My evening
train-trip routine yesterday took me through the wealth of useful information
that is the London Lite, happily happening upon another interesting story from
that wonderfully interesting place called China
Why is it
relevant to communications, well, because it’s about censorship, and the fact
it’s getting more and more difficult to pull-off.
The crux of
the story is in China Central Television’s organisation of a humungous firework
display to celebrate the Lunar New Year – a noble pursuit no doubt. The trouble
is, the fireworks promptly set fire to, and gutted, the unfinished Mandarin
Oriental hotel, a US $731m development that was almost finished – oops indeed
The
interesting part comes in that during the aftermath of the fire, the television
station made absolutely no mention of the fire. The state-owned company has now
made an apology,
but it highlights some interesting comms problems.
The fact is
that the blogosphere, ‘twittersphere’ and rest of the online conversation, was
filled with speculation, accusation and comment hours and hours before any
admission of culpability or apology finally arrived. The message, that the
broadcaster was responsible, got out anyway, and any anger was pointed directly
at them
This is not
a blog about the rights or wrongs of censorship but a simple example of the
fact it doesn’t work anymore. As with any company in the UK
that chooses
to hold back potentially dangerous information, a product contamination, a
financial fraud, the message simply gets out – we can’t stop it.
But we
shouldn’t want to. The change being driven by the unstoppable online conversation
is the need to communicate as well as or better than the people talking about
you. Making sure your clear, truthful voice is heard above the chatter and that
dissenting voices are listened to and engaged with, is vital to maintaining an
organisation’s reputation online. After all, silence is deadly.
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