Television is a visual medium. No doubt you've heard that before. No doubt you know it. But here's the thing human beings are visual in the way they process information. If you doubt me answer this, what's easier for you to remember if you met someone at a business conference, the full name, how they spell their name on a business card or their face, if you bump into them. A couple of weeks later, it's probably the face.
So that's why it's not just TV news. It's the way newspapers, websites, even radio, the way they cover news stories. And here's the sad reality if there are 500 car wrecks around the country on a weekend. It's simply not an interesting enough visual, you can't put them all together and put it in one image on NBC Evening News. If one plane goes down, and three people are injured or killed, that's a big visual, it's dramatic. It's one thing so there's just something inherent to the nature of the airline industry that makes it more visual because you're dealing with a big plane and during a crisis is something has disappeared or gone down or exploded.
It is a bigger visual. So there's nothing we can really do to change that. But the reason I bring it up is you must always keep in mind the visual nature of the stories during a crisis. And that's why you've got to have a spokesperson available right away. And the sooner you can get your CEO there, the better. This is not the time to pass the buck to some junior level, PR person or spokesperson you need your highest level executive available right away.
And they have to be available to the TV cameras. It is simply not enough to put out text to send a fax to send an email to tweet something. It's not enough Because you're competing with the powerful visual of a plane that's potentially gone down, or, you know, there's a labor strike and your particular airport is shut down, that's a visual to so you've got to counter visual with visual. So you need a spokesperson, preferably your CEO or the highest ranking official in your organization who can be there and making yourself available on camera and you've got to look comfortable and look confident and not happy if there's a crisis, but you have to look confident you can't look scare, you can't look petrified. You have to convey confidence. So that's why we're gonna hop right now into how to look your best on camera during a time of crisis.