Today’s news reports highlight a real reputation blunder by the MET. Indeed, it’s difficult to recall such a high profile mistake. Now, over two years after the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes the IPC has brought it all back to the fore with revelations that we were all lied to. However, it didn’t have to be this way.
Anyone involved in crisis management will tell you there are broad stages in an event like this – the initial event and the inevitable inquiry report publication. Both are characterised by widespread victimisation of the organisation in trouble. I hope that the MET’s PR have taken the intervening time to ready themselves to counteract the current bad publicity. However, if they’d been reading their crisis manuals there would be little new to say in this report and a lot less negative press.
As it is we find that Menezes was actually under surveillance and wasn’t really wearing a bulky jacket or acting strangely. It’s not nice to feel you’ve been lied to…
This is an unfortunate and salient example of letting non-communicators do the communicating. In a race to make excuses and counteract bad publicity at the time of the furore, it seems that bouts of misinformation were spread solely to allay media demand. Unfortunately for the MET this was a short-term strategy and infinitely less useful than telling the truth in the first place.
Of course the police cannot simply release everything during a criminal investigation, but the public understand this. In such a situation, saying what can be said and telling journalists why other things cannot be released is the best strategy.
The MET has also had two years in which to correct the false information to pre-empt the IPC report. This damage-limitation strategy would have attracted some stick but importantly, would convey a feeling of honesty.
A policy of transparency is much more favourable than being held to account by an exterior body - like a schoolboy caught in the act. As it stands the MET now have a lot of explaining to do – let’s just hope they learn from last time and remember that honesty is the best policy.