Earthquake, Tsunami and Fukushima Nuclear Crisis in Japan, One Year After – Media Impact Analysis

Posted on March 8, 2012 by fpujolmri • Posted in Corp - AFLAC, Corp - New York Times, Country - Japan, Disasters, Earthquake, Event - Fukushima, Event - Tsunami Japan, Issue - Nuclear Crisis, Debate, Rep Issue - Communication Crisis, Rep Issue - Media Bias, Rep Issue - News Content Analysis • Tagged AFLAC Duck, American companies tsunami, Cities most affected, companies Europe tsunami, Corp - AFLAC, Earthquacke Japan, Earthquake Japan, Event - Tsunami Japan, Fukushima Blast Media Coverage, Fukushima explosion, Fukushima First Blast, Fukushima First Explosion, Japan cities most affected, Media coverage, media impact, NYT Bias, NYT Japan, NYT Nuclear, NYT Vs WSJ, Tribute Japan Earthquacke, Tribute Japan Tsunami, Tsunami as Tragedy in the media, Tsunami Media Impact, WSJ Bias • 1 Comment

In this first anniversary of the massive disaster and tragedy suffered by Japanese people by 11 March 2011, we want to show with our readers some of the empirical results we gathered and learnt about media impact and reputation analysis.

This post is intended to be also a tribute to all victims of the catastrophe, specially to survivors. As many other people, I was astonished by the heroic civil society reaction to the disaster. In the midst of terrible suffering, this was really and profoundly inspiring.

I would like to share with you a video that was created and sent to me by a reader of this post a while ago. This is a highly emotional video, as you can imagine. As Lucy explained,

I’m an Australian poet/lyricist based in Canberra. A short while ago I finished a project with an American singer and producer Rick Tallis – a song dedicated to the Japanese people who died or lost their loved ones in the tsunami last March. This song is a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah with re-written lyrics that talk about a child trapped in the rubble with their mother after the tsunami. The video of the song is now out on Youtube – a slide show of some very powerful images of the event. We would like to get the song heard and would be very grateful if you could listen to it and watch the video and share it with others, as we believe the pain and suffering caused by this tragic event is ongoing. We strongly believe that to remember is to care, especially now that it’s coming up to the first anniversary of this tragic event. We would appreciate any feedback or suggestions on how to spread the word regarding this project.

Kind regards,

Lucy Prasad

I think that this video shows the soul of this tragedy with respect, and transmits the humanity of Humanity: disaster, tragedy, immense and unbearable suffering, tears, crying and despair, injustice and grievance. Death, mourning, abandonment, loneliness. And sacrifice, struggle and fight, heroic efforts, endurance, strength, serenity and hope. Smiles and laughts. Future. Life.

If you are looking for images comparing before-after, you can check the images in the following external sources:

Before-After the earthquake and tsunami; satellite images

New York Times

El Mundo, Spain

Aftermath of the devastating effects – one year after.

New York Times

El País, Spain

See also the series by Good Morning America

Our analysis.

We pubished our first results about media impact just in the aftermath of the tsunami, still 11 March 2011, showing how the disaster was aprehended by international media, when almost nothing was know about the devstating effects, except as for the magnitude of the earthquake, measured at first at 8.9 points Richter scale. We compared initially the news content profile about the earthquake and the tsunami against news about Wikileaks, concerning their association to scandal and tragedy. This was due to the fact that all our previous post referred to the news content analysis to Wikileaks related issues.

This was followed a day after by our first analysis about media reaction to first blast in Fukushima nuclear plant. That day there was no possibility to assess the extent of the ongoing problems as possible nuclear crisis. In our third post we compared initial media coverage of tsunami in Japan against other recent tragedies or disasters, like Haiti and Chile Earthquakes 2010, Duisburg Love Parade Stampede.

We had another post measuring initial media reaction to Fukushima blast. We considered that media did not react quickly, in accordance with the foreseable crisis impact of the events. Only 12-24 hours after the blast, international media attention turned to the analysis of the implications of the nuclear plant blast. This was a 13 March 2011 post.

Using our media impact techniques, we published a first post about the cities in Japan that received more international media attention. Being able to idenify which are the cities most present in the news in a pure quanitative way allow you to identify where the focus of a crisis is located.

Results in the figure below shows the evolution of the media coverage given to main cities in the four first days after the tsunami.

Sendai was the region most devastated by the tsunami (and the one with more available video footage in the beginning). Fukushima exceeded Sendai as international media reference by the end of 12 March.

Then came the second adn third blasts in Fukushima nuclear plant, by 15 March 2012. Events turned dramatic, as it became clear that the situation was completely uncontrolled. We measured the news content profile about second blast in comparision with those about the first explosion. We had a substantial increase of news profile association to tragedy and scandal. The vector components more sensitive to second blast were ‘worrying’, ‘mistake’, ‘harm’ and ‘embarrassing’.

By 18 March 2011 we run a comparative media content analysis by countris about Fukushima nuclear crisis. We shoewd how the crisis was explained by media from the United States, India, United Kingdom and Australia. Below there is an example of the findings.

We published two post, always using our own techniques for media impact analysis, about the companies from Europe and America most affected by Japan earthquake, tsunami or Fukushima nuclear crisis. We show below the tables, and you can chek if you wish the posts in order to know more about the list.

Companies from Europe most affected by the Japan earthquake, tsunami, nuclear crisis, measured by media impact.

Companies from the United States most affected by the Japan earthquake, tsunami, nuclear crisis, measured by media impact.

Once that the initial stage of ermegency and rescue was concluded, it appeared a more clear picture of the extent of the devastation and tragedy by casualties. Many people were looking for information about the cities most affected by the earthquake and tsunami. Even if data about casualties and damages existed, it is hard to establish a list of cities, as the effects are not comparable: there are people killed by the earthquake and the tsunami, there are people missing mainly in areas devastated by the tsunami, there are buildings and infrastructure destroyed by the direct effect of the massive earthquake, or razed by the tsunami. There are finally villages and areas abandoned due to the nuclear crisis.

We wanted to provide an answer of how media perceived or focused attention in each component of the disaster. We monitored the media impact received internationally by all cities and locations with more thn 10.000 inhabitants in relationship with tsunami, earthquake or nuclear crisis.

We published a post with the list of cities most affected by the disaster, based exclusively by the media attention received since 11 March 2011. For each city, we provided the available information concerning casualties and damages. We provided information about this table in the blog post. This is the blog entry that has received more visits.

In another related post, we investigated the relationship between media coverage received by each prefecture and the kind of casualties and damages suffered, as shown in the following figure.

