute to the breakdown or success of the relationship?

In your view what are the strengths and weaknesses of the relationship?

Interviews were transcribed and read for emergent categories. This iterative process required close reading and re-reading until issues and themes that recurred in the transcripts emerged. Broad categories were labelled trust (role in the relationship), relationships (status), role of traditional media, tension and cooperation.

From further analysis of these groupings three key themes emerged:

Interdependency and tension in the relationship between the media and emergency managers with a subtheme of the relevancy of traditional media.

The role of trust in effective relationships between them.

Suggestions about how trust could be enhanced.

Each theme is now elaborated and discussed.

1 Interdependency and tension in the relationship between the media and emergency managers in an environment where traditional media is seen as significant but is also influenced by social media

Channel Seven journalist Jessica Adamson (interviewed Canberra, 10 March 2011) described how potential tension with emergency managers during an emergency was managed:

We often are putting situations to them and saying, ‘Look, we’ve heard this, can you get back to me really quickly, I need to verify if this is right or not.’ To begin with, they can be quite annoyed by that. Some emergency managers don’t like to be told things … they want to be telling you the news, and so it can put them off. You need to be able to do it delicately and sensitively, pragmatically. But in the end if you want to be able to say that you’ve heard it from official sources, then it has to come from them.

Peter Rekers (Chair, Emergency Media and Public Affairs, the national organization for emergency communicators and former media manager, Emergency Management Queensland; interviewed Canberra, 10 March 2011) had experienced tension dealing with journalists: ‘I’ve been doing this a long time; I’ve handled a lot of different types of media. I’ve had hostility from some; I’ve been chest poked physically, literally a number of times by journalists because they’re under enormous pressure.’ Rekers considered that the journalists’ need for timely information added to the tension. Rekers recalled a phone call from a local mayor, during Cyclone Larry off the North Queensland coast in 2006, who had only time to say one word ‘devastation’ during the eye of the storm:

We had to paint the picture of how bad it was … But there was this two hours where we heard nothing. The world’s media were ringing me up saying, ‘What’s happening, what’s happening? Give us the latest update.’ We still haven’t heard anything. So media need to understand that we won’t necessarily have the best, clearest picture; we won’t necessarily be able to tell you instantly how many houses have lost their roofs, that sort of thing. Trying to get that information flow into the Operations Team, then out of the Operations Team to the Media Team, to eventually get to the media is a slow and difficult process.

The speed of social media such as Twitter and the ensuing increase in the amount of information available from a variety of sources were seen by Lachlan Quick (Media Manager, State Emergency Service, Victoria; interviewed Canberra, 10 April 2011) as adding to the tension between emergency managers and the media. Quick cited an example of how competing priorities come into play when journalists call for immediate verification of what they have heard via a social media source:

‘Well I have heard there is a man trapped in a pipe and you guys aren’t telling me anything,’ or ‘I’ve heard, that there are flood waters rising here and you guys aren’t telling me anything.’ Whereas what we are trying to do is gather as much information from as many sources as we possibly can, [and] get that into something that’s digestible.

A lack of understanding by journalists about emergency management adds tension to the relationship. Rekers recalled an ill-prepared journalist’s question about a cyclone’s severity: ‘Is it going to get as bad as a Category 1? It’s already a Category 4. Oh, I thought 1 was the worst.’

Ian Cameron, who had 35 years’ broadcast experience as a senior editor in the BBC, and is currently advising the UK government about the use of media in emergencies (interviewed Bristol, 22 April 2010), argued that ‘people didn’t trust mobile phones because they get so many spurious text messages and they didn’t trust email because they get so much spam’. Therefore traditional media, particularly radio, was the key information provider, but if trust did not exist between the broadcaster and emergency manager:

… they can’t put out accurate information quickly and then you will allow time for the rumours to accelerate and grow out of all proportion. In an incident that could be quite serious. If, say, during a chemical leak, instead of staying in and tuning in and closing the doors and windows people all start thinking ‘we need to get out’, they could walk through the gas cloud.

