PSR’s Media Coordination during Crisis

Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) hired Caplan Communications immediately keeping pace with the 2011 Japan earthquake, tsunami and subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.  We were brought in at a time when the organization was overwhelmed with media requests and unable to organize a cohesive response to the unfolding crisis.  Within 24 hours, Caplan’s team brought PSR’s primary spokespeople and leadership together, created an in-house communications system for sharing information and processing its expertise, took control of media requests and delegated interview opportunities to available spokespeople, and helped PSR management assess its central message for distribution in press releases and wire stories.  Caplan’s efforts helped mobilize PSR’s public message on the Fukushima disaster such that within weeks, PSR was a leading and credible medical voice on the issue both in the United States and abroad, and its core message— “there is no safe dose of radiation, period”—became a branded statement associated with PSR and its primary media spokesperson, immediate past president Dr. Jeffrey Patterson.

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