By Katarina Arambasic-Pivic
Photo: Pexels/Dajana Reci
June 26th, 2023
Last week’s tragedy of the submarine Titan and its crew of five looks more like a script for a Netflix mini-series (probably of questionable quality) than something that happened. However, it happened: the fate of five people in the hermetically sealed capsule in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean remained unknown for days, and millions around the planet sought to comprehend what was going on.
The questions and comments we heard last week included: who made up the crew, who are the billionaires “who were so bored and ignorant that instead of hungry and thirsty people around the world, they spent money on an extreme adventure,” how much oxygen did they run out of, is this another example of the Bermuda Triangle’s curse, and so on.
But let’s go back to what is our profession and the main question: how did this case look from the perspective of crisis communications? Well, here’s a short answer – rather amateurish. A proactive performance was substituted with a non-transparency and reactive response, resulting in many speculations in the media. This case seems to have placed us in a time capsule and brought us back to the last decades of the previous century, to a time before social media when the traditional press depended on official sources of information that were primarily unavailable on this occasion. The removal of data from the company’s official channels adds to the curiosity of the case, but let’s go through it step by step.
Crisis communications plan
Let’s start by debating whether the company “OceanGate” even had a crisis communication plan, especially in light of the fact that it deals with activities that have a high risk of creating a crisis (expeditions into the depths of the Atlantic to a place where Titanic sank). Most likely not, based on what we’ve had a chance to see over the crisis’s roughly five-day duration. Perhaps they had some paper by that name, but it was clear that “the crisis was not rehearsed”, and there was no planned reaction. Even if their strategy was to reduce the amount of information to a minimum, and even if they knew very quickly that the crew had been killed, it could and should have been communicated differently. This case clearly shows how important it is to know beforehand what to do in crises before the news reaches the media. What’s worse, the public learned about the details of this case mainly from the press. As always, when there is no source of information, the media and social media are flooded with half-information, fake news, and, of course, conspiracy theories of all kinds. The news reached the public from the press before official sources confirmed it, which is not good.
Don’t get me wrong; the company cannot respond to a tragedy like this alone, and communication with authorities must be coordinated. We do not know what the legal team advised them because the corporation faces threats from an official investigation and potential litigation from the victims’ relatives (not all the details of the contract they signed before departing for the expedition are known). Perhaps they saw silence as a way to reduce future financial damage. However, this does not absolve those responsible for the tragedy from being accountable for communication; since the case grew beyond an “internal company incident” and became an event of public importance, the official communication should have been more professional. Once again, here we analyze the communication approach according to what we had a chance to watch in the media and read on the company’s official channels without insights into a legal strategy or agreement with the authorities.
Communication channels
The company “OceanGate” has a website and uses standard social media and networks: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. The website has been down for a while, and you still cannot access the main domain (www.oceangate.com). If you visit https://oceangateexpeditions.com/, you will find out all about the expeditions, but not even in the media section you can find a word about the events of the last week. The page with the latest news has the famous code 404, meaning that data are unavailable, while the page with press releases as the latest brings the announcement from the beginning of April. The “Our Team” page also has a 404 code, and there are many more pages similar to this one.
When discussing communication on social media, only two posts are available on each. One from June 19th is presented as a four-bullet media briefing and is quite difficult to read because it is a PDF document. In it, they say that they are using all resources to bring the crew back safely and thank the government agencies of several countries for their help in discovering the submarine. The second announcement on the company’s official channels is from June 22nd and brings tragic news.
On Twitter, which is still one of the main sources of information for the media in America, these two news items were pinned, but after an important lesson, the company learned the hard way! Namely, when the news about the submarine’s disappearance hit the media, a post from January of this year was still “pinned” to the company’s Twitter account. This is a lesson for all of us in communications: regardless of the severity of the crisis and the tornado that hits us (figuratively speaking), we first check what is posted as breaking news on our channels.
Companies frequently forget that today, their primary communication channels during a crisis are their websites and social media, which they should employ to avoid answering media requests individually. They are excellent channels to update information and leave the impression of responsible behavior frequently.
Who is Wendy Rush, Director of Communications at OceanGate?
In addition to being the director of communications for this company, Wendy Rush was also the wife of the deceased director of this company, Stockton Rush. Her profile on LinkedIn is very modest, and we can only learn that she graduated from Princeton, but it does not specify anything about her majors. She has been in this position since January last year and has worked in this company for about two years. Previously, she was president and board member of the “OceanGate Foundation” for ten years. And that’s all we can find out from the official profile; in the meantime, her photo has also been removed from her LinkedIn account (we witnessed the removal of information, which is certainly not a good practice). If you look for more information about her, the Internet, which typically provides a wealth of information about everything, is again empty. The only thing you can find is the “trivia” that has been in the media since last week, and it refers to her ancestors who died in the sinking of the Titanic. Namely, she is the great-great-granddaughter of a magnate (one of the co-owners of the famous department store “Macy’s” and his wife) who gave up their seats in the lifeboat to a mother with children. The media loves moments like this, so in the absence of other information, they dealt with this.
In brief, we know little about the director of communications, especially if she is an expert in this field. Princeton is a famous educational institution, but we have no information on what area she is an expert. The additional difficulty, a great one, is created by the fact that her husband was in that submarine, so it is difficult to maintain objectivity when you are emotionally involved.
What was good in communication?
The good thing in communication is not related to the company itself. On Thursday, June 22nd, Coast Guard Admiral John Mauger broke the news that the submarine had imploded, and all passengers were killed. His performance, professionalism, tone, empathy, and exceptional patience for journalists’ questions exemplify how tragic news should be communicated to the public.
So, today, when we know what happened to the submarine, what should “OceanGate” do first? Experts suggest a public announcement that a thorough investigation into the incident would be conducted, and a report on the results should be made available to the public. Is this enough damage control? No, but it would signal they want to do something about the tragic accident. Will they regain their reputation after such a tragedy and additional news about the “whistleblower” who pointed out the shortcomings in the work of the submarine a few years ago? Very difficult to achieve.
What can we learn from this kind of crisis:
- React proactively and transparently (late information is harder to trust).
- Even if you don’t have new information, or because of the investigation, you can’t share it yet, maintain regular communication. Remind of the main developments and say that you will communicate new information as soon as you have it (otherwise, rumors and fake news will run).
- Use official communication channels (website and social media) for regular communication.
- Be aware of what information is pinned to you on those channels.
- Do not hide or delete information from websites and channels (there is always someone who saved them).
