For Sea World the Price of Silence Is in Damage to Image

Instead of concentrating on the important Christmas vacation season, Sea World executives in San Diego find themselves dealing with a wave of adverse publicity generated by the recent disclosure that several of its killer-whale trainers were seriously injured during an unprecedented string of accidents.

Sea World would prefer to be enjoying the kind of media exposure created by a recent television program that showed ABC-TV newscaster Hugh Downs gleefully riding a killer whale at Sea World’s Orlando, Fla. park.

In the highly complimentary report, which was filmed in 1986 and rebroadcast nationally in August, the popular newscaster donned a Sea World wet suit and took off for a ride on Kandu, the mother of the only baby whale to survive at a Sea World park.

While getting ready for the ride, Downs inadvertently signaled the whale to dive. But with help from trainers, Downs successfully signaled Kandu to remain on the surface as she powered her way around the tank’s perimeter.

“(The whale) looked me straight in the eyes,” Downs told viewers. “I . . . got a long and unforgettable ride. From all appearances, she accepted me.”

A ‘Charming Story’

Killer whales “do kill things, but they don’t harm humans, for some reason,” Downs told his national audience when the program was first broadcast in 1986, shortly after “Baby Shamu,” Kandu’s calf, celebrated her first birthday.

That report, which 20/20 co-anchor Barbara Walters described on the air as a “charming story,” is the kind of publicity that makes public relations professionals drool.

But Sea World’s normally well-oiled public relations machine, which worked with ABC on that glowing report, sputtered to a halt last week after the string of serious trainer injuries that culminated in a highly publicized Nov. 21 injury to a trainer in San Diego.

Sea World immediately acknowledged that the accident occurred.

But soon after the Nov. 21 accident, park officials retreated behind a string of “no comments.” Sea World began building a stony wall of silence around the accident, a subsequent investigation into its cause, and how the park handled post-accident publicity.

Late last month, Sea World suspended Jackie Hill, the chief park spokeswoman, who in previous years had briefed reporters on more than a half dozen trainer injuries. The park also suspended Sea World of San Diego President Jan Schultz, marine biologist Lanny Cornell and chief trainer David Butcher.

Hill was reinstated last Friday as assistant to the president after Sea World corporate executives determined that local officials had given her “ambiguous direction” following the Nov. 21 accident.

Park executives remained silent even after Schultz told numerous reporters in San Diego that he and several other park officials had been fired on the afternoon of Dec. 1. In a short prepared statement that same day, Sea World acknowledged only that “certain employees” had been suspended with pay.

“I know the difference between suspended with pay and fired,” an angry Schultz responded late Tuesday evening. “And I’ve been fired. Jack Snyder (an executive with Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, which owns the Sea World Parks) took me into a room (earlier that day) at the Hyatt Islandia and fired me.”

Confusion over Schultz’s status remained even after Robert K. Gault, acting president of Sea World of San Diego, broke the park’s official silence on Saturday by responding to questions from reporters.

Gault maintained that Schultz and the other executives had been suspended with pay and that they had not been fired.

Facing the Problem

Sea World’s initial decision to remain silent despite growing media coverage baffled one long-time public relations expert at a local, publicly traded company.

“You hate to see this kind of thing happen,” complained Bill Seaton, who handled public relations for Sea World in the early 1980s. “It goes against everything we so-called professionals stand for. It wrecks our credibility, which is all we have to sell.”

Companies that have an accident “know that the media is going to punch you in the nose, so why not take that punch, clean yourself up and get on with business,” according to another public relations expert, who asked that his name not be used.

“They decided to stonewall and that’s what gets the press’ attention,” said the public relations executive, who is a member of the Public Relations Society of America. “When you won’t talk, you’ve made a story for (the media).”

Sea World eventually broke its self-imposed silence Saturday, when Gault, a native San Diegan who joined Sea World 23 years ago, returned telephone calls from a handful of reporters.

Gault, the president of Sea World’s Orlando park, outlined substantive measures--including dramatic changes to the killer whale show--that were being taken to prevent future accidents.

Talking to reporters, even though it can be distasteful, represents an important first step toward taking control of a crisis, according to Lloyd N. Newman, a New York-based vice president with Manning Selvage & Lee, a public relations firm.

“I agree with the lawyers (who caution that) there is going to be a trial in a court of law,” Newman said during a recent telephone interview. “But the minute the accident happens, another trial--the trial by public opinion--begins.”

Companies that remain silent are “in effect pleading guilty . . . in the court of public opinion because the public immediately assumes that you’ve done something wrong,” Newman said.

Recommends Full Disclosure

Handling bad news doesn’t mean ignoring it, according to Lovetta Kramer, vice president of communications for Wrather Port Properties Ltd., which operates the Queen Mary and Spruce Goose in Long Beach.

Kramer, who previously directed crisis communications programs for Six Flags’ 12 amusement parks around the country, suggested that companies “handle bad news the same as good news. Be as forthcoming as you can and communicate regularly on an organized basis.”

“One of the first things you’ve got to do is (schedule) a press conference,” said Kramer, who suggested that companies schedule additional press conferences as additional information becomes available.

Kramer also suggested that companies try to respond to telephone calls from the media.

“During one crisis, I received 150 telephone calls from the media and we made sure we logged and answered every one of them,” Kramer said. “I believe strongly in the philosophy that if the glass is half empty, someone is going to fill it up--and that someone should be you.”

Simply stonewalling the media won’t work “because if reporters can’t find official sources, they’ll turn to unofficial sources, and those people will come out of the woodwork to talk,” according to Charles M. Rossie,a former television assignment editor in Los Angeles who now counsels corporate and government clients on how to deal with the press after natural and man-made accidents.

“Nothing gets the story out of the news quicker than total disclosure because reporters will go on to another story.”

During January, Rossie will advise members of the International Association of Amusement Parks on how to operate during a crisis. Rossie suggests that corporate executives “try to put yourself in the middle of a crisis situation. The Adrenalin level is really high, there is the fear factor, the emotional factor, the human response to (the possibility that) someone is injured or hurt--that’s a tough situation for anyone to be in.”

Amusement park operators must learn to effectively deal with bad publicity because “what they’re selling is fun . . . and you don’t have to kill a person a day” to ruin a park’s reputation, Rossie said.

And, Rossie advises his clients that “it’s impossible to patch up an image if you really do have a bad situation. You can try, but at some point you’ve got to fix it.”