From the proposal by Government to tax social media and now another suspension of a lecturer at Makerere University, the nation was once again crippled by PR storms of vast magnitudes and proportions. But if we take a look at what these crises bring, we unfortunately are left with organizations whose image is stiffling by the minute because of what a pr storm has done to them. PR crises unlike medical ones bring with them a cohort of issues which have to be resolved at the end of it all. We will discuss a few here:For one, the image of any institution is always at stake during a crisis. Take the Makerere University issue for example. Yes, the institution has been plagued by strikes for the last couple of years. The last strike the institution had saw the President shut down the University for three months while a Commission of Inquiry was launched in to ammend the situation. Now, the Army is poised to take over if the situation is not rectified. As if that is not abd enough, this is happening right when Senior Six leavers are preparing to join campus. So how does this look to potentila hopefuls? Bad does not cut it. The tip of the iceberg is the recent suspension of a lecturer for sexually harassing one of his students. The victim shared pictures of her "assailant" on social media and the now viral posts have sparked off a series of outrage with many demanding that the Institution enforce tight penalties for such lecturers. Image like we all know is very important in PR. You are only as good as the Image you have in society. If people presume that all you do is strike, then they will take you for a striking institution. This is why organizations will try to manage their Image after a storm because they know "mud sticks" and with good reason to.Reputation. The cynicism and vanity of PR is one which many have claimed makes for a very dishonest profession. The business of managing reputations is a tricky one because more than often, manipulation or coercion of some sort may be applied to make people think a little bit better of you. And yet, ideally reputation is suppoised to be a part of you. Honest and genuine. But Institutions have discovered that playing victim or denying certain things may often save you from a bad press day. PR storms are legendary for their attack on reputation which is bound to take a dive. Integrity is questioned, values are subjected to scrutiny and once lost, reputation is hard to regain fully. What does an institution that has strikes every semester have to say when it comes to reputation? Not much, because their's is being doubted and with good reason.Bad publicity. No crisis ever sees a company come out unscathed in terms of bad press. It is difficult to handle the press when a storm is ongoing. For one, they become uncontrollable like a sea of vultures hawking over a piece of meat. They will fish and turn over any corner to find a juicy story to tell their readers and so they must find a good source for this kind of information. The newsowrthy element in a crisis stems from the fact that they are "unsual." And in news, the unusual is the news. Worse still, a crisis is often when media ties are severed as the need to put to bed a bad story can force a practitioner to do the unthinkable, which may involve selling the story to a rival media agency or so.Digital Media. This baby that requires constant attention has caused numerous practitioners to suffer the crisis. Most news, especially the negative will erupt on social media, much to the chagrin of PR people. Uncontrollable, hard to constantly monitor, new media technologies have the potential to damage anybody or any organzation. The leaked identity of the lecturer from Makerere University with a file labelled COCIS (College of Computing and Information Sciences) from a snapshot is proof that social media can have far reaching consequences than we all ever imagined.And there we have it, the vast PR problems which stem from a PR crisis. The list, though not exhaustive still shows us how much a PR crisis can do to an organization.