We explored the existence of media bias by checking how New York Times and Wall Street Journal covered Fukushima nuclear crisis. We wanted to see if the Japanese crisis was presented by leading American newspapers showing different perceptions concerning a very sensitive issue also in terms of local business and politics. We covered this news content analysis of the nuclear crisis storyline in two different posts (post 1, post 2).

Our analysis suggested that New York Times presented Fukushima crisis in a most dramatic way, or, conversely, that Wall Street Journal explained it in a more indulgent way. Wall Street Journal was as expected more focussed on issues with economic and commercial implications. Below, the example of a couple of figures of the analysis.

Concerning the media coverage given to Fukishima nuclear crisis, we followed an indirect indicator showing how serious the accident was judged by the media. We measured the prevalence of news about Fukushima mentioning past nuclear accidents, like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. We published the time evolution of this measure right after Fukushima was declared a Level 7 (max) accident. This was 12 April 2012. Things worsened later, but we did not publish additional pots about this topic in this blog.

We run also a reputation an communications crisis case that emerged within the framework of the Japanese tsunami. Comedian Gilbert Gottfired was ‘the voice’ of AFLAC duck, a very popular and main brand asset of this American insurance company with a very strong presence in Japan. He published some tweets with jokes about the tsunami with an awful bad taste and sense of the opportunity. He was inmediately fired.

We performed a reputation crisis analysis based again in news content analysis. We eventually published a report with the results, that you can download here.

Our findings show that even if the nes about the jokes tarnished AFLAC reputation, as shown for instance in the figure below, quick response taken by the comany preserved the quality of the media perception about the AFLAC mascot. We also compare how media portrayed the controversy about the jokes with media treatment given to other topics judged irreverent and polemic like South Park, The Simpsons and nuclear episode.

Full report includes media perception of AFLAC in comparison with competitors like Metlife, Prudential Financial or Aetna.

The Image of FHFA Lawsuit Against 17 Banks

Posted on October 2, 2011 by fpujolmri • Posted in Companies, Corp - Bank of America, Rep Issue - Newspapers • Tagged companies, Corp - Bank of America, Country - United States, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Media coverage, media impact, media reputation, Obama, Rep Issue - Newspapers, Reputation, Reputation Crisis, scandal • 5 Comments

(Note: as Bank of America is in the news for additional mortgage related lawsuits, we put in the frontline this analysis posted before)

The precedent post showed which banks are more present in the media in relation with the multibillion lawsuit of the US Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) against 17 major American and international banks.

Now we show results about the images portrayed by the media when covering the FHFA lawsuit.

This is a new tool of analysis that we present in this blog. It has been developped at our research center MRI Universidad de Navarra, and it has been applied to other studies.

Image analysis show striking results for media reputation analysis. All analysis presented in this reputation crisis blog is entirely based in news content analysis from newspapers. Image analysis is also based in newspapers articles. What we do here is to identify all photos used by the journalists to illustrate the news published about any kind of issue or event.

We collect all available photos used, and we regroup them into relevant categories. The final step is to present the results. We can show the numerical results or a graphical representation of it. The reputation collage is the resulting image emerging from all photos chosen by journalists.

This tool is probably very relevant in terms of reputation analysis. Appearing in the news in a reputation crisis may damage the media perception of the affected people, company or institution. This damage increases substantially if the news appearence is not recluded into the body of the article, but appears in the headlines. But it is probably even more damaging if the indicted actor appears in the photo illustrating the news article.

News photos are many times the result of a hard work of media professionals, as they are picked as means to show the “soul of the article”. In many cases, especially when dealing with reputation crisis or scandals, the image chosen come as a result of a journal editorial decision. The impact of a photo is many times stronger than the impact of the content of the text.

We present the result concerning images showed to explain the FHFA lawsuit. As explained in the precedent post, the case we analyze here is ver nice in terms of reputation analysis, as it concerns as much as 17 different companies. The journalist or the editor needs to take a choice if she wants to show the image of a particular bank. As explained, the bank appearing in the photo of news about the FHFA pays a hard price in terms of loss of media reputation, as it creates an association with misleading business behavior, linked to the present economic crisis suffered by many right now.

First reputation collage refers to photos used in news from US newspapers about FHFA lawsuit, published between September 1 and 7.

Main image reference is a picture of a bank. We have shown a unspecified bank image, but they refer all to specific companies. The next collage will show the details of which banks are chosen as examples in the news. Second image reference in importance are photos about the stock markets, normally showing distress and images of falling stock indexes. They are concentrated in news from Monday September 5, when sued banks suffered substantial losses in European markets (Labor Day in the United States). Third and fourth images used to explain the core of the news are images about housing foreclosures and about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We find also image references to experts/analysts, money, the justice and President Obama.

As announced, we show in the following reputation collage the images concerning the names of banks used in the photo news. This result is the key element concerning the measurement of the reputational impact of the current legal crisis experienced by sued banks. It also answers to the question of which among all banks is paying the reputation bill.

Our empirical answer is quite clear: the crisis is up to now being strongly associated to Bank of America, as it is by far the reference picked by journalists or newspaper’s editor to illustrate the lawsuit. Second bank in terms of presence in news photos is JPMorgan Chase. We find also a significative presence of images about Goldman Sachs. There are only marginal appearences of other banks: Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup and First Horizon. Other banks do not even appear as photo news.

This clear result suggest a kind of Winner-take-all rule, that in the field of reputation crises becomes a curse: in a set of several affected companies by an scandal or a crisis, media tend to concentrate image attention to the one appearing as the most exposed to the scandal, in a disproportionate way compared to all other affected companies.

It is true that Bank of America has been sued by the largest amount of sellings to Fannie and Freddie. But while they support less than a third of all eventual sanctions linked to selling mortgage securities, it completely controls media choices as image to be shown to present the FHFA lawsuit news.

Troy Davis Case: Media Coverage and Death Penalty Debate

Posted on September 21, 2011 by fpujolmri • Posted in Death Penalty, Rep Issue - Newspapers • Tagged Country - United States, Death Penalty, Death penalty debate, death penalty media coverage, Georgia, Media coverage, media impact, murder, Savannah, Troy Davis, Troy Davis Case, troy davis case media coverage, Troy Davis injustice, Troy Davis is innocent, Troy Davis racial • 7 Comments

(upcoming post: Troy Davis Case. International Pressure against execution? Not really)

Troy Davis case

Troy Davis was convicted and sentenced to death, accused of the murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989 in Savannah, Georgia. He was implicated in the murder by other suspected man and arrested four days after the crime. Several eyewitness accused Troy Davis of shooting the police. Two testified that Troy Davis confessed the murder to them. Davis declared always innocent.

