An indispensable aspect of the public relations professional’s training is one’s ability to coordinate communication with the media and with key stakeholders in the public community during crises such as the recent tragedy in the Crandall Canyon mine.

Unfortunately, Robert E. Murray’s ongoing performance in dealing with the media and the public has stumbled catastrophically after the initial well-advised decision to leave his corporate headquarters and join the miners’ families and rescue teams in Utah. He acted accordingly at the outset to be there and assess what needed to be done in order to rescue the six trapped miners. Since then, he has ignored virtually every other canon of good sense in handling public communications.

And, regrettably, for those of us in the business of educating future public relations practitioners, we now have a fresh case of what not to do should your organization or business face a crisis, tragedy, disaster, or catastrophe. And, one should compare the details of this case to how officials responded in other instances of crisis this year: the massacre at Virginia Tech, the shootings at Salt Lake City’s Trolley Square, the massive recall at Mattel, and, most recently, the jittery concerns about the viability of Countrywide Financial.

As a teacher, I have always turned to NASA as an example of public relations experience learned at exceptionally great cost. The space shuttle accidents of 1986 and 2003 provided bitter, yet important, lessons for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). After enjoying an exceptionally long honeymoon in terms of positive press coverage and public opinion, NASA remained stubbornly defensive and reticent after the 1986 Challenger explosion 73 seconds into flight. Its obdurate stance proved costly 17 years later when the same fly-no-matter-what culture, which was found to have disregarded ample evidence of a fatal flaw in the O-rings in the Challenger case, again failed to heed warning signs that foam debris could cause deadly damage to the aging, fragile Columbia.

Only this time, the nation started to question seriously whether the risk of human life was worth the experiments of traveling into space. To make matters worse, at a time when the public and media were seeking answers to numerous questions about whether or not the shuttle program would continue, NASA contemplated closing its Web site in the midst of the investigation.

Surveys after the 2003 accident indicated that many NASA employees were still apprehensive about speaking up on safety questions. A 2004 report, where 45 percent of the 19,000 civilian employees responded to questions, concluded that open communications were not the norm. Prominent in the report was this damning conclusion: “Excellence is a treasured value when it comes to technical work, but is not seen by many NASA personnel as an imperative for other aspects of the organization’s functioning.” At a press conference following the release of the report Sean O’Keefe, then NASA administrator, said. “The leadership’s got to take it on, starting with me.”

And, this is where Murray failed dramatically for several reasons. The blame syndrome evident in his public statements expanded rapidly beyond the media to mineworker union organizers, state and federal officials, and environmentalists. Perception and impression are essential in crisis communication – nearly always as important as disseminating accurate and complete information – and Murray came off as destructively calloused and insensitive. From my experience in dealing with crisis communication (i.e. the discovery of previously-unaccounted-for radioactive materials underneath a large general-purpose classroom auditorium and the execution-style shooting of a student by a rookie campus police officer), the first principle which applies is to not speculate about causes and insufficient evidence because often one will be unable to sustain that initial explanation once facts fall into place. Murray certainly did this in his desperate clinging to his claim that an earthquake or “seismic bump” triggered the mine collapse.

And, to be fair, reporters also can be easily embroiled in these communication fiascoes as the case in the Sago, West Virginia mine disaster less than two years ago. Who could forget that initial report suggesting 12 miners had survived the blast when, in fact, only one miner emerged alive from the disaster? Undoubtedly, reporters rushed breathlessly to transmit that hopeful report but we know that the company, which owned the Sago mine, stayed silent for at least three hours even as they knew within 20 minutes that the initial report was wrong. To fall back on the need to confirm accuracy, however, does not excuse corporate officials from their failure here because of the enormous emotions and the loss of life associated with the disaster.

Let me go even a little broader here. The lesson from both of these mine disasters should reiterate the importance of solid public relations management for any business, organization, or agency – no matter what its size. In Sago, West Virginia, and in Crandall Canyon, Utah, the disastrous management of communications will have fallout extending into economic impact and the anticipated investment in the energy industry so essential to these mining towns. The false hopes residing at the core of these PR communication strategies here unquestionably magnify the impact of the deaths suffered in these tragedies. I still don’t think the industry had yet sufficiently recovered from the effects of Sago when the collapse occurred earlier this month in Utah. There remains so little confidence in this industry.

So what should business leaders and our future public relations professionals take away from these lessons? Good PR people should not only be called upon to be the messenger, the bearer of bad news. They should be actively engaged in the corporate offices and board rooms, counseling and advising their management colleagues that one’s reputation relies on accountability and credibility and the actions associated with redeeming those positions in the face of tragic events such as what we have witnessed in West Virginia and Utah. In other words, saying “sorry” publicly is never enough.