JOUR90027 Chap.6 Crisis Communication, NGOs and Claims-Makers
Crisis Communication, NGOs and Claims-Makers
Crises need claims-makers to define them in the media, and this chapter asks who those claims-makers are. It follows Matthew Powers's account of humanitarian NGOs as new boots on the ground, their growth in staff, country coverage and output, and the four values that guide their information work.
It then examines where humanitarian numbers come from, using Sunderland and Jackson's study of 329 NGO press releases and their concepts of information subsidies, media math and data churnalism. It closes with corporate crisis management after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, INGO accountability and the rise of Chinese NGOs in Africa.
The same questions apply to every claims-maker in the chapter: who defines the crisis, what they gain, and whether journalists checked the claim.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Claims-makers and sponsors of crisis definitions
- 02
NGOs as boots on the ground and the growth of their output
- 03
Powers's four values: accuracy, pluralism, advocacy and timeliness
- 04
Humanitarian numbers, information subsidies and data churnalism
- 05
Corporate crisis management after Deepwater Horizon
- 06
Upward and downward accountability in INGO communication
Worked example · free
Evaluating an NGO as a news source
- 1Identify the benefit: a verification subsidy, access the newspaper may lack in a remote setting.
- 1Identify the advocacy aim behind the NGO's information, which Powers lists among its four values.
- 1Raise the accountability question: who checks the NGO's figure and framing?
- 1Recommend a practice, such as attributing the figure and seeking an independent source.
Key terms
- Information subsidy
- An information subsidy is material such as a press release that lowers the time and cost of newsgathering for journalists.
- Verification subsidy
- A verification subsidy is the time NGO materials can save reporters in checking information, a benefit Powers notes alongside its risks.
- Media math
- Media math is Sunderland and Jackson's term for dividing or multiplying UN totals so that an NGO can present a number as its own.
- Upward accountability
- Upward accountability is an organisation's accounting to its donors, as distinct from downward accountability to the communities it serves.
- Proxy publics
- Proxy publics are large NGOs that substitute for local partners instead of engaging them and supporters, in the term Powers borrows from Lang.
Crisis Communication, NGOs and Claims-Makers FAQ
Why do NGOs matter for crisis reporting?
Powers argues that as legacy outlets cut foreign coverage, leading human rights NGOs grew their research staff, country coverage and output, partly offsetting losses with their own boots-on-the-ground reporting, some of it designed to look and read like journalism.
What is data churnalism?
Sunderland and Jackson's term for NGOs recycling secondary figures, mostly from the UN and OCHA, often without clear attribution, which journalists then reproduce with little verification. Over half the releases they studied contained an unnamed or unclear source.
How did BP communicate after Deepwater Horizon?
The Week 6 readings study BP's response on Facebook and on Twitter and its use of stonewalling as an image-defence strategy, giving you a corporate claims-maker trying to define its own crisis.
What does INGO accountability mean?
Abnett's study of 90 leaders' letters distinguishes accountability upward to donors from accountability downward to the communities served, and finds the letters mostly report outputs to donors while constituents are largely absent.
Why is MSF different in Sunderland and Jackson's study?
MSF used its own data in 93.65 per cent of its press releases, more than double the other three NGOs studied, and its staff linked that practice to credibility and independence, whereas the others leaned mostly on UN and OCHA figures.
Assessment move
For this chapter, practise tracing. Take one humanitarian statistic from a current news story and follow it back: the outlet, the NGO release, the UN or government source. Note at each step whether it was attributed or changed. That exercise gives you a finding for a media report and a concrete example for essay prompts on journalists' challenges or politically constructed crises.
Add Powers's four values to your notes as a checklist for reading any NGO statement that appears in your sample.
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