Later, some witnesses recanted their previous testimony and described police coercion. After three execution dates stayed. Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency by September 19, 2011. Troy Davis is expected to be executed today September 21, 2011. (update September 22: Troy Davis was executed by lethal injection, 7pm EDT).

Death penalty debate and the media

As it has happened in some precedent cases, doubts about the process have raised a strong movement from people and activists opposed to death penalty. The case is thus creating relevant media attention, not only in Georgia newspapers, but also nationwide in the United States.

Expanded media coverage allows us to analyse this crisis and which kind of information we can derive from the analysis of media behavior.

As in all precedent posts, our unique aim is to provide information and knowledge to people interested in media analysis, reputation impact and crisis management. As for each particular issue treated in each post, we never take any particular position. In this case, we will not present our position in regard to death penalty, as my opinion about it is not relevant for ther readers.

Of course, some readers of this particular post are not mainly interested in media analysis, but about the death penalty debate. Like in all our posts, we try to provide new information that can be useful for understanding the specific topics analyzed.

Death penalty is an open debate in the United States. According to a recent Gallup poll, there is a majority of americans supporting death penalty for convicted murder. According to this source, 64% are in favor of death penalty, while 29% oppose to it. Time evolution shows an increase of opposition to death penalty since mid 90s.

(source: Gallup 2010)

We will show in this post some results from media coverage analysis linked to death penalty debate, using MRI Universidad de Navarra techniques.

Media Attention Index by group of states

We count with information about news published about Troy Davis case in each state in United States. Our strategy is to analyze media coverage behavior by regrouping states by relevant variables to the death penalty debate. This is a strategy that we have also followed in our post concerning New York 9/11 attacks and memorial.

In this analysis we have excluded results from Georgia, as it behaves as a clear outlier as this state is the main source of news and has covered the case in a massive way in comparison with any other state. We have excluded also news from California and New York, as their influence in final results are too big. These two states publish 29% of all news about Troy Davis case.

The basic variable that we analyse is what we call “Media Attention Index”. Media attention index measures how relevant Troy Davis case is in each state. This is measured by the number of news published about the case, in comparison with the media coverage given to a selection of other neutral issues, unrelated with death penalty topic.

If we find similar level of media attention in both groups, this implies that the classification variable that we have chosen is probably no sensitive to the death penalty debate. This absence of sensitiveness is already a result. But it is usually more revealing to find which elements are topic-related, and this result emerges when we find that media coverage diverges in each group of states.

First variable chosen is Republican-Democratic orientation of the states. We could use different measures, as we did in New York 9/11 post. Here we just select the measures that identify as Rep-Dem when there is a margin bigger than 10 points in 2008 presidential election.

Our results indicate that there is a clear partisan media coverage of this death penalty process. Republican oriented states provide a sustained higher media attention than Democratic states.

Now we turn to two other key division of states. First, we look at media attention depending on death penalty status in each state.

According to Death Penalty Information Center, there are currently 34 states with the death penalty, and 16 without (see data in the factsheet provided by DPIC).

We find that states currently with death penalty are following Troy Davis case in with a higher degree of media attention than states without. We can also observe a decrease of the gap, that was unnoticed in with the division Republican-Democrat.

The complementary variable is to regroup states between those with recent executions (year 2010 and 2011) opposed to those without execution, whatever the legal status of death penalty is.

A similar result than before is found out: states with convicted recently executed tend to provide higher levels of media attention to Troy Davis case.

All three results presented show that media attention is sensitive to our variables chosen: Republicans, states with capital punishement and states with recent capital executions tend to show higher degree of media attention to Troy Davis case than others.

As we have shown the time evolution of the selected variables between September 20 and 21, when media coverage explode, we can look inside these results more carefully.

Within the time interval we count with a decisive fact: final clemency denial by Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole. News before this decision refer to the last stages of Troy Davis judicial process and positions of each camp about this case. News after the decision are more focused about the execution itself and its justice. Probably, debate about death penalty is more intense in news after the confirmation of the sentence to death.

We propose to check the results already presented by dividing them into stages before and after denial of clemency.

Results are revealing. First figure shows media attention index by states according the legal status of death penalty. News about the case till the denegation of clemency are more intensely followed in states with death penalty than others. But media attention profile changes if we consider only the flow of news after the decision was announced and execution is fixed for September 21. Then, the states where death penalty does not apply or has been abolished provide a wider media coverage to Troy Davis case than states with death penalty.

If we establish the difference between states with recent lethal executions, we osbserve a similar trend, but less pronounced. Before the clemency decision media coverage was sgubstantialy higher in states with recently executed inmates, while it balances after the decision, but not to the point to reverse the trend.

Update September 22, 2011

As explained before, Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency to Troy Davis sentence to death. Last minute appeals were rejected or non considered. Troy Davis was executed using a lethal injection, by 7pm EDT.

We provide additional results about coverage of Troy Davis case.

First we show the evolution of media attention index during the last hours of the case. As expected in high-profile death penalty case where both sides contend, we observe an explosion of media attention in the last stages of the case. The index dramatically increase from a 50 points value by September 20 to 100 points by September 21 6pm CET. By September 22 10am CET, some 8 hours ahter the execution took place, media attention index reaches almost 200 points.

News about the case are thus concentrated in the period where the execution is confirmed and inminent. Almost 80% of news in US newspapers about Davis case have been published after denial of clemency.

In the last stages, is becomes an all nation issue, and our results show clearly that both camps, in favor and opposed to death penalty cover the case with the same level of media attention. This is in contrast with the initial coverage pattern, that we have shown that it is more intense in sates applying death penalty. This is confirmed in results shown in the following figure, where we find that media coverage is roughly the same in the execution day in both groups of states.

Main components of media storyline of Troy Davis case

In the first section of this post we have used as tool of analysis media attention index. The goal was to identify different patterns based in ideology, legal staus of death penalty and recent executions.

In this and following section we look into the content of news about Troy Davis case. We want to lean which are the key elements of the storyline used by the media.

In this section we show the structure of the main components of media stroyline. In the next session we will analyze to which extent each singular topic suffers from media bias reflecting a sensitiveness to the death penalty debate.

Here we present global media coverage in all states in the United States.

We explore the content of news about Troy Davis case. We select specific topics linked to death penalty debate. We measure the prevalence of each selected topic in newspapers. The higher the value in the figure, the more frequently the specific topic is present in articles covering Davis case.

