2010
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Presented to the National Public Health Information Coalition, Miami Beach FL, October 21, 2009
Although this six-hour seminar was entitled “Three Paradigms of Radiological Risk Communication,” NPHIC asked me to go easy on the “radiological” part and give participants a broad introduction to my approach to risk communication, mentioning radiation issues from time to time. So that’s what I did.
Fair warning: These are not professional videos. NPHIC member Joe Rebele put a camera in the back of the room and let it run. You won’t lose much listening to the MP3 audio files on this site instead.
- Part One is a 90-minute introduction to the hazard-versus-outrage distinction and the three paradigms of risk communication.
- Part Two runs 155 minutes. It discusses the seesaw and other risk communication games (thus completing the introductory segment), then spends a little over an hour each on some key strategies of precaution advocacy and outrage management.
- Part Three is a 72-minute rundown on some key crisis communication strategies.
These video files are located off this site.
The audio files are located on this site.This article is categorized as:
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Trust the Public with More of the Truth: What I Learned in 40 Years of Risk Communication
Audio (they’re pretty different)
(Note: This link launches an MP3 audio file from this site.) Link off-site to the video
(Note: This link goes to a page off-site with a link to this video file.)The National Public Health Information Coalition is an organization of federal, state, and local health department communicators. NPHIC asked me to give its 2009 “Berreth Lecture” at its annual conference in Miami Beach – and specified that the presentation should be about myself and my career, not the substance of risk communication. But as I walked the group through my 40 years in risk communication, a substantive theme emerged: that public health communicators are at least as untrustworthy as corporate communicators, that nobody has the courage to trust the public with those parts of the truth that conflict with the message, and that public health agencies need to learn how to cope better with mistrust and outrage. I illustrated my thesis with a lot of flu and other infectious diseases examples. I had written the speech out in advance – something I almost never do – but I departed from my text more than a little, so both versions are here.
The written speech file is located on this site.
The audio file is located on this site.
The video file is located off this site. -
This article is categorized as:
2009
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Food Safety Risk Communications
(Note: This link launches an MP3 audio file from this site.)Presented at the Maple Leaf Food Safety Symposium, Mississauga Canada, October 23, 2009
In August 2008, Listeria contamination in Maple Leaf packaged deli meats killed 21 elderly consumers, one of the largest food poisoning disasters in Canadian history. As one small part of its recovery efforts, Maple Leaf Foods sponsored a food safety symposium in October 2009, bringing together producers, retailers, and regulators to talk about lessons learned and ways to protect against Listeria. My presentation on “Food Safety Risk Communication” was inserted as respite from the technical material in most of the other speeches. I did my usual introduction to hazard versus outrage and the kinds of risk communication, and then offered a few food-specific examples (until I ran out of time). Audience comments and questions weren’t recorded; that’s what the occasional moments of dead air are. This is an audio MP3 file, 19.2 MB, 55 minutes, located on this site.
This article is categorized as:
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Presented to the European Respiratory Society international conference, Vienna, Austria, September 14, 2009
The European Respiratory Society invited me give a 20-minute presentation on pandemic communication at its annual conference, as part of a panel on various aspects of pandemic H1N1. I pleaded for an extra hour right afterwards to go into more detail for those who wanted it. Some 20,000 respiratory disease doctors attended the conference; roughly 2,000 of them were at the panel; about 200 followed me to a smaller room for my extra hour (which I did jointly with my wife and colleague Jody Lanard, an M.D.). Only the panel presentation is posted on the ERS website. It’s mostly an introduction to the basics of risk communication (hazard versus outrage; precaution advocacy versus outrage management versus crisis communication), with some quick comments on the implications for pandemic communication. The meat was in the hour that followed, which unfortunately wasn’t recorded.This is an audio file with slides, 18 min., 21 sec., located off this site.
This audio file with slides is categorized as:
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Distributed by Project Syndicate, July 27, 2009
Project Syndicate is a nonprofit organization that distributes op-ed commentaries on currently hot topics to newspapers around the world, free of charge. They asked me to do one on how public health officials ought to be communicating with the public about the ongoing H1N1 pandemic. The resulting piece briefly discusses nine mistakes officials should stop making: don’t feign confidence; don’t over-reassure; don’t worry about panic; don’t obsess over accusations of fear-mongering; don’t fight the adjustment reaction; don’t oversell what the government is doing; don’t oversell what the public can do; don’t ask the impossible; and don’t neglect the teachable moment.
Translations available
French: Le B-A BA de la grippe A pour les grands
These files are located off this site.
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Pandemics: good hygiene is not enough
Published in Nature, May 21, 2009, pp. 322–323
This is a pretty drastic abridgment and a very minimal updating of my April 29, 2009 column, “The Swine Flu Crisis: The Government Is Preparing for the Worst While Hoping for the Best – It Needs to Tell the Public to Do the Same Thing!“ But a Nature commentary can be a lot more influential than a website column, so I was happy to seize the opportunity. The focus, of course, is the same: that the authorities (for example the CDC in the U.S.) are being candid about swine flu but are not urging people to prepare, and not giving people a visceral sense of what a serious swine flu pandemic might be like. Why? Partly because they’re (mistakenly) afraid of frightening the public, and partly because they’re (correctly) afraid of being accused of frightening the public. I argue that they should get over both fears and use the teachable moment … a position I feel even more fervently on May 21 than I did on April 29.
An Adobe Acrobat file (707-kB pdf) of the complete article
is also available. (Note: The Nature links require payment. Free access to a copy is available.) A French translation of this article, originally posted on the website Zone Grippe Aviaire (which has disappeared) is now available on this site.French translation available
The files are located off this site. The French translation is on this site.
This article is categorized as:
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Is America Prepared for a Pandemic?
Published in the Washington Post, April 28, 2009
The Washington Post asked me to write a 200-word piece on how I thought the U.S. government was doing on swine flu risk communication. My first draft was 600+ words. Then I revised to around 200, and sent the editor both. He used the short one. I’m posting the long one (“The Government is Preparing for the Worst While Hoping for the Best – Now It Needs to Tell the Public to Do the Same Thing!”) here too. Both emphasize my sense that the government has been preparing for the worst while hoping for the best – but hasn’t yet urged the public to do the same thing.
This file is located off this site. My original is located on this site.
