CDC What the Public & Media Will Ask First

From the CDC Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication presentation
Barbara Reynolds  May 2, 2006

What the Public Will Ask First

Next slide, the one thing that we are certain of is that when people are feeling threatened they have uniform questions they all ask these questions. The public will be asking am I safe, is my family safe, what ever is going on, how does this affect me?

Most people the first question in their mind when something changes is what does this change mean to me and its not unusual in a crisis situation for people to ask the same question.

And of course if they feel threatened the next thing is what can we do to protect ourselves, what do I need to know to help me and my family?

Often times we want to know what is the cause of this threat, how did this happen, and then how can it be fixed?

What the Media Will Ask First

There are additional questions that will occur in a crisis situation and the media will be asking some of the questions that the public will ask but they’re going to go on and want to know whose going to be helping, how is this help going to be given to people and they also will want to know how could this have happened?

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a natural disaster or a man made disaster when the crisis occurs the questions will be did we have forewarning, did we plan for this, how are we fixing the problems that are existing?