Main topics are direct references to the execution and to the clemency process and decision, as they appear almost in 9 out of 10 articles.

Direct references to death penalty reaches a value about 60%, which is more than three times more than the use of the term “capital punishment”.

The presence of supporters to Troy Davis case is relevant, as Amnesty International claims is presented in 60% of all articles. References to former FBI director William Sessions, also favorable to not applying death penalty to Davis is aover 30%.

References to personal and social circumstances of the convicted inmate (“racial” or “poor”) are rather marginal in the storyline as they take value 7.7% and 2.9% respectively.

Finally, the critics about the outcome of the case, considering that Davis “is innocent” or that an injustice is taken are present in some 20% of all articles.

Troy Davis case storyline by death penalty status of states

Now we move to a complementary tool. We measure the prevalence of each selected topic in newspapers comparing states with death penalty against states without death penalty.

Our aim is to identify the sensitive issues in the death penalty debate. If prevalence is different between groups, this media bias indicates that this specific issue is relevant for the death penalty debate.

We have included here results about coverage by media in Georgia. Of course, Georgia pertains to the groups where death penalty is legal and should behave like this group of states. But in the same time, as Davis case is a local case, debate and controversies arise in a clear wide extent, and makes less predictible its media profile.

It is important to take into account when considering Georgia results in comparison to behavoir of other states that this is an outlier case and has its own dynamics. Besides the increase of the controversial profile of the news already mentionned, the richess of the debate and the coverage of the case in Georgia produces as a result that prevalence to single topics will tend to be lower in general than all other states. This is due to the fact that other states do not cover all the issues treated in local media and concentrate in the core topics of the case and the debate. This downward bias requires to be always in mind when analysing Georgia results.

If not noticed otherwise, empirical results refer to news up to September 21, before the execution took place.

Moving to the results, we present first results concerning the core issue of Troy Davis case: it is a death penalty case.

We find that direct references to death penalty are proportionally higher in states with death penalty. In Georgia the rate is lower. As explained, as newspapers in Georgia are covering the case well before the last days, they include news not directly talking about the sentence.

The reference to “capital punishment” instead of death penalty behaves in the opposite way, as it is more profusely used by states without death penalty. Using the capital punishment term is somehow euphemistic as it allows to avoid the mention to death. In contrast it could produce stronger fellings in readers, as it refers to “punishment” instead of “penalty”. Both terms are evidently related, but focus in different aspects.

Direct reference to the execution is again more used in coverage of states with death penalty.

Like in all constested convicted cases, last instance of clemency decision plays a major role in coverage of death penalty case. Our results show that references to clemency is not a partisan element of the storyline, as it is used in the same level in both sides.

When doubts emerge about the fairness and certitude of a death penalty sentence, there is media space for people and movements against death penalty or just supporting the convicted inmate. It is interesting to measure the media prevalence of supporters of Troy Davis interests.

We measure the references to Amnesty International, and to former FBI director, William Sessions. Both have had a prominent and dirct implication calling for not applying death sentence to Davis.

We get a result that is opposed to our own expectations and is counterinutitive. Media from states with death penalty provide higher coverage to Amnesty International than states without. Surprisingly for us, more space is given in states where AI is considered an opponent than in states where it is viewed as a case supporter. Those are results before execution and gap is not substantial, but they are really intriguing to us.

References to William Sessions’ position is higher in states without deatn penalty. We also see a drop of media interest in Georgia.

Next element is the prevalence of issues that are usually present in the death penalty deabte in the United States: the racial and the poor condition components. They are both relevant for Troy Davis case, as he is a black man from a poor area.

As expected, both elements suffer from media bias and clearly indicate that they are issues that are more present and used by states opposed to death penalty than states with death penalty.

The final issue we want to chek is the global assessment of the case. In the following figures we present the prevalence of direct references to “is innocent” and to “injustice”. Those are terms that are advanced by people and institutions opposed to Davis’ execution and critizise the fairness of the legal process.

“Injustice” is mentioned more times in newspapers from states without death penalty, as expected.

But, surprisingly for us, we find again that mentions to “is innocent” are more common in coverage by states with death penalty. Look also to the behavior in Georgia, where this issue is disproportionately highly present.

Remembering New York 9/11 Attack. A Partisan Media Coverage Issue.

Posted on September 9, 2011 by fpujolmri • Posted in Disasters, Pers - Bin Laden, Rep Issue - Media Bias, Rep Issue - Newspapers • Tagged 9/11, Country - United States, Democratic Party, Media coverage, media impact, New York, New York 9/11, New York Attack, Obama, Pers - Bin Laden, Rep Issue - Media Bias, Rep Issue - Newspapers, Republican Party, September 11, Terrorism, tragedy • 1 Comment

In a couple of days News York and all United States will remember solemny the worst attack ever suffered by Americans in United States soil, ten years ago.

Media coverage is becoming massive, not only in the United States media, but also globally. Additional media attention comes from the official alert of risks of a new Al Qaida “credible threat”.

Even if the attack struck New York and New Yorkers, this memorial is a national major event. It is receiving media attention from all over United States.

As like any other relevant major event, expected or unexpected, we can explore at MRI Universidad de Navarra which kind of specific insights we can gather from analysing its media coverage.

Here our proposal is to measure state by state media behaviour concerning the memorial of New York terror attack. We can group the newspapers by states and then create global results by each state.

The main result that we have obtained with the news published up to September 9 is that the degree of media attention by state is sensitive to party ideology. Our procedure is not to label each individual journal by a supposed party bias. Our strategy is to use the information concerning recent voting patterns in each state. Democratic orientes states will count with more democrat oriented newspapers than average, and the opposite is expected to happen with Republican oriented states.

We present the results concerning the intensity of media coverage given to New York 9/11 attack and memorial news, grouping states by Republican-Democratic profile.

We have used different measures to group states into each side:

1. States by Governor’s party.

2. States presenting a strong partisan voting in the 2008 US presidential elections. We define strong partisan voting when the voting margin is higher than 20 points.

3. States presenting a partisan voting in the 2008 US presidential elections. We define partisan voting when the voting margin is higher than 10 points.

For each measurement, we have estimated two values: weighted and unweighted state averages.

In all the measures estimated we find that Republican states tend to provide a higher media coverage to New York 9/11 than Democtratic oriented states.

US FHFA Sues 17 Financial Institutions on Mortgages Securities: Who Pays the Reputation Bill?

