Issues management
Channel 4 Dispatches ran a series of TV trails to promote a forthcoming programme on salad bags and the dangers they claimed were posed to consumers’ health by the chlorine used in the wash process.
We immediately contacted the producer on behalf of our client, The Fresh Prepared Salads Producer Group, and after a series of intense telephone calls and faxes managed to get this damaging sequence removed in the final edit.
Effective issues management is all about planning and identifying and tracking the evolution of a problem and managing the corporate response. And this is precisely what happened here. Several months previously, we had worked with the world’s leading expert on chlorine and commissioned a series of scientific studies which showed that there is less chlorine and chlorination by-products in a salad bag than is permissible in a glass of tap water and therefore there is no risk to health. It was this evidence which Dispatches was unable to ignore.
Our team comprises former senior journalists and supermarket press office managers who have extensive experience of issues management, working on everything from a Panorama investigation into eating disorders among pupils at the Royal Ballet School, the salmonella crisis affecting the egg industry, BSE, factory closures and a host of other issues.