Back to Virginia

I'm reading a reflection from Michael L. Dame, the Director of Web Communications at Virginia Tech on a PR newsletter. The headline reads, in part, that Virgina Tech rejects the "Media Blame Game." Since I am only nominally media but did have some blame to pass around I was more than a little attracted to this. A lot of what the print and broadcast press focused on during those dark days was on college communications plans so I found the following a most ironic piece of information.

"Let me start," Dame begins, "by saying that I'm not part of the emergency communications team the President organizes. So I wouldn't be on the first list of contacts or anything." Do I have to spell this one out? I appreciate he is not in charge of the communications office but he is charge of WEB communications which is a key avenue for getting information out fast. Why is he not on the emergency communications team?

In the morass of a blame game here is where institutions are vulnerable to criticism. He was not contacted until 9:15AM by his supervisors "who told {me) we were going to post an alert on the website and that they were going to send an email out, along with the other normal alerts. The email alert, handled by our news and information director, and the website alert were both posted around 9:29 a.m." Seems a little late to me.

Reading on I discover that Dame doesn't so much reject the role of the press as understand it. The headline turns out to be as incendiary as the perhaps the coverage was. But Dame understands why the story was compelling and why it saturated the airwaves. He even understands that the coverage allowed his colleagues and Virginia Tech students to tell their stories to the world. He really doesn't discuss any blame except to say that while the institution has considered emergency situations and planned for them, this one was unimaginable.

All I'm saying is that he should probably be among the first to know.