Belinda Charles: Blog 3 – “INTERGRITY IN TIMES OF CRISIS”
The college of Communications held its Fifth Ben Bronstein Lecture in Ethics and Public Relations, on Monday evening. This Lecture focused on “Integrity in Times of Crisis. There were three speakers Genaro Adams, an associated Press correspondent, Jim Lukaszewski, an internationally recognized consultant on crisis management, ethics median and public affairs, and Steve Manuel, who taught public relations as well as photography at Penn State.
They began the lecture with tips on what to do in a time of a crisis. They spoke about the crisis that happened here at Penn State, and the ethical issues that were at state, which was the fact, that Penn state did not know how to respond to the crisis, and they took too long to do something about the issue.
According to Manuel the first mistake Penn State made was cancelling the press conference with Paterno “It made it seem like they had something to hide,” said Manuel. Lukaszewski feels like Penn State tried to cut corners, and tried to act like the issue wasn’t going on. Penn State was aware the grand jury report was Going to drop they had plenty of time to prepare comments. They were not prepared and should have been able to respond quickly and correct. That was the biggest issue when the scandal dropped; the fact that that Penn State took too long to give a comment about the situation. “No comment is a comment,” said Manuel. People were looking for answers and nobody was talking so they came up with their own assumptions of the situation at hand.
“Ethics is about you, your own personal belief system, ” said Lukaszewski. “What happened here Penn state happens all the time, this is a pattern.” Lukaszewski believes the first thing anybody in this situation should have done was call 911 and not to call you’re superior to call 911. “When you see something happening first and foremost pick up the phone and dial 911,” Lukaszewski said. I agree with Lukaszewski I believe that McQueary should have dialed 911 immediately, McQueary reporting to seeing Sandusky in the locker room shower sexually assaulting a boy who appeared to be 10 at the time in March 2002 (Brenda, 2011). One that day right that moment he should have called 911. Then things could have unfolded differently for Penn State (Toops, 2011).
I learned a lot from this Lecture and I took in a lot of tips that I could use in the future if I’m ever put in a situation like what happened at Penn State, and just in general when I have to choose between my job and what is morally correct.
Medina, B. (2011). How penn state’s sex-abuse scandal unfolded: A timeline. The Chronicle of Higher Education, , n/a. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/904271811?accountid=13158
TOOPS, L. (2011). Penn State Sex Abuse Scandal: A Risk-Management Nightmare. National Underwriter / P&C, 115(41), 12.