Kassandra McGowan
March 1, 2015
XBCOM/275
There are many important factors that must be remembered when delivering news like, over 30 workers are trapped in a mine after it collapsed (Metal Bulletin Daily. 8/6/2010, Issue 224, p65-65. 1p.). The most important to remember is to keep your audience calm, otherwise there would be a lot of panic for the families and for the other employee’s that work within that company. Ensure both parties that search and rescue parties have been working their hardest on the search. Don’t give out false hope and don’t decide that everyone has died. Being 300 meters down with limited water, food, and oxygen can be scary enough. This was an unfortunate incident, and is something that no one really wants to prepare for. What is the company supposed to tell the families of the miners or the employees’ who also work there? When dealing with such a stressful situation it is important to keep the potential needs for the families and the other employees’ in mind at all time. Without keeping their needs in mind, the whole communication process will be lost, misunderstood, or left incomplete. Something like that could leave the audience angry, scared, or left wondering. Communication to the families should contain sympathy towards them and a sense of empathy. The communication should also be prompt and get straight to the point, that way they will hear it directly from the company instead of reading it or watching it on the news. The families will want to know how the incident happened and why nothing was done to fully prevent it from happening. They will also want to know what is being done to get them out of the mine. The families do not know much about the mining industry as much as the other employees, so they would more than likely want to know what went wrong and what is going to happen to prevent something like this from happening again. Unfortunately in situations like this, the messenger knows about as much as the families about this, so sometimes it is really difficult to keep the families in the loop. Communicating with the other employees in the company about the incident would be different. The employees that work there already know the risk of the mining business. Details of the cave-in would not be completely necessary. The company should make it a point to talk about the importance of safety on the job, but also remain sympathetic about the incident, that way if the other employees have friends that are trapped in the mine and are not thinking clearly then they should take some time off, working with a clouded mind can be very dangerous. The company should also let the other employees know that they are doing everything in their power to search for the trapped copper miners. Before any type of message is delivered, it should be double checked and proofread. Since many people are bilingual, the company should also consider any language barriers that can occur while communicating with an audience. If deciding to deliver a message over the telephone, having a script handy may not be a bad idea, that way it can be practiced just the way that it is intended to be said. Having a script can also ensure that the message is clear and timely. After the script is read, the messenger should know that the receiver has questions, so they should ask if