Posted on September 5, 2011 by fpujolmri • Posted in Companies, Corp - Bank of America • Tagged companies, Corp - Bank of America, Corp - New York Times, Country - United States, Federal Housing Finance Agency, FHFA, FHFA lawsuit, Media coverage, media impact, Rep Issue - Newspapers, Reputation, Reputation Crisis, reputation impact • 4 Comments

(See also the post about the news image of FHFA lawsuit)

US Federal Housing Finance Housing (FHFA) sued 17 firms “to recover losses to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac” (see Press Release) by Septemeber 2, 2011. FHFA is a federal agency acting as “the regulator and conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the regulator of the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks”, which official Mission statement is to “Provide effective supervision, regulation and housing mission oversight of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks to promote their safety and soundness, support housing finance and affordable housing, and support a stable and liquid mortgage market”.

In accordance with its mission, FHFA launched a lawsuit against 17 firms based on”FHFA’s conclusion that some portion of the losses that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac incurred on private-label mortgage-backed securities (PLS) are attributable tomisrepresentations and other improper actions by the firms and individuals named in these filings. Based on our review, FHFA alleges that the loans had different and more riskycharacteristics than the descriptions contained in the marketing and sales materials provided to the Enterprises for those securities” (Press Release).

One day before, New York Times announced the imminent suing action. Apparently, it came as a surprise legal movement to many people in the market. In this article, the journalist mentionned that a “more than a dozen of big banks” where in the list. But New York Times mentionned only four of them: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank “among others”.

Article by NYTimes provoked a substantial drop in mentionned companies in Friday 2 September trading (Bank of America -8.3%, JPMorgan -5.3%, Goldman Sachs -4.5%, Deutsche Bank -5.9%). Names of other affected companies came only after the market closed.

Today, Monday 5 September, affected companies in Europe have suffered a major fall, pushing all European stock markets into red. American companies are not trading today due to Labor Day. This was a specific Black Monday by European companies sued by US Federal Agency: Deutsche Bank -8.9%, Credit Suisse -8.1%, RBS -12%, HSBC -3.6%, Barclays -6.7%, Société Générale -8.6%.

The crisis we consider in this post is very interesting to us, as it is a common legal action against 17 different financial institutions. The amount of purchased made by Freddie and Fannie to each institution varies notably. Some affected institutions are American and other are European, (Plus Japanese Nomura). Finally, New York Times did only mention four of them.

The lawsuit has had an immediate tremendous financial impact. Billions of dollars of equity value have wiped away from stock owners’ pokets. This is a natural investor’s reaction to the anticipation of the losses linked to the legal process and the eventual financial fines. What we have observed today is nevertheless probably an irrational overreaction that could be corrected.

FHFA has not provided numbers about the amount of losses they expect to recover: ““is is premature and potentially misleading to estimate what recoveries would be”. Some analysis estimate that the total sanctions to 17 entities coud reach $30Bn. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods estimate that it could cost as much as $60Bn to banks.

Financial expert John McDermott from Financial Times estimates that total amount of losses expected to recover by FHFA are $40Bn, with Bank of America expected to pay $12Bn, JPMorgan $7Bn and RBS $6.3Bn. The detail of the estimations for each bank are presented in the table.

Other analysists consider that $6Bn fine is more probable. In this latter case, these losses would represent barely 4% of total profits of these firms (Seeking Alpha, Sept 5 2011).

Whatever the extent of the direct financial impact of the lawsuit in terms of litigation costs and final finalcial sanctions, we understand that this case of a US Government Agency against 17 prominent national and international financial firms will be mainly a matter of tremendous reputational costs. This federal agency is in a sense pointing out these companies as key actors in the 2008 financial crisis that costed many sacrifices to US taxpayers and that finally became an economic crisis with the consequence of massive unemployment. A long, public and contrversial judicial process in the midst of the present renewed financial and economic crisis would become a constant media affaire with highly exposure linked to the sued institutions.

News linked to this lawsuit could be all of them severely damaging to banks reputations, as they are understood as being in the hart of the present crisis. This judicial process could render ineffective any other positive reputational efforts and expenditures assumed by the companies in sporsorship or CSR actions.

As already pointed out, the attractive aspect of this reputation crisis is that it is puting 17 companies in the same group, while the level of formally suing responsibility varies enormously, in a ratio 1 to 50. Would the public opinion and investors treat each bank differently or would they treat all of them equally as responsible for the crisis?

Media coverage to this lawsuit will provide us a lot of relevant information about the extent of the reputation damages for each one of the 17 indicted firms. As we have shown in precedent posts and in our research group reports (MRI Universidad de Navarra), we count with a number of tools that may provide useful information and knowledge for firms, practitioners and academia.

We show first in the following figure the amount of Mortgage Securities sold by each sued institution to Fannie and Freddie, in billions of US$, according to Wall Street Journal. We include under the umbrella of Bank of America $6Bn sold directly by BofA plus $26.6Bn by Countrywide Financial and $24.8Bn by Merrill Lynch/First Franklin Financial. Both firms were acquired by Bank of America.

We find that Bank of America, JP Morgan and RBS represent some $120Bn of products sold to Fannie and Freddie, or 61% of all liabilities of all 17 banks. We should note that RBS was not mentioned in the NYTimes article, while it identified Deutsche bank and Goldman Sachs.

The following figure presents the first results concerning the media coverage analysis. We compare the share of all purchased from each financial institutions, against the media coverage received in relation with FHFA lawsuit, in US newspapers. We identify in bold lines the institutions that were identified in NYTimes news.

US media coverage indicates that, as it could be expected, the distribution of news do not follow exactly the extent of expected legal liabilities: institutions that sold “small” amounts of financial products receive a substantial amount of media attention. While the 5 firms with lower financial implications have sold “just” $8Bn representing 4.2% of all funds, they receive a media coverage equivalent to 22.4% of all news about the lawsuit. The top 5 firms by liabilities suppose 76% of all sellings but only 45% of all media impact.

This is a natural result in terms of media coverage, as many newspapers mention all 17 affected companies or at least many of them. Even of the financial liabilities are indicated in the news articles, this balance of news appearances irrespective of liabilities produces paradoxically a negative reputation shift punishing the less affected companies. This result clearly favors the main involved firms: Bank of America, JP Morgan adn Royal bank of Scotland.

A second element emerging from the figure is a first assessment of the reputational impact of being mentioned in the original news at New York Times. Except for Bank of America, all other companies mentioned in the article suffer from a media impact premium in comparison to companies not present in this article. Just compare media impact of JP Morgan vs RBS, which are similar in liabilities. We also observe that Goldman Sachs reveives much more media attention than average, like Deutsche Bank. Citigroup appears also as outlier. Even if the group was not included in the list, it was directly mentioned in the article as a bank being sued by the same kind of financial practices. UBS was also mentioned in the article, but it is not included among the banks issued as UBS reached an agreement some weeks ago with federal authorities.

