Training for crisis

AlertNet, Reuters’ humanitarian news network, has launched a training video for journalists covering conflicts and disasters. The video highlights AlertNet for Journalists, a toolkit including crisis briefings, aid agency news feeds, interactive training and more.


While most of us in the B2B publishing industry won't be covering a war or what goes on in a refugee camp, there are still pieces of this that may be applicable to your position. What happens if a disgruntled former employee goes postal at one of the biggest companies you cover in your field? You are now covering a disaster. While you may be a weekly or monthly, you are likely to update your pub's website with the breaking news or you may need to do the more analytical piece on the event, but you can use the crisis training.

Posted by Tonie Auer, president of the DFW Chapter of the ASBPE and national ASBPE blog chairwoman.

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Comments:
Tonie,

A few real-life examples of B2B disaster coverage that come to mind are Hurricane Katrina (notably in the hospitality industry -- see for instance coverage by Meetings.Net) and the Midwest floods that hit the rust belt a few years back.

Martha
# posted by Blogger Martha Spizziri : January 24, 2008 at 2:35 PM
 
Hurricane Katrina is still a hot topic for stories. Last year, when I helped judge the "Best Feature" article category for the AZBEE Awards, I noticed that one of the most common topics was the fallout from Hurricane Katrina.

Another interesting aspect to disasters is how do b2b pubs prepare for them? At a DC ASBPE event, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal described how the publication's fortuitous decision to allow some of its journalists to work from home helped the paper to continue to publish stories soon after their offices were evacuated due to 9-11.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : January 25, 2008 at 8:36 AM
 
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