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The Crisis Blog

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The importance of crisis communications planning

IN THE past few weeks, we have had several interesting developments involving several publicly traded companies and some of their key personnel. Resignations, apologies and public explanations have been flying left, right and centre as the light..

Communicating around modern crises

JAMAICA IS not a real place. Or so the popular meme says. But real or imagined, there is probably no place on earth like this small island, when it comes to drama, conflict and just sheer spectacle. Jitters in the investment sector, worry among private

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Rethinking crisis communications 

The best way to manage a crisis is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Organisations must begin to look beyond the boundaries of communications and PR, and start to explore the operational antecedents of accidents, errors and emergencies, as a necessary Phase One of their crisis...

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Social media apathy

I’M A big fan of Sir Hilary Beckles. I think the work that he did to reopen the uncomfortable conversation on the debt owed to the Caribbean by our former slave-owning European colonisers, is admirable and long overdue. I’m also a big fan of my...

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The pen is still mightier than the sword

It’s not every day that the small spice island of Grenada makes the news. After all, with a population of barely 114,000 persons, it takes some doing to make headlines here in Jamaica. But that’s exactly what happened last week when the Grenadian government...

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Jamaica’s war on the propaganda pandemic

As someone with more than a passing interest in the impact of communications on Jamaica’s socio-political landscape, I am always vigilant of any imminent threat on the media horizon. Take, for instance, the spectre of manipulation, misinformation...

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Unresponsive plane crashes off Jamaica, killing U.S. couple

Shadowed by two U.S. fighter jets, a small plane with its windows frosted and its pilot slumped over flew a ghostly 2,700-kilometre journey down the Atlantic Coast and beyond Friday before finally crashing in the waters off Jamaica. Earlier, the plane's pilot had...

Skillful escape with some luck, says JDF of helicopter crash

Civil Military Co-operation and Media Affairs Officer at the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), Major Basil Jarrett, is thanking the proverbial lucky star that a trainee pilot from the army managed to find an open field in Portmore, St Catherine to crash land a helicopter that...

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2 feared dead as U.S. plane with unresponsive pilot crashes

KINGSTON, Jamaica -- A private U.S. plane with an unresponsive pilot traveled more than 1,700 miles before crashing Friday into the ocean north of Jamaica, U.S. and Jamaican officials said. The pilot and his wife were both presumed dead. "We can confirm that the plane has gone down," Maj. Basil Jarrett...

The perils of not having a robust social media policy

IT’S 2023 and social media continues to put careers, reputations and livelihoods at risk. With lawsuits, apologies and resignations flying left, right and centre in the past few weeks, it is a wonder that so many of us continue to operate in the social media...

Banking on a crisis

 

THERE IS opportunity in every crisis. You just need to look at where to find it. Take even this global COVID-19 crisis that just refuses to go away. Now, at the risk of sounding heretic, COVID has actually brought some amount of good that I hope...

The US banking crisis: Communications lessons for us

Banks and financial institutions seem to be in perpetual crisis these days. Employee theft, bank fraud and senior management misconduct have all helped to jiggle public confidence in the safety and security of our savings, deposits and investments. But the...

Protect yourself from the media manipulators

LAST WEEK, I wrote about the awesome power of the media to control and manipulate minds. I spoke about the lessons that the Nazi propagandists of the Third Reich had taught us, and showed how dangerous a weaponised mass media can...

He who controls the media, controls the mind

WHEN I enrolled as an undergraduate history major at The UWI, way back in the days of post and telegram (the service, not the app), it was supposed to be a first step towards a career in law. The law faculty gatekeepers at the time didn’t think my...

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Social media: The other pandemic

I HAVE a love-hate relationship with social media. It started years ago when a friend introduced me to Facebook as the greatest thing to happen to dating since women. The relationship quickly soured when I witnessed his attempts to privately woo a young lady...

Communicating around COVID

The news coming out of our hospitals and healthcare facilities in the last few weeks has been grim. Record-breaking new cases, rising positivity rates, more and more deaths, and fewer and fewer available hospital beds. Not to be outdone by the...

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JDF shows rowdy Horizon prisoners

The security forces have accused some prisoners of seeking to drive a wedge between them and law-abiding Jamaicans following allegations of abuse by several inmates at the Horizon Adult Remand...

When social media makes us less social

I SAW a most heartbreaking sight this weekend. And no, I’m not talking about the Denver Nuggets’ 20-point blow-out loss to Golden State. I’m referring to a social media video of an accident somewhere in the...

On leadership and communication

IN A recent tribute that I wrote for the late Dr William Foster, I received a number of comments from readers who were not only familiar with the good doctor’s good work, but were also very familiar with the story I shared about that historic 1991..

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Battling the COVID-19 infodemic

THE COVIDINFODEMIC. No, you didn’t read that wrong. It wasn’t a misprint nor a typo. The CovidInfodemic is real. But unlike its pandemic counterpart, chances are, you’re already infected and currently suffering from this debilitating ailment. Symptoms include 

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JDF denies relief chopper commandeered to fly PM to function

HE Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) has rejected suggestions that an army helicopter loaded with Hurricane Sandy relief supplies was diverted to transport the prime minister to a function in St Elizabeth, three days after the passage of the...

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