Five ways a new PR strategy could help KGHM Ajax

ARMCHAIR MAYOR SAYS — Here’s what a new PR team/strategy might do for KGHM Ajax:

1. When holding a press conference to announce several major changes and updates to the Ajax project (including a possible increase to the size of the pit and relocating of some of the infrastructure), find a room big enough to accommodate everybody who wants to be there, including community and environmental groups.

2. When asked if these changes were made due to concerns from within the community, give the community some credit and freely acknowledge that the community does, indeed, have some influence in the framing of the project.

3. Avoid, if at all possible, calling such a press conference and then sending out a follow-up email to the media a couple of hours later advising that the manager of external affairs will be out of the country for the next two and a half weeks.

4. When promising “community information sessions” for September, be sure to emphasize that these will not be one-way streets, but an opportunity for the public to freely discuss and question the project (and receive direct answers) in a town-hall environment as KGHM Ajax was long ago directed to do by the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office.

5. If, on the other hand, senior management decides to limit attendance at the press conference, insists that the changes have nothing to do with opposition to the project, and to hold said press conference immediately before the manager of external affairs becomes unavailable for follow-up (albeit suggesting the VP environmental as an alternative source of information), avoid doing so while issuing an assurance that KGHM Ajax is “committed to increasing dialogue with the community and keeping you informed of our progress on the Ajax Project.”