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Media liaison for hostage's family
NCC's director of national affairs, Neil Smail, spent six weeks dealing with the media on behalf of the family of the Australian engineer held hostage in Iraq, Douglas Wood.
Neil advised the family on Australian media strategy as well as the communications strategy to be used in Iraq.
The Australian aspect occupied virtually all day (and much of the night) every day. Neil was appointed spokesman for the family and the central point of contact for all media.
On one day the phone rang first at 2.23 am and went until after midnight. On another day he averaged one call every nine minutes over a 14 hour period. Calls mostly were from Australian media but also included reporters from the US, New Zealand, UK and Europe.
When Douglas was released Neil spoke print, TV and radio reporters within an hour, giving them something to use in night and early bulletins while awaiting a major news conference next day. He also was interviewed on the high-rating late night news program "Lateline" and on a number of Australian and international radio stations.
Neil was invited to write an article for the Media section of "The Australian" newspaper. It's text is in the next Hot Topics item.
Article by NCC's Neil Smail on the media strategy for the Wood family hostage crisis.
The following article appeared in "The Australian" on 23 June.
Douglas Wood, the 63-year-old Australian, was kidnapped in Baghdad on April 29. His dishevelled hair, strained face and the ominous barrels of guns at his head became the first fearful image of his six and a half weeks in captivity.
The second image – black eye, head shaved and submissive - struck horror into viewers across the world.
His kidnappers were using the media with skill. It was apparent the Wood family would need to do the same.
My involvement in the saga began on Day 3 when his brothers in Australia, Malcolm and Vernon, realised they needed help with media relations. The phone had rung constantly and there were media crews staking out Malcolm’s family home in Canberra.
Via a chain of contacts, the call for assistance came through to me and so began six weeks of the most intensive media interest and pressure I have ever experienced.
It began as simply protecting the family's privacy, and from the moment Malcolm's phone had a message on it asking media to call me, my mobile rang constantly. My project diary records one day on which I averaged one call every nine minutes for nearly 12 hours.
As a former journalist I knew that in most cases the reporter had been told by the Chief of Staff to ‘get a quote from the family’, so I gave one - sometimes bland and anodyne, sometimes meaty - but I always gave one.
I used the principle that if you do the right thing by the media, they will do the right thing by you. And it worked.
Knowing there was someone who would speak on behalf of the family made both our jobs easier - they got a factual sourced comment and I knew there was less chance they would write guesswork or third hand rumour.
However, while the Australian media had to be considered and helped, the main target was Iraq.
The strategy there was to portray Douglas as a family man, a friend of Iraq, non-political and a humanitarian with a record of helping ordinary people in need in many post-conflict countries.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) was instrumental in suggesting paid advertising, a public information campaign, leaflets, posters and flyers. Its Middle East experts checked texts for cultural sensitivities and the special Wood taskforce put every word through its ‘no harm to Douglas test’. If an expression or a tactic did not pass the test it wasn’t used.
It was sobering to realise that a word out of place might lose a man his life.
The family website, too, was suggested by DFAT and it became the vehicle for quite moving stories about Douglas the humanitarian, spontaneously emailed to the family from a number of countries.
Photographs of the family, particularly of Douglas with his daughter and grandchildren, featured on the website with the intention of appealing to his captors as themselves people with families.
The recording of TV messages for broadcast in Iraq was another part of the strategy. The first, made at the ABC-TV studios in Canberra featured Malcolm and Douglas appealing direct to the captors and was aired on a number of stations in Iraq. The second tape in which he rejected the captor’s second ultimatum was made in Malcolm’s kitchen about 6am on the first Saturday, released to all Australian stations and picked up in Iraq.
That same Saturday the brothers went to Sydney to meet the Mufti of Australia, Sheik Taj Aldin al Hilaly at the Lakemba Mosque along with myself and Canberra-based cameraman Alex Bonazzi. Alex taped the meeting and messages from the brothers and the Mufti and SBS arranged distribution to other channels and to Iraq.
My notes show that in the six weeks of the Wood crisis, there was only one day on which there were no media calls – the Saturday of the Queen’s Birthday long weekend. Even on the days when the quiet out of Baghdad was eerily frightening, there was a core of reporters who rang at least twice a day.
Many days began with radio stations calling as early as 5.30 and ended as late as midnight.
In the sixth week, with no good news out of Iraq, the family was looking for ways to develop another message to keep the story in front of the Iraqi people and through them Douglas’ captors.
But it was not necessary for on Wednesday 15 June at about 6 pm came the news that Douglas was free.
Some days earlier Malcolm, Vernon and I had developed a post-release strategy which involved my issuing a short holding station to give the media something to use while the brothers took time to recover, get details from Douglas and edit previously prepared statements ready for a media conference. There were also strategies for other results but thankfully they were not needed.
In less than two hours that Wednesday evening I had re-edited the holding statement, made copies, distributed them in the Press Gallery, done numerous radio interviews, a ‘doorstop’ interview in the Press Gallery reading the statement for TV and radio and announced a news conference for next morning.
The media conference was packed. Malcolm and Vernon read the statements and answered questions with their by now trademark dignity and courtesy.
The post-release strategy included what Douglas would do, essentially be protected from media scrutiny for a couple of days while his physical and mental health was assessed and he rested privately, but that thereafter he would make his own decisions, albeit with family advice.
My role with the family continued until Sunday June 19 when Douglas decided he would travel to Melbourne.
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