Kirvan: why your DR plan should include media response plan

We check in with Paul Kirvan, a board member with the Business Continuity Institute’s U.S. chapter, about the need for a media response plan when preparing a disaster recovery policy.

While some may not consider damage control-type PR to be a concern when you’re dealing with disaster recovery, Kirvan argues that a good media response plan can make the difference with public perception when trouble strikes:

Organizations of almost any size, regardless of private or public sector, must be aware of the possibility of dealing with the media. A well-organized media response plan—coordinated with other corporate emergency response activities—can make a huge difference in how the organization is perceived by the media, and therefore the public, stakeholders, investors and other interested parties.

Kirvan notes that a mishandled incident on the part of a company can be remembered, citing the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 and the BP oil spill from last year.