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After studying the five "secrets" of crisis communication, I come to the conclusion, that trust plays a crucial role in delivering crisis messages. Public trust can be damaged when officials lie about the truth (normally they tend to put best face on dangerous situation and think it would reassure people in panic). On the contrary, it would lead to the consequence that the public tends to believe that the circ**stance should be much worse than reported, even when the message is not "sugared up".
There is a difference between reassuring communication and manipulating one. To get reassuring message across and keep public in confidence, public trust must be retained first. The official should keep information transparent and avoid distorting or hiding anything. Dori Reissman from United States Public Health Service pointed out, "If people are concerned about something and you don't address those concerns, they really can't hear your message." Regarding retaining public confidence, Risk Communication Consultant Peter Sandman had a brilliant insight of constructing message: instead of saying "Don't be afraid", it's much superior to say "Well, of course, you're afraid, I'm afraid too. We're all afraid. We'll get through this together".
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