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Climate Change Risk Communication Dialogue
Excerpts from the RISKANAL listserv, March 24–25, 2009 (plus some follow-up offline correspondence)
In late March of 2009, discussion on the RISKANAL (risk analysis) listserv turned to the psychology of people – including people on the listserv – who are skeptical about global climate change. I had recently dealt with this question in a column for this website on “Climate Change Risk Communication: The Problem of Psychological Denial.” So I posted a comment on the listserv referencing and summarizing the column. The resulting brief dialogue dealt with the motives not just of global warming skeptics but also of global warming supporters. And it led to a further discussion of whether strategic persuasion (on behalf of global warming or any topic) is antithetical to sincerity. I thought it was a good, thoughtful and respectful discussion – worth reprinting here (with the permission of all the participants). After the RISKANAL discussion petered out, I continued to exchange emails (also posted here) with one participant in the dialogue, Stephen L. Brown. Our focus slowly shifted from climate change risk communication to outrage and outrage management – and led to some observations on Steve’s part about outrage that I think are well worth reading, whether you’re interested in global warming or not.
To join RISKANAL, send the following email message to lyris@lyris.pnl.gov:
SUBSCRIBE RISKANAL First_Name Last_NameThis file is located on this site.
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2008
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Breaking the Fourth Wall: How Joe Biden Should Debate Sarah Palin
Posted on the Daily Kos website, September 28, 2008
I was sitting at the breakfast table with my wife and colleague Jody Lanard, pondering how Joe Biden could debate a palpably unprepared opponent without looking either nasty or patronizing. Since Biden faced a dilemma, we reasoned, perhaps the solution was the tried-and-true risk communication response of sharing the dilemma. (See for example “How Safe Is Safe Enough: Sharing the Dilemma.”) By the time we had drafted appropriate language a couple of hours later, we were pretty sure it wasn’t such a good idea. But we sent it to a friend who is also a Democratic netroots heavy (he goes by DemFromCT), and asked him to post it on the Daily Kos if he thought it might be useful (or at least provocative). He did. It attracted 600+ comments in the first three hours (and counting) – nearly all critical of our suggestion, and many with far better suggestions of their own.
This file is located off this site.
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Plan B: Turning organizations into islands of pandemic influenza preparedness
Published as a Guest Briefing in Osterholm Briefing, published biweekly by CIDRAP Business Source (University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy), September 25, 2008
CIDRAP’s Michael Osterholm publishes a biweekly Osterholm Briefing to help subscribers – mostly businesses – prepare for a possible influenza pandemic. As Deputy Editor of the Briefing’s publisher, CIDRAP Business Source, I send Mike my reactions after each Briefing. He asked me to turn my comments on his September 11 Briefing into a Guest Briefing. I agreed on condition that I could publish it on my website as well. It’s not about risk communication. It’s about Mike’s growing skepticism that most governments and companies will prepare adequately for a possible influenza pandemic, a skepticism I share. And it’s about how preparedness planning should change if you figure those around you are going to be unprepared.
This file is located on this site.
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Handling explosive emotions demands five acts of empathy
Published in ISHN (Industrial Safety & Hygiene News), May 2008, pp. 1, 24, 26
Dave Johnson, the editor of ISHN, admired my website column on “Empathy in Risk Communication.” But of course it was much too long for him to republish. So he excerpted the less complicated sections, made a few editing and formatting changes, and came up with a shorter, more accessible article.
This file is located off this site.
This article is categorized as:
2007
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Understanding the Risk: What Frightens Rarely Kills
From the edited transcript of a conference on pandemic media coverage, published in Nieman Reports, vol. 61, no. 1, Spring 2007
For three days starting 30 November 2006, Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism ran a conference on how the news media cover (and should cover) the risk of an influenza pandemic. I spoke twice, a stand-alone presentation on “Risk Perception, Risk Communication, and Risk Reporting: The Role of Each in Pandemic Preparedness” and a panel presentation on “Fear of Fear and Panic Panic: Is It Okay to Scare People about Pandemics?” The two were abridged and combined into one article when Nieman Reports published an edited transcript in Spring 2007. As compiled by the Nieman Foundation, the published article focuses on two topics – the four kinds of risk communication as applied to pandemic risk and the importance of fear in pandemic preparedness. For the (nearly) unedited transcripts of the two presentations, see below.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file,
54 kB, located on this site.This article is categorized as:
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Risk Perception, Risk Communication, and Risk Reporting: The Role of Each in Pandemic Preparedness
Originally presented at a conference on “Avian Flu, a Pandemic & the Role of Journalists,” Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, December 1, 2006
An abridged version (
above) of this presentation was published in the Spring 2007 issue of Nieman Reports (see the previous entry). The Nieman Foundation for Journalism also made the original transcript available to me. I edited it very lightly so it makes sense – but it’s still very much a transcript, not a polished article.This file is located on this site.
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Understanding Human Responses [to pandemic risk]: Communication Focus
Panel discussion at a conference on “Avian Flu, a Pandemic & the Role of Journalists,” Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, December 2, 2006
I was joined in this panel discussion by three experienced risk communication practitioners, Howard Koh, Glen Nowak, and Dick Thompson. My contribution was entitled “Fear of Fear and Panic Panic: Is It Okay to Scare People about Pandemics?” An abridged version of my presentation and a tiny bit of the Q&A were published in the Spring 2007 issue of Nieman Reports (look two entries up). The Nieman Foundation for Journalism also made the original panel discussion transcript available to me, very slightly edited by them. I edited my parts a bit more thoroughly, though it’s still very much a transcript, not a polished article. I left other people’s presentations and comments alone – so blame any garbles on the transcription process, not the speakers. The conversation ranged widely over the various challenges of pandemic communication.
This file is located on this site.
This article is categorized as:
2006
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Globalization, Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability
Excerpts from a 2006 “Forum” dialogue sponsored by SustainAbility
I am a member of the external “faculty” of a U.K.-based consultancy called SustainAbility, a leader in advising companies and governments on what founder John Elkington calls the “triple bottom line” of environmental, social, and economic sustainability. For several months in mid-2006, SustainAbility fostered an exchange of emails among its faculty on globalization and its likely impacts (good and bad) on sustainability and corporate responsibility. Excerpts from that dialogue have now been posted on the SustainAbility website. It’s a bit distant from my usual risk communication turf, but for those who are interested, some of my remarks are included in the excerpts for Questions 2, 3, 4, and 5.
