Expressing empathy in crisis statements: Listen to the victims

 “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims tonight…”

How many times have you heard this phrase opening a press conference from a top exec, County Sheriff or elected official?

It’s been the go-to phrase to express our empathy for the victims of a crisis for quite a while. It’s also turned into the cheap way out: Trite, meaningless, and anything but empathetic. It comes across as cold instead of compassionate.

I recognized this, but didn’t have a ready solution until mid-2019, when FEMA instructors Phil Politano(1) and Thomas Olshanski came to Portland, OR for the second time in four years to teach their advanced 5-day simulation/training course in crisis communications response(2). I had the honor of assisting them.

Politano and Olshanski warn it’s quite simple to show empathy, but it’s not without cost. 

To show true empathy, you have to experience a bit of the victims’ pain. Remember: the crisis isn’t about you; it’s about the victims.

Your organization may or may not have played a role in causing the crisis, but if you’re called upon to join response efforts and speak at a press conference then your organization definitely has a role to play in helping end the crisis. You must respect the dignity of victims without patronizing them, and without claiming to be a victim yourself. You don’t share their pain; you understand it and want to help them stop being victims as soon as possible.

How do you do that? Listen to the victims.

Be warned: It will affect you emotionally. As I like to say, it may take a small piece of your soul.

After you’ve listened to the victims - after you’ve experienced a bit of their pain - you will be able to show true empathy in what you say.

And more importantly to ending the crisis and helping those victims, in what you do.

 Dave Thompson, APR

dave@c3-collective.com

(1) Phil Politano died in 2019, just a few months after teaching that advanced course in Portland. He designed and taught the FEMA class since 2007, training tens of thousands of communicators to save lives and protect property by sharing information clearly, quickly, ethically, and transparently. His death was a tremendous loss to all of us.

(2) “E/L0388 Advanced public information officer,” FEMA Emergency Management Institute,

Dave Thompson, APR has spent more than 40 years responding to crises of all kinds. As a reporter, he reported from Bosnia during Yugoslavia's civil war in the 1990s; from Romania after the overthrow of Ceauşescu; and he covered school shootings, school bombings, and mine collapses in America. As a public relations professional, he responded to winter storms that shut down the state, wildfires, train derailments, a global pandemic, more wildfires, and even a total eclipse.