106 ◾ Brooke Fisher Liu and Abbey Blake Levenshus
Proper planning that either limits or successfully navigates a crisis can demonstrate
to management the public relations function’s excellence. On the contrary, missing
or mishandling a crisis can quickly destroy the good works and good reputation
of any government ocial, agency, department, representative, or body. One only
needs to think about the many otherwise-respected and trusted persons who have
not survived a crisis.
It can be challenging to convince the powers that be (or in some cases the prin-
cipal) that crisis planning is worth the resources and time. Government communi-
cators should come to the conversation armed with examples of the many types of
crises that can aect and have ...