I want to thank Barry Nuss who is the Fire Marshal and Public Information Officer for the Lincoln County Fire Protection District 1 in Troy, Missouri, for requesting I reach out to fellow PIO’s and PAO’s to find out what they carry in their “go bags” for large scale incidents.
I’m interested to see what you guys travel to incidents with. I am in the position of being both a PIO and Class A firefighter. I have to be prepared on numerous fronts to have “go to” equipment in a number of places.
At one time in public relations, scissors and glue where two mainstays of the job. You would get press, either cut the article out of the publication yourself or get it pre cut from a clipping service, glue it and place it in a scrap book with all the PR for the year. At the end of the year you would file the book with others from years gone by and have another volume of archival material. Electronic media would be obtained from a broadcasting monitoring service and also be archived in neat rows of VCR tapes. Times have obviously changed though.
In many of our Departments and agency’s we as PIO’s are asked to assist in the development of social media policy for our members or employees. This can be very easy or very difficult to construct and explain.
Salesforce.com is a major cloud-computing company. With over 72,000 customers involved in many different aspects of the web and social interaction the company is very sensitive to how they are portrayed via social media.
Salesforce recently released, for public consumption, their social media policy via YouTube. Although the policy is most relevant to explain to their own employees the company’s stand regarding social media at a publicly traded company, there are still valuable lessons to be learned by all.
This past Friday we had a fully involved barn fire in Smithtown, NY where I serve as PIO. Fortunately horses stalled in the barn and other livestock where turned out in paddocks when the fire erupted so thankfully no animals were lost or injured.
In Smithtown, most property zoned for livestock has the family residence at the front of the property and the barn area set to the back.
At Friday’s fire the barn was about 100 yards set back from the access street. Incident command was also set up close to the barn. On the access street was one Engine supplying the water source from a hydrant, Fire Police and Suffolk County PD.
Ever since the enactment of The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 confusion has reined in our profession about exactly who and what is covered in the law, and what we can and cannot report on and take pictures of. I think allot of what we hear is fact but allot of the interpretation of the legislation is based on “folk law” handed down since the passing of the bill.
I recently received an e-mail from a fellow PIO and newsman asking for assistance in mucking through the separation of fact from fiction.
This is a pretty bare bones Power Point presented by the Army titled “Online Etiquette: 5 Things every Solider should know.” When you scroll through the 8 slide presentation just substitute firefighter for soldier and you can see the parallels in online social media interaction etiquette between the two services.
I was on the phone yesterday with a college president I know who asked me if I or anyone in my Fire Department ever encountered an “Ambush” journalist at the firehouse front door. She had been confronted by a TV consumer complaint investigative reporter who does a segment a few times a week about viewer problems. The reporter and camera crew were waiting for the president to arrive at work.
It’s been a busy day so far. I am attempting to rectify a crisis communications issue on the regular job, track the large number of alarms the department is receiving for rain and flood related conditions on this part of Long Island, as well as prepare for a business trip to Texas that starts tomorrow. The Texas trip is the one that gives me the most trepidation.
The FDNY is currently trying to unravel the details concerning an allegedly drunk individual in uniform, sleeping at the entrance to an apartment building following St. Patrick’s Day festivities in New York.
A few years back my department was confronted with a similar situation. The proper crisis management of inebriated firefighters in uniform can be a difficult one to call for a PIO and department leadership.
I just got off a conference call with a few of my fellow PIO’s who represent a number of volunteer fire departments. We were discussing SOP’s when PIO’s from different departments are working the same scene via mutual aid needs.
The discussion diverted to the responsibilities that PIO’s have in their own departments. The responsibilities that we had in common were –
Late Friday, the U.S. Department of Defense released its official policy covering new media and social media. With some three million employees, the DoD is one of the largest organizations in the world, so this is major news.
Pittsburgh EMS has been thrown into a controversy after a Hazelwood man died February 7th who had called EMS 10 times over a two day period seeking help for a stomach ailment. It is a terrible tragedy to be sure. From a Public Information standpoint, the Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Michael Huss and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl have been blunt with their reactions to the episode. It remains to be seen what happens over the next several days but initial reaction has fulfilled some of the main tenets of The Fire PIO’s 7 primary responses to a crisis.
LAFD PIO Vehicle
One dilemma I face as a PIO from a volunteer department is transportation to a scene. I would assume that the vast majority of volunteer departments do not provide a vehicle for the exclusive use of a PIO. In my department, the Smithtown Fire Department on Long Island, response must emanate from our main house or one of our two substations.
In many departments responders can arrive at a scene in their own vehicle, in my department this is not a SOP.
The use of Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and YouTube can be valuable tools for your Department to use to reach out to the public. While internal controlled social media has become a bonanza for getting across significant information at a rapid pace to a wide ranging audience as well as building your Fire Department’s brand image, there are also some major pitfalls.
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