This file is located off this site.
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Crisis Communication Best Practices: Some Quibbles and Additions
Published in the Journal of Applied Communication Research, vol. 34, no. 3, August 2006, pp. 257–262
Since 2004 I have been working with the U.S. Government-funded National Center for Food Protection and Defense at the University of Minnesota. One of the projects I worked on was an effort to develop a set of consensus “best practices” in crisis communication. Matthew Seeger wrote up the results in an article entitled “Best Practices in Crisis Communication: An Expert Panel Process.” I got a second bite of the apple when I was asked to write one of four commentaries on Seeger’s article. My commentary, posted here with permission, focuses on some things I think the group missed or got wrong: the importance of fear and other emotions, the need to trust and respect the public, and the over-emphasis on message consistency. Seeger’s article and the other commentaries are available online from the publisher, but only if you pay. A much less detailed PowerPoint on the ten best practices
is available without charge.This title links to an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file,
57 kB, located on this site. The other two links go off site.This article is categorized as:
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Recent H5N1 Outbreaks: The Evolving Challenge of Defining and Communicating Pandemic Risk
Transcript of a June 22, 2006 teleconference sponsored by Bio Economic Research Associates
As part of its pandemic preparedness consulting business, Bio Economic Research Associates (“bio-era”) conducts periodic teleconferences for clients and prospective clients. Its June 2006 session featured an illustrated presentation by Jim Newcomb of bio-era, with a detailed update on bird flu developments and pandemic risks. But bio-era managed to squeeze in three other speakers – United Nations pandemic coordinator David Nabarro, the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Billy Karesh, and me. My piece runs from page 23 to page 27. It focuses on the different “kinds” of bird flu/pandemic flu problems, but also includes my answers to questions about how companies should talk about these problems – how restaurants should talk to their customers about bird flu and how manufacturers should talk to their employees about pandemics.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file,
4.7 MB, located on this site.This article is categorized as:
2005
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What Motivates Companies – Interview with Peter Sandman (Part 1)
Worst Case Scenarios, Bird Flu, and Risk Perception – Interview with Peter Sandman (Part 2) Both published in safety AT WORK, December 2005, pp. 7–10 and January 2006, pp. 4–10
In November 2005 I did a two-hour interview in Melbourne with Kevin Jones, editor of Safety at Work, a monthly electronic magazine published out of Australia but distributed worldwide. We covered an extremely wide range of topics – from whether the mining industry is serious about safety (and why it so often sounds like it isn’t) to how to talk about worst case scenarios like a severe influenza pandemic to why I put everything I can on my website and don’t trademark anything. I imagined that Kevin would edit out the boring parts and organize the nuggets. But instead he used the whole two hours verbatim. Because it ranges all over the map, this interview transcript is hard to categorize – but Part 2 has some focused discussion of aspects of pandemic preparedness I haven’t written much about elsewhere.
These are Adobe Acrobat (pdf) files,
(Part 1, 218 kB; Part 2, 387 kB), located on this site.This article is categorized as:
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Selling Safety: Business Case or Values Case
Published in The Synergist, December 2005, pp. 30–35
I have long argued that corporate environmental performance is better “sold” to stakeholders as a response to pressure than as a self-motivated commitment to the environment; I think claiming to be responsive is both truer and more credible than claiming to be responsible. In this article I make the same case about “selling” safety to employees. When management says it cares more about safety than productivity or profit, I argue, employees are likely to conclude that safety rules have more to do with company PR than company policy, and may “loyally” rather than rebelliously disobey. The article also discusses why both safety professionals and top corporate managers enjoy making a values case for safety, and resist making the business case I think they should make.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file,
593 kB, located on this site.This article is categorized as:
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Risk Communications During a Terrorist Attack or Other Public Health Emergency
Published in Terrorism and Other Public Health Emergencies: A Reference Guide for the Media (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2005), Chapter 11, pp. 184–193
I have a two-page “essay” in this chapter (pp. 190–191) entitled “Public Reactions to Crisis Situations and Communication Implications,” which covers yet again material that is presented in more detail in “Beyond Panic Prevention: Addressing Emotion in Emergency Communication.”
The rest of the chapter (on which I collaborated) is worth reading for its advice to journalists on how the public and the official sources are likely to cope with a terrorism crisis. The rest of the manual is mostly about biological, chemical, and radiological threats and the government agencies that try to address them.The title links to an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file (
154 kB) located off this site.
The “Beyond” pdf file ( 77 kB) is located on this site.
The rest of the manual is located off this site.This article is categorized as:
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Risk Communication Before and During Epidemics
Presentation at “Bulls, Bears, and Birds: Preparing the Financial Industry for a Pandemic,” a September 23, 2005 New York City conference sponsored by the Center for Biosecurity of UPMC, Deutsche Bank, and Contingency Planning Exchange, Inc.
Despite the title, this brief speech focused mostly on pre-pandemic communication, and especially on the need to overcome official “fear of fear” and scare people into pandemic preparedness.
In addition to the speech transcript (which I edited a little for clarity and grammar), a video of the speech itself is also available. You’ll get an error message: “Client browser cannot support Company Research Video Portal.” Just click “okay” and the video will load for you to play.
These files are located off this site.
This article is categorized as:
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Public Reactions and Teachable Moments
Published in Homeland Protection Professional, May 2005, vol. 4, no. 4, pp.14–16
This article quickly covers some of the emotional reactions to crisis situations – ground covered in more detail in “Beyond Panic Prevention: Addressing Emotion in Emergency Communication”
and “Adjustment Reactions: The Teachable Moment in Crisis Communication.” Some minor editorial changes made by the magazine’s staff have not been replicated here (only the ones I liked).These files are located on this site, including the Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file
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Bird Flu: Communicating the Risk
Published in Perspectives in Health (Pan American Health Organization), vol. 10, no. 2, 2005, pp. 2–9
PAHO asked us to combine a primer on risk communication with a primer on avian influenza. The resulting article talks about the challenge of alerting the public to bird flu risks, then offers ten risk communication principles, each illustrated with bird flu examples. The PDF file also includes the cover, an editor’s note entitled “Communication: risky business,” and the contents page. (Note the confusion of “bird flu” with pandemic flu in this 2005 article – and this blurb, also written in 2005.)
