Simon Brooke's Blog

I hate to kick someone when they're down...but what the heck! Haringey Council must surely win awards for their dreadful handling of the Baby P case.
By refusing to take any action until the government made them, they looked complacent, hostile and inward looking. The result of this stance has been a wave of public outrage.
What should they have done, then? With years of experience of handling companies, organisations and individuals in these difficult situations and carrying out media training exercises with them my advice would be to act quickly.
An organisation in this situation needs to start by offering sympathy and regret. This is not the same as apologising because it doesn't accept responsibility - I can sympathise with the fact that you were very ill after you left my restaurant but it doesn't mean that I admit that it was my food made that you ill.
Organisations then have to offer to carry out a full investigation - again this doesn't accept responsibility or admit liability but it does make it clear that they care, that they are not complacent and that they are taking action.
As my media training clients discover - doing interviews with the media well in this situation is easier than they think. This is because the only answer you can give to almost any question is to tell the interviewer that you'll have to wait for the results of the inquiry.
It's not ideal, as I point out in my media training sessions, but it will dig you out of a hole and avid the negative coverage currently suffered by Haringey.