Most interviewees saw traditional media as highly relevant and essential in providing information to the public in a disaster. Michele Hendrie (Director of Public Affairs for the Attorney-General’s Department, Canberra; interviewed Canberra, 2011), a leading national authority on disaster communication, reinforced the role of traditional media in validating community information from other sources:

You could, for example, deliver a warning over the phone, which would be the recorded message warning that might go out to 1000 people. Immediately they actually want to validate it with someone. And the things they’ll do is turn on the media to hear it, call a friend, anything … the research people called it a normalcy bias, where some people don’t want to think it applies to them. ‘It mustn’t be normal. This mustn’t be happening.’ And they want to validate the fact that it is happening. The media is a critical part of that warning system.

In the 2009 Black Saturday bushfire disaster, radio was the only medium to work effectively in communicating with devastated communities. Manager of Community Engagement at the Office of the Emergency Services Commissioner, Victoria, Anne Leadbeater (interviewed Canberra, 11 April 2011) survived the Kingslake inferno and led the recovery of the local community. In the days following, Leadbeater claimed the disaster radio, in particular the ABC, proved its worth:

In terms of actually accessing information, what we had was the radio media and face-to-face communication. So if we weren’t working collaboratively and in partnership with radio at that stage, then the people who would have been affected by that were the people that we needed to get information to.

2 Role of trust in the relationship between emergency managers and the media

All interviewees saw the relationship between emergency managers and the media as based on trust. For emergency manager Peter Rekers, trust ‘is the game’.

They call us ‘spin doctors’; to me the equivalent, on the other side of the coin of that, is editing. So I can say something at a press conference [and] they can edit that. The only reason they’re not going to is if they trust me. If they perceive me as a spin doctor then they are going to, whether it’s political spin or whatever, then they’re not going to trust me and they’re not going to listen.

Ian Cameron argued that trust was critical but also fragile:

(Trust) is huge. I think it is probably the single biggest factor. It takes a long time to build up and is very easily destroyed. I think if you do destroy it, if somebody blows it … it takes a long, long time to recover.

For most interviewees, Cameron included, trusting relationships between emergency managers and the media were seen as interpersonal, rather than between organizations. Further, positive and productive relationships during and post the crisis depended on trusting relationships formed prior to a disaster.

Building a stock of goodwill was also advocated by Kelvin Cochrane, national head of the US Fire Administration (interviewed Canberra, 12 April 2010). He viewed US Federal agencies as having an obligation to interact with the media, and ‘it is the sincerity of that interaction that is the factor which builds trust’. He concluded: ‘Mutual trust, I believe, is a goal between the media and Federal agencies responsible for disasters. It’s just that our efforts during non-crisis situations will determine the measure of our trust during the crisis.’

However, Cochrane also suggested that trust should operate at several levels – institutionalized trust between government and media generally, and then emanating down to leaders on both sides. He suggested that a healthy institutionalized trust meant that a trusting relationship would continue even if the leaders moved on.

In a contrary view, Rosanna Briggs (Principal Civil Protection Officer for the Essex County Council, UK; interviewed Chelmsford, Essex, 29 April 2010), regarded as a leading disaster practitioner, placed interpersonal rather than institutional trust at the epicentre of her relationship with the media. Although not neglecting relationships with on-the-ground journalists, her priority was to build trusting relationships with senior editors and editorial managers who were the decision-makers about what was published. She did not believe trust was transferable:

You build up a relationship with new managing editors. And it takes the time to do that … And so when you’ve built it up, and then they change positions, you have to start all over again … So I think that’s a really important issue – trust is not transferrable from one person to another.

This view was shared by journalist Jessica Adamson. She went further to argue that trust with emergency managers was built on mutual respect, honesty and ‘through lots of dealings with them’, placing trust firmly at the interpersonal rather than organizational level.

They see you, they know that you are an honest, trustworthy journalist. You see them and think, ‘thank God you’re here because I know you are going to give me the facts I need quickly and they will be accurate and it will be efficient’.