(There is an online version (same text, but easier to read than a PDF file) posted on the PAHO website. The entire issue is also there.
Spanish translation available
Both Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) files
(English version, 806 kB; Spanish version, 774 kB.) are located on this site.This article is categorized as:
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Talking about "What Happened": Post-Event Risk Communication (Part 1)
Talking about "What Happened": Post-Event Risk Communication (Part 2) Published in ISHN (Industrial Safety and Hygiene News), May 2005, pp. 19–20, and June 2005, pp. 36, 38
A lot of what gets called risk communication actually deals less with future risk than with past events: “What happened?” This short two-part article offers ten pointers on talking about a recent accident, regulatory action, etc. It’s a start toward a post-event risk communication checklist.
Both Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) files
(Part 1, 41 kB; Part 2, 163 kB) are located on this site.
2004
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Three Mile Island – 25 Years Later
Published in safety AT WORK, April 24, 2004, pp. 7–11
When the Three Mile Island nuclear accident began in late March of 1979, I was asked by the Columbia Journalism Review to go to the scene and “cover the coverage.” The resulting article, “At Three Mile Island,” was written jointly with Mary Paden. This new article focuses on some of the crisis communication lessons I learned at Three Mile Island – lessons many corporate and government crisis managers have yet to learn.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file,
106 kB, located on this site.This article is categorized as:
In March 2006, this article was reprinted by the International Atomic Energy Agency in its IAEA Bulletin (vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 9–13) under the title, “Tell It Like It Is: 7 Lessons from TMI.” The IAEA version is available online in the following languages:
Translations Available
These translated Adobe Acrobat (pdf) files
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Managing Stakeholder Outrage: Corporate Citizenship on the Dark Side
Keynote speech presented to the Annual International Corporate Citizenship Conference of the Center for Corporate Citizenship of Boston College, San Francisco, March 30, 2004
This speech was basically my standard intro speech on outrage management – the distinction between “hazard” and “outrage”; the four kinds of risk communication; the risk communication seesaw; and six key strategies for reducing outrage. Since the audience was made up of corporate PR people and Corporate Social Responsibility specialists, comments are interspersed throughout on how risk communication relates to PR and CSR.
This file is located off this site.
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Poster version of (the above) Managing Stakeholder Outrage article
Susan Kelly is a “graphic facilitator” in San Francisco. For every presentation at the International Corporate Citizenship Conference, she produced a poster in real time and posted it immediately afterwards – an incredible tour de force! Even the dull presentations turned into lively posters. Here’s mine.
Title jpg file is 987 kB. Also available: smaller jpg 111kB; a smaller gif file: 86 kB;and a Microsoft PowerPoint version
1.3 MB.These files are located on this site.
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Report for Vodafone Group Services Limited, 2003
In the fall of 2003 I was commissioned by Vodafone Group Services Limited to think through and write up my opinion on the following question: Assume that a particular risk is probably not serious from a technical perspective, but some people are worried or upset. Should governments impose more stringent precautions in such a situation then they would impose if people were calm or apathetic? The question arose because of a draft document being circulated by the International EMF Project of the World Health Organization, proposing that public concern itself can justify a “precautionary” approach to controversial risks. Originally raised with respect to the risk of mobile telephones and telephone towers (hence Vodafone’s interest), the new standard was – and still is – being floated as a possible extension of the Precautionary Principle to a whole range of risk controversies where hazard is uncertain but probably low, and outrage is undoubtedly high.
The resulting essay turned out more nuanced than Vodafone probably expected. In general, I did reach the conclusion Vodafone was presumably looking for – that government precautions and government warnings are not reliable ways to reduce outrage, and probably should not be deployed for that purpose. I found surprisingly little research on point, but lots of theoretically interesting arguments in both directions to dissect. There is a certain irony that the most thoughtful, tentative, balanced, academic writing I have done in years was done for a corporate client.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file,
636 kB, located on this site.This article is categorized as:
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Leading during Bioattacks and Epidemics with the Public’s Trust and Help
Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, 2004, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 25–40
I was part of a 30-person “Working Group” that developed a report urging leaders to treat the public more as an ally and less as a problem in crisis situations. The report was drafted by Monica Schoch-Spana of the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who later redrafted it as an article for the Center’s Biosecurity and Bioterrorism journal. The writing is a little academic for my taste, but I think the recommendations are wonderful ... and the footnotes are invaluable.
This file is located off this site.
This article is categorized as:
2003
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Risk Communication Recommendations for Infectious Disease Outbreaks
Presented to the World Health Organization SARS Scientific Research Advisory Committee, Geneva Switzerland, October 20, 2003
In October 2003, the WHO included social scientists (including me) on its SARS-fighting team for the first time. This invited paper has a list of 24 risk communication principles relevant to a possible second SARS outbreak or to any infectious disease outbreak; it also lists SARS-related risk communication research needs and has a short bibliography.
Ths file is located on this site.
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Peter Sandman on Safety
ISHN E-News, July–September, 2003
This three-part interview was published in ISHN E-News. Excerpts were also published in the September 2003 issue of ISHN (Industrial Safety & Hygiene News) – the paper version, which is also on-line – under the title “Charting your course: 25 keys to safety success – Advice from Dan Petersen, Peter Sandman & John Henshaw.”
These files are located on this site.
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Sars communication: What Singapore is doing right
The Straits Times (Singapore), May 6, 2003; also in The Toronto Star (Canada), May 9, 2003, under the headline “Canadian Response to SARS Scorned as Whiny”
After a rocky start, the world’s premier performer in SARS risk communication turned out to be the authoritarian city-state of Singapore! In this brief op-ed in Singapore’s biggest newspaper, my wife and colleague Dr. Jody Lanard and I tell the surprising story. A link to the longer, unpublished version of the article is provided.
On September 21, 2004, Jody told another version of this story as one of the keynote presentations at a World Health Organization conference on “outbreak communications.” The conference was scheduled in Singapore in part because of the superlative job Singapore had done communicating with its population about SARS – an accomplishment WHO wanted to help other countries emulate in other outbreaks. Entitled “WHO Expert Consultation on Outbreak Communications – Singapore’s SARS Outbreak Communications,” the speech text was on the website of the Singapore Ministry of Health for a while, but now is available only on this site.
These files are located on this site.
