Understanding the ins and outs, ups and downs, and do’s and don’ts of your particular niche are vitally important to maintaining your brand image in the public eye. The best and most expedient way to do this is by becoming a consumer of those same media channels you use to push your own information. What are the things going on in the media that can affect you and your brand in either a positive or negative way? If you don’t know ahead of time, you might find yourself playing catch up when public sentiment has begun to move in a certain way, either for or against you.
This is especially true for public agencies.
Incidents from locations across the country can have long-lasting effects on public perception and even morale within your agency. For police agencies especially, it is imperative to keep abreast of major incidents and the amount of publicity they garner. On more than one occasion over the past couple of years we have seen the fires (figurative and literal) spread far and wide based on the actions of officers from jurisdictions nowhere near our own home towns.
Unfortunately, it is the worst of these incidents that garner the most attention and have the biggest potential for harm. Because police agencies sometimes are lumped into a large homogenous soup of misunderstood actions (especially when the specific actions are related to deadly force), we have to keep up with those especially shocking incidents that capture the eye of major media companies as they begin to grow and gain national notoriety. But not only do we need to pay attention to those incidents, we also need to be prepared to respond to questions about our own agency’s response to similar situations.
Although it might not be your place to respond to or comment on incidents from another jurisdiction (it really isn’t your story), it behooves you to be prepared to answer questions that relate to your own internal processes as they relate to similar incidents.
What’s your agency’s process for handling in custody deaths?
Who investigates your agency’s officer involved shootings?
What does the investigation look like (internal processes versus criminal investigation)?
What sort of time frame should the public expect for some sort of outcome to be announced?
There are so many other things to think about and so many stakeholders who will need to be addressed. Your internal audience (officers and their families), elected officials, community stakeholders, and the public you serve, they all have a need to know the correct information about your agency’s processes during these investigations. Be prepared to remind them when the time is right.
Sometimes the time to do so is well in advance of your own critical incident.
Tell your story, and inform your public.