Ian Cameron believed honesty and accuracy were the cornerstones of building trust with emergency managers and reiterated what others had said about relationships needing to be built before the disaster. As Cameron put it:

The amount of information we get coming in to us (the BBC), we need to be able to check facts out very quickly … so it is all about having the right contact numbers, making the connections and I think, beyond that, it is about building trust and you can only do that if you get to know someone.

3 Building trust between emergency managers and the media through a common goal

Given that for interviewees trust was important, but that tension existed between the parties, we asked how such trust could be fostered.

Neil Stanbury, Director of Media and Public Affairs for the West Australian Police (interviewed Perth, 3 March 2011), who as a 2006 Churchill Fellow conducted an international study of the relationship between police and the media in the context of terrorist attacks, agreed that trust was pivotal in the relationship, but argued that the attitude of emergency agencies needed to change:

Some emergency service organizations need to make that critical shift from seeing the media as a customer or, even worse, a combatant. Instead they should see them as a partner during both the response and recovery phases.

In turn the media need to understand the basic foundations of trust. Stanbury concluded:

Trust means that they know that the information will be provided in a timely fashion. They know that the information will be accurate, and when information is withheld, they will accept that, if the trust is there, that that’s being done for an appropriate purpose.

Disaster manager Rosanna Briggs reiterated that both parties needed to understand the needs of the other: the media ‘are out to do their job, I am out to do my job’ and trust was a given ‘until such time as it is proven otherwise’, for example, publishing ‘off the record’ information.

Alastair Wilson (Attorney-General’s Department Canberra public affairs branch member; interviewed Canberra, 12 April 2010), from the government department overseeing the agency responsible for national coordination of disaster response, Emergency Management Australia, focused on the end goal of an informed and prepared public. This fits with Sherif et al.’s (1961) superordinate goal theory that differing sides could work together for a common goal. Wilson asserted that the public’s justifiably high information demands leading up to and during a crisis placed an onus on both emergency managers and media to work together cooperatively to provide the public with information that would lead them to act in ways that kept them safe during a disaster:

We don’t have to love each other but we have to learn to live in the same room and eat at the same table because the public out there, through the media, is like a dragon – it’s ferociously needing to be fed. If it isn’t, it’s going to bite our heads off.

Representing more than 400 UK media outlets, UK Society of Editors’ Executive Director Bob Satchwell (interviewed Cambridge, 30 April 2010) argued that a misperception that the media could be controlled was a key factor in the breakdown of relationships between emergency managers and the media:

Any organization that seeks to control the media finishes up with egg on its face. As I say to people, tongue in cheek, don’t try and control the media. I have spent the best part of 25 to 30 years as an editor trying to control journalists and I can tell you that you cannot control them and I am on their side.

Satchwell’s assertion that the media were, above all, the servants of the public and ‘not any one organization’ resonates with Sherif et al.’s (1961) work in describing the need to define a superordinate common goal in order to allow disparate groups with different aims and needs to work in harmony. Satchwell’s major contention was that a ‘win-win’ trusting relationship between media and emergency managers could be achieved through identifying a shared goal. He concluded:

Fundamentally no media or news organization can possibly survive unless it can get people information that they need to lead their lives. The essential factor in any media operation, and this applies to news media and more generally, is that you are helping people to lead their lives. You are giving them information and you are entertaining them. Until people in official positions understand that we have to serve the public (they) will not understand the role of the media.

Types of trust in the relationship

This article now examines how Koehn’s categories of trust apply in the relationship between emergency managers and the media.

Goal-based trust

Despite their different agendas, the media and emergency managers need to recognize a common goal – the public. Admittedly, while emergency managers need to better understand a journalist’s perspective, editors might perhaps temper their journalistic instincts to seek exclusive interviews, apportion blame, and compose attention-grabbing headlines, in favour of prioritizing potentially life-saving factual information. Working out a superordinate goal, in all its detail, would require prior planning, cooperation and education of all stakeholders. Leadbeater, who led the community recovery at Kingslake, Victoria, in the aftermath of the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, describes the success of goals-based trust undertaken during the disaster:

I was approached by a young man in a yellow coat who identified himself as a reporter for ABC Radio in Sydney. And he asked me if he could be of assistance and, at that point, it would have been very easy for me to say, ‘Look, no, sorry – I’ve got stuff to do.’ But I had done some research myself about the importance about working in partnership with the media and so I thought this was time to put some of those theories to the test. So … I said, ‘Michael, this is a very bad situation that we’re in’ and he agreed very enthusiastically and I said, ‘Look, I need to know whether you are interested in making our situation better or worse’ and he said, ‘No, I’m absolutely committed to making it better’ and I said, ‘Okay, let’s see what we can do.’

