CRISIS MANAGEMENT & MEDIA SKILLS

The Situation: A member of the Board of Directors for a healthcare organization was very familiar with Benchmark’s reputation as crisis management consultants and our approach to media relations and media training. Therefore, when his hospital discovered they had a serial killer on staff, he recommended they immediately call our firm for crisis planning and guidance. We helped them quickly identify and assess the impact to key stakeholders and reviewed the priorities of law enforcement and others involved in the criminal case. Then, we helped them coordinate messages with key parties and prepared them for a major onslaught of media coverage.

The Results: Not surprisingly, this very serious and sad situation attracted worldwide media attention. The hospital’s leaders said our crisis response approach was absolutely instrumental in helping them seamlessly and effectively manage the devastating news and shore up key stakeholder support. They also credited our approach as a key reason why some of the major news organizations did not pursue the story at that point in time. The killer is now serving a life sentence in a Texas prison.