Shooting on WKU's Campus!!! Oh wait, omg, jk guys...

I was walking into Steak 'n Shake today when Jon turned around to me and filled me in on the news that there was a shooting at WKU and that it currently looked like there was a hostage situation in the process. According to his radio station that they were suspecting that it was the next Virginia Tech.

I told him to shut up.

And then he stared at me, and I fought what he was saying for about 3 minutes, until I finally gave in and called my dear friend Elizabeth.  She confirmed what he said, and I ate my lunch in a pretty quiet state.  I was not a happy camper.

{It is important to note that I've been fairly closely tied to the VT shooting, the Westroads shooting, the shooting in the Colorado church, and now the WKU shooting (well, what we thought was a shooting).  To say I'm over this whole mass-shooting trend would be an understatement and thus, I was a little distraught.}

After lunch I headed back to the office, scrolling through radio stations in my car only to find nothing except the premature Christmas music on 101.1 and more talk radio about the never-ending 2008 election and *surprise* the plummeting DOW.  So anyway, I made it back to Scott where I turned on my computer's video feed only to find more election and stock market news...not the information that I was looking for...after a few minutes they finally went back to WKU -- and they told me only that there were "no updates at this time."

It was about this time that I started scouring media outlets for written articles knowing that while they probably wouldn't be as up to date as a broadcast piece, they might have something other than "shooting occurred" and "hostage situation."  The articles I found had better news: no one hurt, no hostage situation.  But they still didn't make sense, they were contradictory, gun shots were confirmed, but there were no guns, armed men dressed in all black stormed the dorm, but the dorm had been evacuated nor had anyone seen the men, the campus was released from lockdown at 3:30, but I read that at 3:00...what?!?!

Fortunately, all is well in WKU land, and in reality it was an altercation carried over from Saturday night that was blown completely out of proportion.  The rumor mill started and boy did it keep going, and going, and going all the way to the CNN Newsroom.  How did a fist fight turn into national news of a shooting and a hostage situation?  How did people get to that tragic conclusion?

Ultimately, what this blog is about is the epic fail of WKU's public affairs process.  Yes, WKU did an excellent job of informing students that there was a dangerous situation at hand, and to stay put in a safe location.  And I commend them for their efforts to make sure that their students were safe - they excelled at that.

However, their public affairs process and transparency to the public left something to be desired.  I realize that in these situations not all details can be revealed for the safety of those involved.  But why wasn't there a statement of the information they could release on the front page of WKU's website?  Phone lines were tied up, concerned parents, siblings, and friends (not unlike myself) must have desperately wanted information, and there was none to be had.  Sure the media outlets had something out, but the quality of those pieces were shoddy at best.  Regardless of the media's efforts, WKU should have had something available during the time of the "crisis," period.  WKU does have a bulletin posted now assuring students that they are safe - oh, and that classes and other activities will resume tomorrow as scheduled.

Additionally, the articles coming out of media outlets were a mess.  Which, yes, is partial fault of the reporters, but mostly the fault of the public affairs office.  If it were just one article that was screwed up, I'd probably chalk it up to that outlet having their flunky staff reporter on duty that day, but I didn't find one article that made sense, or that didn't have some sort of huge gap in information or contradiction.  This can only be chalked up to someone in WKU's public affairs office not communicating well, or even decently, to the news media.  It was a high-stress situation sure, but if a public affairs person can't operate in a high-stress situation then that's a problem.  You have to be able to communicate to the media at all times, there is no negotiation for that.  Your message has to come off clearly or it will never work, the system will fail.

Additionally, and probably most importantly, where in the world was President Gary Ransdell?!?!  Does anyone know?  I still have yet to see any sort of statement from him.  Not in an article, not on the school's website, not anywhere.  I realize that Bob Skipper is WKU's spokesman, and more power to him, but if your university is being shot up, your president needs to be making the statements, not your spokesman.  Supposedly, there was a press conference this afternoon, I have yet to read (or see) anything about that press conference and thus, do not know who spoke there.  I sincerely hope that President Ransdell was the one speaking, answering questions, and handling the situation.

Kudos to WKU public affairs for notifying media outlets, but really, that's all that seemed to go correctly on their end. Public affairs has never been a strength of WKU, not with today's "shooting," not with the fall of one of our freshmen a couple of years back from the 20th floor of the same dorm where today's events occurred, not with moving to Division I football, not with anything.

WKU has yet to tell me what happened.  But thank goodness for CNN, they've got my back.

What happened to the "crisis plan" that we supposedly created after VA Tech?  I sure hope today was not an example of it, because if it is, it's back to the drawing boards!

Well, WKU, I guess we got our name out there.  Division I football was supposed to get us on the map, instead it's fist-fighting college kids turned wrongly-suspected mass murders.

Go Tops!!!

See ya at homecoming.  And please, if you know a Hilltopper, give 'em a hug, it's been a long day.

Oh yeah, and major props to the groundskeeping staff -- campus looked BEAUTIFUL in all of the news shots. Seriously.  It did.