Leadbeater asked the journalist to broadcast the need for a community meeting. Among the 400 people who turned up she was able to confirm some disaster survivors.

Michael became our breaking news reporter, so if we needed information on the radio, he would make that happen for us. He slept on the floor of the Shire office for five days and I often heard him arguing with his producers over the phone, saying, ‘No, no. This needs to be – it needs to be broadcast. It needs to be broadcast in this way at this time.’ He was a real advocate for us in getting (out) what to us was very vital information.

Trust quickly developed between Leadbeater and the ABC journalist, to the point she invited him to observe all meetings, no matter how sensitive the information.

I said to Michael, ‘Look, if you see me somewhere and you want to know what I’m talking about or who I’m talking to, you come and stand beside me, because I need you to understand what we’re trying to do here and then you’ll know in which ways you can help’, so it was a very collaborative and constructive, I think, relationship. (It) worked in our favour because we didn’t have to leave him to make up what he thought was happening. We could actually collaborate with him and help him understand why certain things were being done in a certain way or why people perhaps may have been reacting the way that they were at that stage. So it was about us learning about this event together and us being able to benefit from his access to the media and hopefully him being able to benefit by having those insights that we were discovering as went along. Disasters are a great leveller. And I think it brings out the very best in people if you give them the opportunity to display those characteristics and that commitment to helping.

Calculative trust

This category resonated with interviewees. Leadbeater reported that in Victoria’s Black Saturday bushfires she placed trust in a journalist she had never met before. The benefit of the journalist’s willingness to distribute life-saving information outweighed the liability of inaccurate reportage.

Knowledge-based trust

Based on familiarity and frequent interaction, this also resonated across the interviews; Jessica Adamson spoke of ‘lots of dealings’ with emergency managers before a crisis; Ian Cameron argued that goodwill was forged in relationships developed before the disaster.

Lachlan Quick asserted that ‘investing time before the incident’ was critical in building trust with the media. He explained that it is too late for journalists to build that relationship in a disaster:

No one wants to try and make new friends when it’s an emergency and you have got 3000 media calls happening in a week. That’s not the time to call anyone and say: ‘Hi, I’m just starting here, can I have a chat with you and get an idea about what you guys do.’

However, a contrary view was voiced by WA Police media manager Neil Stanbury who felt that media interest sometimes only came when a disaster happened and that the media had little interest in spending time in building relationships beforehand. In Stanbury’s view the relationship was based primarily on social exchange. Some journalists wanted quick results rather than long-term relationships. They were prepared to cultivate people who would be useful in helping them produce a story immediately rather than spending time to build up relationships with people who might be useful contacts in some future disaster.

Respect-based trust

This was the least favoured response by the interviewees. Media and emergency managers had different approaches to disasters and different meanings for ‘excellence, wisdom and virtue’.

While for emergency managers safety was primary, reporters recognized that ‘good journalism is never risk free’ (Media Watch, 2011). There was a tension between the safety of reporters and their desire to meet editors’ needs to gain dramatic vision of disasters from riots to bushfire. Editors in turn were aiming, perhaps not quite consciously, to satisfy audience desires both for information and for schadenfreude. This German word, with no direct equivalent in English, describes a kind of pleasure or satisfaction felt at someone else’s misfortune which might be a contributor to the popularity of disaster footage.

