In educational books of western countries, Crisis Management is usually named Crisis Communication Management because to reinforce the disclosure of information and to achieve public understanding through communication are basic reactive strategies of Crisis Management. On Dec. 5, 2011, we had the fortune to listen to Ms. Tammy Tam’s lecture with a vivid description of Crisis Management and Media Relationship.

  Tammy’s lecture took an eye-catching start: Manipulating the media, mission impossible? The audience at presence was deeply attracted by this theme. Then Ms. Tam deliberated the function of ideology in news report using some basic theories. She quoted from Karl Marx: “The will of comrades is ideology” to further the depth of this lecture. Tammy also explained the images of some public celebrities and the crises they faced. Tammy put forward the concept of “crisis=out of control” and enumerated examples of business scandals and unexpected accidents of public celebrities. In these examples, we could witness not only the successful models of crisis settlement, but also more critical crisis incurred by maltreatment.

Ms. Tam made an introduction about the media in Hong Kong and its development perspective. She then compared the differences between Mainland China media and Hong Kong media and revealed the embedded political reasons behind. Regarding the new media forms in internet era, Tammy put forward her own opinions: the new media in internet era has some negative characteristics---shallow, deceivable, prone to entertainment, honeycomb effect, difficult to distinguish between truth and lies. However, at the same time, we could not neglect the special advantages of internet media: internet public relations, sensationalization with originality, crisis settlement, simultaneous communication and the like.

The luncheon was approaching the end, but students’ minds were lingering on the undercurrent meaning of questions: apart from the right to know, people should own the right not to know and the latter bears more value which means our noble souls are not to be stuffed with nonsense or idle talk. Redundant information is an unnecessary burden for people with substantial life.

Brief introduction of Tammy Tam：

  Ms. Tammy Tam, Bachelor of English of Zhongshan University in Guangdong and Master of Journalism of Chinese University of Hong Kong. At present, Tammy is one of the writers for Weekly Asia. She was a journalist in TVB, often making local reports. In 2003, she went to Iraq and Kuwait with her superior Mr. Huang Yingshi (now retired) and Ms. Chen Kaixin (currently in the position of deputy interview director of financial and economic information department of Hong Kong Now Broadband TV) for the report of Iraqi war. After resigning from TVB news, Tammy Tam worked as manager of news department of Hong Kong Cable TV until in 2007 she joined Asia Television as director-general of news and public affairs department. Tammy was promoted to be the vice president of journalism department of Asia TV in the mid of 2009. Currently Tammy is teaching “Chinese Journalists” as a part-time job in Hong Kong Shue Yan University, mainly focusing on how to interview in Mainland China.