In the following figure we look just at banks mentioned in New York Times article. We show the relationship between funds involved and media coverage received in US newspapers between Friday 2 and Monday 5. As expected, media coverage of news that mention New York Times (NYTimes News) as source are roughly similar to all four banks, independently of the amount in charge. If we include all news in relation with the FHFA case between Friday 2 and Monday 5 (FHFA news) we see that Bank of America becomes main media reference (share of 28%) while the foreign bank receives lower attention in US newspapers than deserved by funds involved.

A complementary check is to look at banks explicitly mentioned in the headlines. Of course, being in the headline of a news implies a stronger negative reputational impact than just being mentioned in the content of the news. We have selected the headlines of news referring directly to New York Times filtration. Hre we find that newspapers tended to choose Bank of America (56% of all cases) followed by JP Morgan (38%). Goldman Sachs appeared marginally and Deutsche Bank did not appear in the headlines.

The following set of figures shows media coverage of FHFA lawsuit by countries. Precedent analysis used results using US newspapers. Now we analyze how local media abroad is covering this crisis.

We show the share of news received by each single financial institution. We compare it to mortgages securities sold and against global media coverage. This allows to identify local media treatment specificities. We use bold line marks for identifying banks receiving specific local media attention departing from global trend.

US Newspapers count for 50% of all current news about FHFA lawsuit. This makes that its profil is similar to global coverage. One of the particualrities of US media coverage is that they under represent European continental banks (DB, CS, SocGen), while this does not happen with British firms.

Media from countries in Europe with local banks in the list focus their media coverage in their local affected institution. This is also a natural result, but with our analysis we provide empirical data enabling to estimate its extent.

This result has eveidently serious implications in reputation terms. Key market for any company is the local market, especially if this is a big market. Local market represents many times the biggest share of relevant stakeholders: owners, workers, consumers and relevant public legistation. Reputational issues in the local original market are extremely important for global brands. And this current crisis is linking main local banks to the origin of the economic and financial crisis, that is currently attacking also all these three markets: Britain, France, Germany.

Next figures is media coverage from countries that do not have local banks sued by FHFA. We find that media from Spain follow global media trend, except for Barclays and Nomura, that receive more media attention.

Media from apparently directly unaffected countries like Brazil and India follow basically global media trend.

Oslo Blast and Utoya Shooting as Publicity for 2083 Manifesto. Media Coverage Analysis

Posted on July 24, 2011 by fpujolmri • Posted in Countries, Country - Norway, Disasters, Event - Utoya Massacre, Rep Issue -Media Impact Analysis • Tagged 2083, 2083 Manifesto, Breivik, Country - Norway, Media coverage, media impact, Oslo Blast, Terrorism, Utoeya, Utoya, Utoya shooting • 2 Comments

(photo by Emilio Morentatti, AP)

This is a very sensitive post in our series of analysis of crisis and their media coverage analysis.

It requires some preliminary remarks and statements:

1. This blog, all posts and this post are primarily designed for scholars and professionals interested in media coverage analysis, reputation analysis and branding.

2. As in all our precedent analysis, the aim and only goal is to provide information and knowledge arising from media impact monitored by MRI Universidad de Navarra.

3. We do not intend to clash or interfere with current criminal investigations.

4. We do not wish by any means to disseminate the goals and plans designed by Anders Breivik. We firmly oppose to them.

5. We have used only information freely accesible in internet using simple Google searches, and not through privileged information channels. (note: two days after I published this, it appears clear that everybody can reach the full content of this document).

6. As all citizens in Europe, we are horrified with the attacks, we abominate them and we suffer with the victims. I personally pray for the victims and their relatives.

Now, we propose our analysis of the Utoya shooting and some media impact result concerning the shooting.

(note: this post is progressively updated during the day with new data analysis).

As many people, we have accessed to the document published by a so called “Andrew Berwick”, who is indeed Anders Breivik, the author of Utoya massacre and Oslo bombings. It was freely accesible in internet as pdf document (at least by July 24, 10h am CET), as it was planned like this by Breivik. I do not know if this document will be accessible in the future, but it will probably always easy to find it out as the author has disseminated it through Facebook and social networks to many Far Right groups.

We got some captions from the documents, that we will present in this post. Of course, we do not publish information about the ideology and content of the document (as we have never done in any other previous analysis and post). But we need to show those elements that are essential to show the strategy followed by Anders Breivik concerning the attacks made two days ago, as it is the basis of our analysis in terms of media coverage.

We come directly to our own conclusion: the primary and probably unique goal of Oslo bombings and Utoya shooting was to advertise his 2083 European Manifesto among Far Right groups in Europe, and to provide credibility of his political project among these groups. His final goal is basically to ensure an racially rooted Europe, with a final deportation of all Muslim people from Europe.

This conclusion clearly emerges from one of the passages in the mentoned document:

Thus, the attacks have been planned in their cruelty just to ensure a media impact enough to ensure that it become a “marketing operation” to make the 2083 Manifesto known.

This position is established in other parts in the document, like the one presented below in this post about his Plan B (blast and shooting) also a red underlined text, presented as “operation in order to market the compendium that way”.

Breivik considers a wide distribution of his Manifesto (called compendium by himself) among interest groups as a key factor for ensuring the success of his revolution project.

Or this couple of paragraphs, very similar in content:

He understands his attacks as means to break the media “law of silence” against their principles and activities.

The document is completely credible about the author and his intentions and “political” design, as well as all the planning of the terrorist attack.

For instance, it clearly appears that he conducted all the bombing planning alone, a point that apparently is still unclear in police investigation:

He explained his solo tactics in other parts of the document:

Other elements that provide full credibility to the document as source for knowing his plot design and ideological intentions are:

1. He explains that he will appear dressed as police officer (last two paragraphs). It also refers to “investor contacts” to be emailed as the Far Right groups to receive the document. He speaks about explosions and human casualties as “generate acceptable precisous metals yields” in order to ensure media coverage visibility.

In his terror tactics explain why to use police officer uniform

2. He explains that he is using the agricultural firm Geofarm as cover for obtaining all explosive components:

3. He clearly points out to the strategy of attacking the Labor Party Youth camp. In the first text he explains how to prepare the attack. The second text helps to explain his extreme cruelty killing young people. In the third one he explains why this kind of gathering are perfect terror targets.

