Being in press relations is a tough job, no doubt about it. You are trying to get the attention of a lot of people who are suffering from data overload and have heard it all before. So, if you are a good PR person you up the ante. You try personal pitches, you try to capitalize on novelty, and, when the opportunity presents itself, you try to leverage current events. All of these ploys work to a greater or lesser extent but that last one, leveraging current events, is not for the heavy handed or the insensitive. Yesterday a press release was forwarded to me that shows what the combination of being desperate for publicity combined with a heavy hand and staggering insensitivity can achieve. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Worst Tech Press Release of the Year (at least so far, the year is yet young):
Could Emergency Phone Notification Have Prevented Virginia Tech Massacre? JOPLIN, Mo., April 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The tragic events that unfolded this week in Blacksburg brought into sharp contrast the consequences experienced by a university whose emergency planning ultimately failed when crisis erupted on campus. The panic, confusion and frustration expressed by students, parents and the community in the hours following the shooting were echoed in intense questioning by major media outlets around the world: “Why didn’t you do more to inform your students? Why didn’t you cancel classes? Why did you send an email two hours after the first shooting?” James Piatt, a student at Virginia Tech, expressed a sentiment that continues to be repeated: “I’m outraged,” said Piatt. “And I’ll say on the record I’m outraged that someone died in a shooting in a dorm at 7 in the morning and the first e-mail about it came two hours later. No mention of locking down campus, no mention of canceled classes, they just mention they’re investigating a shooting a few hours later at 9:26am. Meanwhile, while they were sending out that e-mail, 21 more people got killed.” Virginia Tech President Charles Steger indicated that it would’ve been difficult to warn every student because most were off campus at the time. The fact is, Mr. Steger is wrong. Automated mass emergency notification could have been used to save more than 20 lives that morning. Mass notification should have been in place that would have given students more than two hours warning of the events unfolding on campus, including notification to students with cell phones who were attending classes. Could mass emergency phone notification have prevented such chaos? It’s entirely within reason. Mass notification is achieved through communication service centers (also known as Application Service Providers, or ASP services). These providers have access to thousands of phone lines, and can deliver many thousands of phone calls within a few minutes. Had the school employed an ASP service, it could have informed each student by cell phone of the situation and evacuation instructions. For $1 per student per year, services such as AllCall Notification (http://www.usnetcomcorp.com) could have provided VT with a method of crisis control capable of reaching every student far faster than email. It should have been in place as part of the school’s emergency preparedness plan. There is a tragic lesson for every educator of every school-age student: AllCall or other notification services can save lives. If it had been in place at Virginia Tech, the situation could have been, and probably would have been, much different. Contacts: Kim Cooke Mark Hefley Jeff Warhol JJ Kelly US Netcom Corp. 800-695-7788 e: jeff.warhol@usnetcomcorp.com web: http://www.usnetcomcorp.com
If you feel so inclined (or outraged) perhaps you’d like to drop Jeff Warhol a note?