The way forward

Clearly this is a symbiotic relationship. The media need official information, even more so amid the flood of social media contributions to both media outlets and emergency officials. And as traditional media – radio, television and newspapers (including their online components) – remain a critical source of public information in a disaster, emergency managers need the media. While this study demonstrates that relationships between emergency managers and the media are based on trust it also identifies threats to such trust: differing approaches to the same goal of serving the public which need to be negotiated; a lack of understanding by emergency managers about how the media operate in terms of routine news-gathering techniques; what Satchwell called the media’s goal to provide ‘entertainment’, as well as information; journalists who regard emergency managers as ‘too slow’ to provide official information or confirmation of events being relayed via social media platforms; emergency managers and the media experiencing confrontation at the disaster scene, particularly when media are blocked from access and undertake seemingly unethical steps to obtain information; and journalists (perhaps as part of the news-gathering ‘routine’) attempting to lay blame, sometimes unfairly, at the door of emergency responders.

So how can trust be developed and maintained between emergency managers and the media?

Connect before a crisis

The need for emergency managers and the media to connect and develop a better understanding of the others’ perspectives and needs and develop trusting relationships before a crisis was evident in most interviews and is supported by theories of trust that emphasize familiarity, knowledge and respect. Ian Cameron advocated each side having a typical journalists’ contact book: home phone numbers, alternative contact numbers and people – because ‘disasters don’t happen 9 to 5’.

Recognize that trust is critical

Building trust involves the recognition of a shared common goal – serving the public. From a social exchange framework, relationships will flourish when parties perceive mutual benefits. Respondents claimed that when high levels of trust were formed, mostly prior to the disaster, the flow of information was greater, more accurate and perceived by the public as more reliable.

Conclusion

This research found that the relationship between emergency managers and the media continues to be marred by tension and a lack of trust. However, this analysis of interviews suggests a way forward through the parties utilising better understanding of each other’s roles, building a stock of goodwill before a disaster and both sides agreeing on how to contribute to the common goal of meeting the public’s needs. Future planning for a disaster should include joint sessions between emergency managers and the media to reach agreement on how to meet this ultimate goal – serving the public. Working back from that position, both sides could outline their priorities, resources, opportunities, and limitations in serving the public, and each other. Through such direct communication trust could be established. By seeing the situation from the other’s perspective, each trusting the other’s professional behaviour, the superordinate goal of public safety could be achieved. Experienced practitioners, such as Leadbetter, have a part to play as ‘system experts’ (Seligman, 1998) who can pass on techniques for establishing collaboration. Perhaps Ian Cameron best summed up what could be the starting point – all sides regarding the media as ‘part of the solution, not the problem’.

Further research

This article has taken a fresh approach in the field, utilizing theoretical insights from across disciplines in detailed analysis of practitioner interviews to identify specific ways in which trust might be developed between emergency managers and the media. Further empirical and quantitative studies could investigate ways to develop and maintain trust where parties’ agendas compete and in environments where the media are increasingly interactive.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We would like to express thanks to our interviewees who gave freely of their time and to our anonymous reviewers who helped make this a better article.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Author biographies

Hamish McLean, after more than 10 years as an editor and senior reporter for metropolitan and regional newspapers, ventured into the discipline of public relations where he worked at senior levels in police, emergency services and corrections for 10 years before starting his own agency. He consulted to corporations mainly in the legal, law enforcement, health, aviation and technology sectors. He lectures in public relations at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia, and his research interests are in crisis management, disasters and media relations.

Mary R Power’s work focuses on communication in crisis events, in negotiation, mediation, and conflict resolution and in intercultural settings and through the social uses of new communication technology. In 2009 she and Hamish Mclean authored Crisis Command: Strategies for Managing Corporate Crises. Dr Power has published both nationally and internationally on identity issues for migrants, the social uses of mobile phones, deaf people’s use of communication technologies, conflict styles among Australian Christians and Muslims, mediation strategies for solving community disputes, using conflict resolution skills in the prevention of crises, framing of issues in union negotiation, women’s speech style in Parliament, cross-cultural differences in political apologies, styles and strategies of British union and management negotiators, trade negotiations with China under GATT, internal communication in corporations, men and women negotiators, and the education of mediators.

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