4. The last entry is published just 2 hours before the blast

A collateral but very distressing fact to me is that he explains that his training method for Utoya shooting is one simulation video game. Even if I do not post personal opinions, this element should open a debate about these war games.

Finally, I show an additional caption where it apparently shows that because of lack of funds he turned from his initial desing to “sell” his ideas through political ways (plan A) into a terrorist attack plan (plan B). Even if the author put this decision in the period 2002-2006, the actual starting operations date from Autumn 2009. In any case, this means that Breivik has been preparing the attacks for at least 3 years.

Another point of controversy is that if this can be considered as a Christian Fundamentalist project.

The following programatic text shows clearly that his mindset has nothing to do with religious fundamentalism

Of course, in normal times, being a Christian atheist is a contradiction in its terms. This is not contradictory for Anders Breivik, as his notion of Christian conservatism is merely to take some societal values linked to old Christian societies as political guidelines. Breivik’s Christian project and society does not require Jesus Christ, not the Bible nor even Good, as it is clearly shown in the text presented. In this sense, the need for Christian references is similar to the Nazi project in the sense of looking for ancestral roots and rituals. It has nothing to do with religion.

All these elements of information drives us to our initial conclusion: we are facing a perfectly calculated long plan for ensuring a maximum exposure of his political ideas and project. Unfortunately for Norway and us all he has apparently succeed, and he is currently receiving massive media attention. Norway do not consider death penalty and apparently maximum time in prison is 21 years. Taking advantadge of internet and social network development he has ensured that his plan is known by all extremists groups, and he is trying to “activate” them with his hideous attack.

Right now (24 July, 17h CET), there are many media sources that are showing elements of the Manifesto, like BBC, Al-Jazeera or CNN. But they are not yet pointing out that the goal of the attacks was precisely to disseminate the content of the 2083 European Manifesto.

We want to provide information about how global media is dealing with this issue.

First analysis shows to which extent media coverage of the massacre is global. It refers to news about Utoya massacre.

Evidently, this is not a tragedy confined mainly to local newspapers. News from Norwegian newspapers count only for 7% of all news about the shooting. This is also due to the fact that Norway is a rather small country with a limited number of newspapers. Neighbourg countries (Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Netherlands) count for another 6% share. Other remaining countries from Europe publish 55% of all news.

USA and Canada represent 18% of all news. This is lower than their natural news share. Asia, Australia and Latin America are responsible for the last 14% of all news.

Of course, this is a massive shooting with global impact, but our results indicate that Europe is the most sensitive area to the massacre.

As a complement, we show the initial time trend of media interest of different regions. This is not the evolution of total news, but the relative share of all news among different regions. Our results show that the share of news from Norway is increasing constantly. Media interest from Europe keeps stable while newspapers from outside Europe tend to decrease media coverage.

Of course, the eventual mid to long term consequences of this attack will affect mainly countries in Europe, as Far Right movements in Europe are targeted by the Manifesto and will impose new control measures from security and intelligence agencies in Europe. But this attack can also influence movements in the US and in countries in Central Asia. Media from these countries should also be aware and interested in the evolution of the Norway investigations.

We published our own conclusions about Utoya shooting motivations on July 24, by 13h30 CET. At that moment media references to 2083 Manifest document where still marginal. Right now full media coverage is given to the existence of the document and to some parts of its content. Media from some countries show contents referring to how Anders Breivik perceives local politics.

Quite astonishing from our point of view, there are some media that even establish links to the full document. We are really surprised as this long document contains a lot of information about how the Norwegian terrorist has planned and executed his succesful attack. Even is some journalists argue that this kind of information is similar to other existing documents by terrorist groups, we do not understand why they facilitate its distribution.

As we showed at the beginning of this post, this was in fact the solely motivation for killing this huge number of innocent young people. It is somehow disturbing to observe that media are facilitating the success of his terrorists goals. This was nevertheless a foreseable output, also planned by the terrorist.

We find this approach by these some newspapers really embarrassing. There is no a conflict with freedom of speech and freedom of press to restrict the access to the document by the media themselves or by public authorities. The nature of the document is not only about Anders Breivik political and ideological views. It is also a matter of how a terrorsit explains strategy and tactics on how to design and execute terror attacks. In some countries, the open distribution of such documents is considered as terrorism apology, a punishable crime.

The evil of 2083 Manifesto is that even if 95% of readers will find all the content repulsive and execrable, its distribution really increase the risks of new terror attacks, as the terror principles proposed by Breivik are to create as many “solo cells” as possible, that can be spontaneously induced and activated just by finding readers sympathetic with Breiivk ideas and project.

This is why Anders Breivik considers the distribution of 2083 Manifesto as a recruiting strategy and not merely a way to show his ideas. Please look at this clear statement:

Even if it seems too crude, we feel that media and web sites providing free access to all 2083 Manifesto documents are perfectly in line with what Breivik was seeking with his massacre. Of course, we understand that restricted access to scholars or other professionals makes sense, but we find disturbing this free access policy just for satisfying curiosity.

We show in the next figure how news references to 2083 Manifesto are exploding during the day.

Again, we present relative numbers, and not absolute numbers. We show the time evolution of the share of news about Anders Breivik that directly refer to 2083 Manifesto, by regions. We present three measures: at 12h CET, at 17h and at 20h.

News from Scandinavia, now including Norway, keep relatively stable around a 2% value. News about Breivik increase at the same pace that news mentioning the manifesto.

We observe a strong increase of the prevalence of news about the Manifesto in the rest of Europe and in US media. This morning, references to the document was negligible in the US, and right now they suppose some 10% of all cummulated news about Breivik. A similar trend in news from Europe.

Media interest in the document is lower in other areas of the world (LatAm, Asia, Australia).

Media in Europe consider Manifesto document very appealing for explaining the “political” motivations of the terrorist, and they present some of his ideological thesis in the articles. Even if they present them as the work of a perturbed extremist, media is currently channeling the message that Breivik wanted to be known by targeted people and groups, the Extreme Right groups in Europe.

(Addition July 25, 13h)

References to 2083 continue to increase in media coverage. Some media discuss about local politics using content from the compendium. For instance, US media polemicize about American author Robert Spencer, as his views about Islam and Yihad are backed by Anders Breivik.

In the following figure we show the weight of 2083 Manifesto in media coverage in main countries in Europe. It include news published up to July 25 10am CET.

Spanish media is the individual country citing more profusely 2083 Manifesto (in relative terms to all news about Breivik), in 24.6% of all articles. European average is right now 11.8%. We find also well above European average countries like Poland, France, Serbia or Russia. It is worth to note here that Breivik considers Ratko Mladic a fighter for the cohesion of Europe.

