Freedom Industries provided this news conference after the West Virginia chemical spill. The link takes you to a local TV station and appears to show the entire news conference, not portions of it like we saw on YouTube. The public has blasted this news conference, so you may wonder why we didn’t award the company an F. That’s because we’ve actually seen worse encounters with the media.
What Freedom Industries did right:
- The company apologized.
- The company president, although not in an elegant fashion, attempted to provide a timeline and details leading to the crisis.
What Freedom Industries did wrong:
- The president drank bottled water during a news conference while people did not have normal access to their own water.
- He didn’t know where to stand during the interview. Reporters at least twice asked him to reposition himself.
- Camera lights may have been bright, but he should have made stronger attempts to look at the reporters asking him questions.
- He lamented how this had been a long day, making him appear out of touch with those truly experiencing trouble, the people of West Virginia.
- He tried to wrap up the news conference prematurely.
- He actually walked away from reporters in an attempt to end the news conference.
- He did not have control of the situation. Reporters repeatedly told him where to look and stand. Even when he began to walk away from the news conference, he agreed to return after a reporter essentially ordered him back.
- At one point, he speculated on what may have caused the problem instead of sticking to facts or acknowledging he didn’t have the answer at the time.
- At the end, he again walked away from reporters despite them wanting to ask more questions.