What do college basketball icon Bob Knight, former U.S. Senator Gary Hart, and former University of South Carolina President James B. Holderman have in common? All were at the center of a crisis of enormous consequence and all are part of the hard-won experience of Christopher Simpson, author of this crisis communications guide.

Simpson, a former newspaper reporter, press secretary in the U.S. Senate and marketing/media crisis chief at three universities, provides a step-by-step approach to creating a crisis plan that can ready your institution to withstand a media assault when times get tough.

On any given day, you are ripe targets for a full-blown crisis,” writes Simpson. “Too few institutional leaders plan effectively. And when crises happen, you scramble, play catch up, and too often, don’t get a seat at the senior staff table when lawyers blossom like kudzu and PR decisions are made well outside the court of public opinion.

So protect your institution’s reputation and build your crisis communication plan straight from the school of hard knocks.

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About the Author
Christopher Simpson was CEO and partner of SimsponScarborough and a nationally recognized integrated marketing, media relations and crisis communication leader in higher education and the nonprofit world. He spent 12 years as a newspaper reporter, much of it in Washington, D.C., as a political writer and senior editor for the Washington Times. He served as press secretary to U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond before working as the senior administrator for marketing and media at the University of South Carolina, the University of Oregon and Indiana University. Simpson died in 2008.