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How to Lead a Community during Times of Trouble (transcript)
A roundtable discussion at “The Public as an Asset, Not a Problem: A Summit on Leadership during Bioterrorism,” Johns Hopkins University Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies, Washington DC, February, 2003
In early February of 2003, I attended a wonderful conference on bioterrorism, focused on “the public as an asset, not a problem.” The panel I participated in was about “how to lead a community during times of trouble.” Most of the panelists had actually led their communities through various crises, from the 2001 anthrax attacks to Oklahoma City’s bombing; I was added, along with the Washington Post’s Sally Quinn, so there would be at least two panelists whose experience was observing rather than doing.
Both the transcript and audio files are located off this site.
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Beyond Panic Prevention: Addressing Emotion in Emergency Communication
In Emergency Risk Communication CDCynergy (CD-ROM), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, February 2003
This is one of three articles I wrote for the CDC’s CD-ROM on emergency risk communication. This one deals with the likely emotional impacts of terrorism (and other major emergencies), and how communicators can best help the public cope with these emotions. The focus is especially on denial and misery as more common emotional reactions than panic – reactions that may be mishandled if the communicator is over-worried about panic prevention instead.
This project was supported in part by an appointment to the Research Participation Program for the Office of Communication, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education through an agreement between the Department of Energy and CDC. The The entire CD-ROM is available at http://emergency.cdc.gov/erc/erc.asp.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file,
127 kB, located on this site.The article is categorized as:
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Dilemmas in Emergency Communication Policy
In Emergency Risk Communication CDCynergy (CD-ROM), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, February 2003
This is one of three articles I wrote for the CDC’s CD-ROM on emergency risk communication. Based partly on my earlier Anthrax, Bioterrorism, and Risk Communication: Guidelines for Action, this one deals with ten "dilemmas" facing emergency communication planners:
- Candor versus secrecy
- Speculation versus refusal to speculate
- Tentativeness versus confidence
- Being alarming versus being reassuring
- Being human versus being professional
- Being apologetic versus being defensive
- Decentralization versus centralization
- Democracy and individual control versus expert decision-making
- Planning for denial and misery versus planning for panic
- Erring on the side of caution versus taking chances
For each of the ten dilemmas, my own position leans toward the first of the two poles – and the natural instinct of communicators in mid-emergency leans toward the second.
This project was supported in part by an appointment to the Research Participation Program for the Office of Communication, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education through an agreement between the Department of Energy and CDC. The The entire CD-ROM is available at http://emergency.cdc.gov/erc/erc.asp.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file,
193 kB, located on this site.This article is categorized as:
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Obvious or Suspected, Here or Elsewhere, Now or Then: Paradigms of Emergency Events
In Emergency Risk Communication CDCynergy (CD-ROM), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, February 2003
This is one of three articles I wrote for the CDC’s CD-ROM on emergency risk communication. The usual paradigm for emergency communication is the obviously horrific event that is happening right here, right now. This article focuses on communication strategies to address six other paradigms:
- Obvious/here/future
- Obvious/here/past
- Obvious/elsewhere/now
- Suspected/here/now
- Suspected/here/future
- Suspected/here/past
Among the topics covered are worst case scenarios, uncertainty, and dilemma-sharing.
This project was supported in part by an appointment to the Research Participation Program for the Office of Communication, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education through an agreement between the Department of Energy and CDC. The The entire CD-ROM is available at http://emergency.cdc.gov/erc/erc.asp.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file,
167 kB, located on this site.This article is categorized as:
2002
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Planning for Bioterrorism Communication
Minnesota Community Health Conference, September 2002
On September 12, 2002, I gave a half-day presentation on “Planning for Bioterrorism Communication” in Breezy Point MN, at the annual Community Health Conference sponsored by the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). The presentation was based on three chapters I was writing for an emergency communication manual soon to be published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The three chapters have now been posted, but this much shorter (nine pages) summary by MDH’s risk communication specialist Buddy Ferguson is still useful.
Beyond Panic Prevention: Addressing Emotion in Emergency Communication
(77 kB)Dilemmas in Emergency Communication Policy
(178 kB) Obvious or Suspected, Here or Elsewhere, Now or Then: Paradigms of Emergency Events
(117 kB)The title file,
145kB, and the three chapters are located on this site.These articles are categorized as:
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Responsible Care.® Been There. Done That. What’s Next?
Canadian Chemical Producers’ Association, June 2002
In June 2002 I gave a keynote presentation with the above title to the annual meeting of the Canadian Chemical Producers’ Association. I focused on some ways the chemical industry’s Responsible Care program wasn’t working, and what the industry might want to do next. CCPA followed up with an interview covering roughly the same ground, which was posted on its members-only website. The interviewer was Harvey Chartrand.
This file is located on this site.
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Terrorism, Transparency, and Employee Sabotage
Canadian Chemical Producers’ Association, June 2002
After I gave a June 2002 presentation to the Canadian Chemical Producers’ Association on risk communication aspects of the chemical industry’s Responsible Care program, the CCPA’s Harvey Chartrand interviewed me for the organization’s members-only website. This excerpt from the interview deals with my views on how September 11 should affect chemical industry transparency, and on the relationship between terrorism and employee sabotage.
This file is located on this site.
This article is categorized as:
2001
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CDC Responds: Risk Communication and Bioterrorism
December 6, 2001
This CDC webcast includes excerpts from a November 2001 presentation I made to the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia, plus live discussion of the issue by a panel of other risk communicators. For a longer written version of my CDC presentation, see my December 29, 2001 column “Anthrax, Bioterrorism, and Risk Communication: Guidelines for Action.”
This file in located off this site.
This article is categorized as:
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Motivated Inattention and Safety Management
Published in safety AT WORK, 30 October 2001
This interview focuses on the “other side” of risk communication – how to persuade people to take risk more seriously. It deals mostly with two problems: employees who ignore safety procedures even though they have been well trained, and employers who ignore safety opportunities even though they are cost-effective. Both problems have their roots in outrage.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file,
470 kB, located on this site.This article is categorized as:
Published in safety AT WORK, 30 October 2001
This very brief interview discusses the events of 9/11. For a much (MUCH) longer treatment of the same topic, see my October 22, 2001 column “Risk Communication and the War Against Terrorism: High Hazard, High Outrage.”
This Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file,
216 kB, and my column are located on this site.This article is categorized as:
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Risk Communication: Evolution and Revolution
In Solutions to an Environment in Peril, Anthony Wolbarst (ed.) (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), pp. 164–178
Back in the 1980s, Vincent Covello and I gave back-to-back presentations on risk communication as part of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lecture series. When Tony Wolbarst of EPA decided to collect the presentations into a book, he offered everyone a chance to revise and update. Vincent and I decided to merge our efforts into a single article on the state of risk communication, based loosely on what we had said originally plus what we now consider important. The result is a pretty good overview of the shared opinions of two well-seasoned practitioners.
This file is located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
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National Public Radio, February 27, 2001
This NPR program, produced by WBUR in Boston, was mostly an interview with Sheldon Rampton, author of a book about the untrustworthiness of experts whose research supports industry positions on risk issues. But I was discussed in the book, so they decided to include me in the interview too.
This audio file is located off site.
2000
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Review: The Mad Cow Crisis: Health and the Public Good
Journal of Health Psychology, January 2000
This review of a book on England’s “mad cow disease” crisis is relevant for its discussion of how to communicate about a small problem that threatens to become a big problem. Think anthrax. As always, over-reassurance turns out to be the wrong approach.
This file is located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
1990 – 1999
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Progress and Promise: Community Involvement at the MMR Cleanup
Technical Peer Review for the Massachusetts Military Reservation (with Michael C. Kavanaugh, Andrea Leeson, James W. Mercer, Tara O’Toole, and Resha M. Putzrath), Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence (Environmental Restoration Division), Brooks Air Force Base, TX, October 1999
In 1999, I was part of a review team analyzing a groundwater contamination controversy at the Massachusetts Military Reservation on Cape Cod. Most of the team focused on technical issues, but Tara O’Toole and I wrote a chapter arguing that MMR should take community involvement even more seriously than it already was doing, and should consider a range of other outrage management strategies as well.
This Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file,
94 kB, is located on the Massachusetts Military Reservation siteThe article is categorized as:
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Risk = Hazard + Outrage: Coping with Controversy about Utility Risks
Engineering News-Record, October 4, 1999, pp. A19–A23.
This short overview was written for public utilities – sewage treatment plants, water companies, power companies, etc. The focus is especially on the benefits of sharing control ... or even abandoning control altogether. Includes a sidebar article: Managing Outrage: A Primer.
This file is located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
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SustainAbility Monthly Review, February 1999, pp. 10–13, and March 1999, pp. 8–10
SustainAbility is an international consultancy devoted to founder John Elkington’s concept of a “triple bottom line” (economic, environmental, and social sustainability) for corporations. I have long admired it, and in recent years have been a member of its “faculty,” a sort of board-of-old-farts. This exchange of letters with John and with Chris Marsden, another faculty member, points to a key difference between SustainAbility’s work and mine: the distinction between corporate responsibility (doing what’s right) and corporate responsiveness (doing what stakeholders want).
This file is located on this site.
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Managing controversy: Key to corporate reputation
Company Director (Australian Institute of Company Directors), 14:8, September 1998, pp. 24–25
This short article features a rationale for focusing more on outrage management, and a summary of five key strategies for managing outrage. It was aimed at corporate directors in the Australian mining and minerals industry. The editor’s introduction includes a thinly disguised advertisement for my outrage management software; that was my price for the article.
This file is located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
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Health Psychology, 1998, Vol 17. No. 5, pp. 445–453
This is one of two articles I have posted dealing with the Precaution Adoption Process Model, developed mostly by Neil Weinstein and tested by Neil and me (and colleagues) using radon as the test case. The other article, A Model of the Precaution Adoption Process: Evidence From Home Radon Testing, is statistically heavier going and methodologically less rigorous, but covers more ground: It says more about how people decide to test their homes for radon, and contains a more detailed description of the model itself. This one has more convincing evidence that people decide to take precautions – in this case to test for radon – in stages, and that different interventions work best at different stages.
This file is located on this site.
This article is categorized as:
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Communications to Reduce Risk Underestimation and Overestimation
Risk Decision and Policy 3 (2), 93–108 (1998)
The experiment reported in this article deals with ways of depicting risk when you’re trying to get people to realize how serious the risk is ... or how serious it isn’t. In other words, how do you explain risk data so your audience will neither underestimate nor overestimate seriousness? The study shows some strategies that help, even in the face of outrage. The study also documents – for readers who need it documented – that outrage does make people consider a risk more serious.
This file is located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
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The Synergist, April 1995
This short column deals with sabotage – and the important possibility that outraged employees can pose a hazard to everyone else. It was written (obviously) before 9/11, but resonates even more powerfully now.
This file is located on this site.
This article is categorized as:
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Mass Media and Environmental Risk: Seven Principles
RISK, Volume 5, Summer 1994, vol. 5, pp 251–260
This article organizes my thinking and research on media coverage of risk into seven principles. Not included is the “principle” I now emphasize most with clients: that media relations usually matters a great deal less than stakeholder relations, and usually follows it. The article overlaps the media portion of Explaining Environmental Risk, but it has newer thinking.
This file is located off this site.
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Quantitative Risk Communication: Explaining the Data
This 87-minute video, produced in 1994, went out of print in 2007. In September 2008, with the AIHA’s permission, I added it to this website. It is a 162-MB WMV (Windows media video) file. The video focuses on three topics: (1) Motivation – how to encourage an audience to want to understand the data. (2) Simplification – mostly how to simplify content (how to decide what to say and what to skip), but also how to simplify language and graphics. (3) Orientation – how to give readers and especially listeners better cues about the structure of your argument, where you are and where you’re going. There are also sections on risk comparisons and explaining uncertainty.
(Note: According to Wikipedia: “Software that can play WMV files include Windows Media Player, The KMPlayer, PowerDVD, RealPlayer, MPlayer, VLC Media Player, Zoom Player and Media Player Classic.” For Macs: “Microsoft currently endorses the 3rd party Flip4Mac WMV, a QuickTime Component which allows Macintosh users to play WMV files in any player that uses the QuickTime framework.”)
This file is located on this site.
