business Essential news, comment and analysis From left:


panellists Munir Nassar, Jordan Hotels; Gail


Moaney, Finn Partners; and Kari Diener, Mercy Corps


‘In a crisis, tell the story fast and feed the media’


Handling the media in a crisis poses multiple challenges. Ian Taylor reports from the Resilience Through Tourism Summit in Jordan


Travel businesses and destinations need to “feed the media” and “not retreat” in a crisis, and not simply blame journalists for misperceptions.


That is the view of media


experts who gathered at the Resilience Through Tourism Summit in Jordan last month. Gail Moaney, managing partner of communications and marketing agency Finn Partners, told the summit: “When in a crisis, tell the


72 travelweekly.co.uk 26 July 2018


story fast, tell the truth and show sympathy.”


She said: “The biggest challenge


is that when times are tough, [government] ministers retreat. When that happens, the media thinks ‘there must be something here’. That is when you need to be more vocal. You need to feed the media. The time not to retreat is when you want to.” Jordanian journalist and CBS News producer Amjad Tadros


agreed, saying: “In a time of trouble, government spokespeople disappear.” Tadros acknowledged: “The media mainly covers bad news [and] since the advent of 24-hour TV, we just keep repeating and repeating stories.” But he added: “The media is a two-edged sword. Journalists try to understand what is going on. You can’t blame the press for bad publicity.” Moaney argued: “We often have


to put things in the context of geography. If something happens in New York, people don’t stop going to Los Angeles. But if


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