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The Hanford Reach, May 9, 1994, pp 12–13
In the mid-1990s I consulted on and off for two years at the Hanford nuclear waste cleanup. My client was Westinghouse, then a major Hanford contractor. This interview with Westinghouse’s Peter Bengston was published in the site newsletter. It’s a pretty decent overview of what I was trying to accomplish there. Roughly a decade later, by the way, I was brought to Hanford again, on and off, for a year. The contractor wasn’t Westinghouse any longer and the technical issues had evolved some. But the basic problem of insufficient attention to the outrage half of the risk equation was unchanged. (Doesn’t say much for the value of consultants, does it?)
This file is located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
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Encyclopedia of the Environment, 1994
Being asked to summarize the whole of risk communication in a short encyclopedia article was a challenge (even a decade ago, when much less was known). For me the biggest challenge was to summarize risk communication, not just my approach to it. I think I partially succeeded.
This file is located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
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Agency Communication, Community Outrage, and Perception of Risk: Three Simulation Experiments
Risk Analysis, Vol 13, No. 6, 1993, pp. 585–598
My conviction that the “outrage” component of risk influences public responses more than its “hazard” component is grounded in two decades of consulting experience ... and a scant handful of empirical research studies. This article reports most of the latter.
This file is located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
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Tips on EMF Risk Communication
Management Quarterly (Public Service Electric & Gas Company), Summer 1993, pp. 32–34
Power line EMFs have greatly declined as a public controversy since this short article was written in 1993 – mostly because the industry took the issue seriously and learned with us that the risk was low. But comparable issues (cell phone EMFs come to mind) are still hot, and the article’s advice is relevant to any risk controversy.
This file is located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
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Outrage and Technical Detail: The Impact of Agency Behavior on Community Risk Perception
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, November 1992
This DEP “Research Project Summary” reports research comparing the impact of outrage management and technical detail on public perception of risk. Guess which one wins.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file,
95 kB, located on this site.The article is categorized as:
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Testing the Role of Technical Information in Public Risk Perception
RISK: Issues in Health and Safety, Fall 1992, pp. 341–364
A recurring question among my clients is: “Why can’t we just explain the data so people won’t be outraged any more?” This article reports some research on the efficacy of technical information as a way to shape risk perception. The results are not encouraging to my clients’ fondest hopes.
This file is located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
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Siting Controversial Facilities: Some Principles, Paradoxes, and Heresies
Consensus, July 1992
This short article starts with the assumption that coercion is an unreliable way to site controversial facilities, and tries to offer some better answers grounded in risk communication. An earlier and much longer treatment of the same themes can be found in Getting to Maybe: Some Communications Aspects of Siting Hazardous Waste Facilities.
This file is located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
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A Model of the Precaution Adoption Process: Evidence From Home Radon Testing
Health Psychology, 1992, 11(3), pp. 170–180
For about a decade, Neil Weinstein and I (with colleagues) did research on radon – a high-hazard low-outrage risk that first became important in the mid-1980s. This article uses several of our radon data sets to illustrate Neil’s Precaution Adoption Process Model (PAPM). The PAPM is one of several contending models of how people actually decide whether or not to protect themselves from risks. Different models lead to different interventions, so the competition over which model best explains people’s behavior is important for those trying to persuade publics to take precautions about serious hazards.
(I’ve also posted another article, Experimental Evidence for Stages of Health Behavior Change: The Precaution Adoption Process Model Applied to Home Radon Testing, on the PAPM and radon, this one reporting a later experiment demonstrating that the decision to test does happen in separate stages.)
Both files are located on this site.
This article is categorized as:
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Emerging Communication Responsibilities of Epidemiologists
Industrial Epidemiology Forum’s Conference on Ethics in Epidemiology
Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, Supplement I to Volume 44, 1991, pp. 41S–50SI wish I could publish an article like this for all the professionals I work with who tend to do their jobs in ways that make my job harder. Two come immediately to mind: emerging communication responsibilities of toxicologists ... and of lawyers. Still, epidemiology has the worst communication problems of the three – especially when public outrage is high, hazard is probably low, the epidemiologist is working for the company that made the mess, and the science falls far short of definitive. This article focuses on my wishful recommendations for such situations. I feel them today even more strongly than I did when I wrote the article more than a decade ago.
This file is located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
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Two-Way Environmental Education
EPA Journal (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), September/October 1991, pp. 39–41
This short article argues that dialogue works a lot better than monologue, especially when people are outraged about a technically small but nonetheless frightening or offensive risk. It ends with a list of questions sources should ask themselves when trying to convince an audience some risk isn’t worth worrying about.
This file is located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
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Addressing Skepticism about Responsible Care
Based on Remarks at a Chemical Manufacturers Association meeting, New York, NY, November 6, 1990
In the late 1980s, the Chemical Manufacturers Association (now the American Chemistry Council) inaugurated its “Responsible Care” program in the U.S. In 1990, I spoke at a national CMA meeting on how to address skepticism about the program – not just external skepticism, but skepticism inside the industry as well. I later massaged the speech into a CMA pamphlet. Most of the advice is generic; any company or trade association can expect to encounter the same sorts of skepticism today about its “pro-social” initiatives. As for Responsible Care, it continues to be an influential internal initiative, ratcheting performance ever-upward in such areas as process safety and product stewardship. But the industry has pretty much given up on persuading outsiders that it’s meaningful. There’s a nice irony here. Critics assume the industry has terrific rhetoric and poor performance – but Responsible Care has been much more successful as performance than as rhetoric.
This file is located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
1980 – 1989
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Promoting Remedial Response to the Risk of Radon: Are Information Campaigns Enough?
Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 14 No. 4, Autumn 1989, pp. 360–379
Most of the research on radon risk response – mine as well as others’ – has focused on how to persuade people to test. This article shows that even after people have tested and found a high radon level, persuading them to do something about the problem isn’t easy ... and mere information isn’t what does the trick. When this research was done, radon was a new issue; the findings reported here may be more useful for those working on other new issues than for those working on the now-familiar radon problem.
This file is located on this site.
This article is categorized as:
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Risk, Drama and Geography in Coverage of Environmental Risk by Network TV
Journalism Quarterly, Summer 1989, pp. 267–276
This was one of several articles written jointly with Michael Greenberg, David Sachsman, and Kandice Salomone summarizing our research on media coverage of environmental risk. This one looked at 26 months worth of network coverage. Not surprisingly, we found that visually interesting stories got more coverage than ones that were more serious in health terms but harder to photograph. We also found that the networks were much likelier to cover environmental stories near one of their bureaus than comparable stories requiring more travel. The coverage patterns for the three networks were more striking in their similarities than in their differences.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file,
7 MB, located on this site. -
Risk Communication, Risk Statistics, & Risk Comparisons: A Manual for Plant Managers 1988
Published by the Chemical Manufacturers Association (now the American Chemistry Council), Washington DC, 1988
This manual on how to use risk comparisons and risk statistics was commissioned to help chemical plant managers explain air emissions to their neighbors. Chapter III on risk comparisons, especially, is still relevant. Later research hasn’t borne out all its seat-of-the-pants conclusions, but the advice at the end of the chapter about the worst risk comparisons holds firm – in my terms these comparisons fail (especially when people are outraged) because they try to compare the hazard of high-outrage and low-outrage risks. The other chapters are also useful and not really outdated, I think. The appendices are both outdated and all too likely to be misused. They’re what the client originally wanted most. Vincent Covello, Paul Slovic, and I wrote the rest of the manual to soften them.
This (multi-part) file is located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
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Risk Communication: Facing Public Outrage
EPA Journal (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), November 1987, pp. 21–22
This is one of the earliest – and the shortest and most often cited – of my articles about the distinction between hazard and outrage. The focus is on the factors that determine whether people will over-react or under-react to a risk.
Spanish translation available
Traducción en Español: Comunicación de riesgos: afrontar el ultraje público
The translation is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file,
40 kB, located on this site.The article is categorized as:
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Explaining Risk to Non-Experts: A Communications Challenge
Emergency Preparedness Digest, October–December 1987, pp. 25–29
I have long been convinced that explaining risk data is not the essence of risk communication. Addressing people’s outrage is far more important. Still, you do have to explain the data! And it’s not an easy task – especially when being interviewed by a journalist on a hot story. This article is a primer on three aspects of the problem: simplifying, personalizing, and using risk comparisons.
This file is located on this site.
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Explaining Environmental Risk
Published by TSCA Assistance Office, Office of Toxic Substances, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, November 1986
This EPA booklet has long been out-of-print. It predates my articulation of the hazard-versus-outrage distinction, but contains much of the thinking that went into that distinction. In fact every time I reread this it reminds me of principles and examples I ought to reinstate in my presentations.
These files are located on this site.
These articles are categorized as:
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Getting to Maybe: Some Communications Aspects of Siting Hazardous Waste Facilities
Seton Hall Legislative Journal, Spring 1986, pp. 437–465
This article got its start as a 1985 report for the New Jersey Hazardous Waste Facilities Siting Commission. New Jersey never sited a facility; on the other hand, most of the advice in the article was never implemented either. I’ve since been involved in dozens of siting controversies (some of them over facilities that actually got built!), and I’ve learned a lot that isn’t in this article – but the basics haven’t changed, and this is a pretty solid summary of them. (P.S. Jim Lanard, who helped develop the ideas in this article and wrote the foreword, is also my brother-in-law; he introduced me to his sister in 1985 and we were married in 1990.)
This file is located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
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Scared stiff – or scared into action
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 1986, pp. 12–16
This 1986 article aimed at helping peace activists develop communication strategies that wouldn’t deepen people’s “psychic numbing” about nuclear weapons. Though its political content is out of date, its prescription – anger, love, hope, and action – is relevant today to coping with public denial about terrorism. (For terrorism I would want to add to the prescription the need to acknowledge and share the underlying fears – what people are “really” afraid of.)
This file is located on this site.
This article is categorized as:
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New Jersey Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Freeze, Spring 1984
In 1983–84 I was media and outreach coordinator for the New Jersey Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Freeze. This article was originally written for committed freeze activists, warning them about the things they (we) did or failed to do that turned off newcomers. In the years that followed, it was reprinted in the newsletters of all sorts of activist groups.
This file is located on this site.
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Nukes, the Freeze, and Public Opinion
An interview by Mary Jones, Matrix (Rutgers University), Spring 1984, pp. 9–12
In 1983–84, I took a sabbatical from my professorship at Rutgers University and worked on communication for the nuclear freeze movement. This interview was published in the Rutgers alumni magazine during my sabbatical. It talks about people’s fear of nuclear war and their reluctance to get involved in the peace movement. I have to say that both the world and my political values have changed some – though I do like the young man who gave this interview. What hasn’t changed much is my analysis of nuclear denial, which resonates today for current issues like the fear of terrorism. (The book I said I was writing, by the way, never got written; I still have a hundred or so pages of draft somewhere.)
This file is located on this site.
This article is categorized as:
1970 – 1979
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Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, October 1979 (#052-003-00734-7)
After the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in March 1979, President Jimmy Carter appointed an investigative commission. One of the commission’s mandates was to look at public communications, both what sources told the media and what the media told the public. Having just published “At Three Mile Island” in the Columbia Journalism Review, I was asked to work with the commission’s Public Right to Information Task Force, chaired by David M. Rubin. The task force report, with 14 authors, has been out-of-print for decades, but was recently put online as part of a huge Three Mile Island “Resource Center” run by Dickinson College. The report constitutes a wonderful blow-by-blow account of a pretty typical example of corporate, government, and media crisis communication.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file,
1.5 MB, located off this site.This article is categorized as:
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Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 1979
This was the first “crisis” I watched unfold. The themes have since become familiar (they are playing out now in the terrorism crisis): The sources minimize the risk and over-reassure the audience; the experts are uncertain and disagree with each other; the public doesn’t panic but everyone keeps thinking it will; the color stories overpower the technical stories. (Writing this article in 1979 changed my career; see “Muddling My Way into Risk Communication.”) Includes two sidebar articles: “The local media feel the heat” and “The Inquirer goes for broke.” For a more recent perspective, see “Three Mile Island – 25 Years Later.” (
106 kB)These files are located on this site.
This article is categorized as:
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Medicine and Mass Communication: An Agenda for Physicians
Annals of Internal Medicine 85:378–383, 1976
This discussion of how the media influence their audience and how doctors can influence the media was written 25 years ago – before managed care and before cable. Despite the outdated specifics about both medicine and media, the principles have held up well. This is still a pretty good primer on media impact and how to horn in.
This article is categorized as:
This file is located on this site.
Many other articles by Peter Sandman are available from non-electronic sources. The list of publications is periodically updated and modified, and is available as a part of the Curriculum Vitae.