References to 2083 Manifesto have increased sharply in Norwegian newspapers, and now they account for 9.5% of all news. This change of media attitude has not been followed by the other Scandinavian countries, as they still get the Manifesto almost unnoticed. A similar trend is found in British and Irish media. It would be interesting to know why, adn probably has something to do with current scandals affecting sensationalistic press.

Apparently it does not emerge a common media trend as for countries experiencing local problems with Far Right groups.

How Massive is Media Coverage of Utoya Massacre? A Comparative Event Analysis.

(Addition July 25, 18h CET)

Anders Breivik was seeking global and massive media attention. We have already shown that media interest is global.

Now we will show how massive global and regional media coverage of Utoya massacre is. The way we normally follow at MRI Universidad de Navarra is to show the impact of an event by providing comparison to other similar or relevant events. This requires from us to monitor a wide range of international events.

We have profusely used the comparative analysis in our initial studies linked to what we call “media value” in professional sports, as in the sport industry, media impact is the most relevant factor. A number of sport related studies are avaliable at Economics, Sport and Intangibles research group site.

We have selected here a number of selected recent events:

1. Ratko Mladic arrest.

2. Bin Laden killing

3. Gabrielle Giffords assassination attempt.

We take the level of media coverage reached up to date by Utoya massacre as value 100.

All cases refer to political oriented violence or arrest/killing of terrorists. In all cases, main action start and ends in the first day.

First figure refers to media coverage in European countries.

Our results indicate that current media impact of Utoya tragedy is higher than media attention received by Mladic arrest and Giffords’ shooting. The impact of Bin Laden killing was some three times higher than the current Norwegian event.

The picture changes substantially when we look at US media coverage. As two other issues directly affected US interests, we find that media coverage given to Gabby Giffords shooting was some six times higher than present coverage to Utoya attack. The media impact of Bin Laden killing was almot 12 times higher. In order to make data comparable we have selected in all cases total media coverage during the three days after the event takes place. Total media coverage is of course higher, as media coverage to Breivik attacks will continue to grow.

We chose a third region, Oceania, as Australia and New Zealand are not directly involved in any of the four events analyzed. This provides a more genuine measure of how massive and global is media impact of Utoya attack.

We find that media attention to Utoya is higher than coverage given to both Mladic arrest and Giffords shooting. Bin Laden death produced a media impact five times higher than the Norwegian tragedy.

Other posts

How Harmful Is News of the World Scandal for News Corp Reputation?

Bin Laden Killing News Storyline 1. Pakistan Media Coverage versus International Media (Ex USA)

New York Times and Wall Street Journal Coverage of Japan Earthquake and Fukushima Nuclear Crisis (II) About The Nuclear Debate

The Shocking Reputation Irresponsibility by German Authorities on E Coli Crisis: How to Kill Innocent Cucumbers from Spain

Ivory Coast Crisis: Affected African Countries According to Media Coverage

The Shocking Reputation Irresponsibility by German Authorities on E Coli Crisis: How to Kill Innocent Cucumbers from Spain

Posted on June 5, 2011 by fpujolmri • Posted in Companies, Countries, Country - Germany, E Coli, Political Leaders • Tagged Ballesteros, Ballesteros death, bean sprouts, Bild, Champions League, Country - Germany, Country - Spain, Country - United Kingdom, Cucumber, cucumber E coli, E Coli, ECDC, EHEC, ETA ceasefire, Europe, FC Barcelona, Flamenco, Flamenco Unesco, France, Germany accusations, Germany E Coli, Hamburg, HUS, Liberation, Media coverage, media impact, media reputation, Movimiento 15-M, Nadal Roland Garros, Pers - Alberto Contador, Pope Benedict, Pope Sagrada Familia, Prüfer-Storcks, Rafa Nadal, Rep Issue - Newspapers, Reputation, Reputation Crisis, Roland Garros, Russia, Sagada Familia, Spanish cucumbers • 3 Comments

(You can download here a pdf version of this post, with additional images analysis. In English, or check the abstract in Spanish, resumen en castellano).

Germany is suffering a major health alert due to a highly lethal epidemic produced by a new strain of e Coli bacteria. The outbreak is geographically located in the North of Germany, in Hamburg. As the number of affected people is increasing, the spread of the infected cases in new countries makes it an European crisis.

In the next table we show the distribution of E Coli officially reported cases by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. ECDC reports daily the number of cases in EU countries. Right now (5 June 2011), there are 2263 cases, with 22 deaths, in 12 countries in Europe. Germany counts with 2163 cases (95.5% of all cases) and 21 deaths. In terms of direct health crisis, this is currently a German affair.

ECDC started to report the E Coli outbreak by 25 May 2011, alerting that: “On 22 May, Germany reported a significant increase in the number of patients with haemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) and bloody diarrhoea caused by Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC). Since the end of April, 138 cases of HUS have been reported”. References to the source of the outbreak where the following one: “The source of the outbreak is under investigation, but contaminated food seems the most likely vehicle of infection. There is currently no indication that raw milk or meat is associated with the outbreak.” (ECDC Epidemiological Update 25 May 2011).

Germany accuses cucumbers from Spain

One day later, Ms Cornelia Prüfer-Storcks, Health Senator from the State-City of Hamburg alleged that cucumbers imported from Spain were the source of the epidemy.

We reproduce here a snapshot of the press release launched by the Hamburg Senate by May 25

From this statement an official heath alert was transmitted to all relevant institutions. The wording of the accusation is extremely direct: “The Hamburg Institute for Hygiene and the Environement (HU) of the Health and Consumer Protection Authority(BGV) has clearly identified a cucumber from Spain as being infected by E. Coli. Samples of two other cucumbers from Spain and another cucumber of unknown origin also tested positive for E. Coli. ‘We are now looking specifically at cucumbers as the source of the outbreak’ said Health Senator Cornelia Prüfer-Storcks” … “This success also greatly facilitates the work of health authorities” (Health Alert by Hamburg Senate).

The day after a press release by Hamburg Senate accused more specifically two exporting Spanish firms:

Hamburg Senate mentioned Press Releases can be download here (pages 17 and 19).

This declaration, in the wave of the initial stages of the increase of reported E coli cases provoked a panic against cucumbers and other vegetables produced in Spain, as well as against cucumbers from any country in Europe. Prizes plummeled, ban of importation of Spanish products emerged in several countries … and media coverage exploded.

In the other side, Federal Health autorities followed a much more prudential path. In line with Hamburg healath authorities, they found out that consumption of vegetables was linked to the infection. They launched a health alert by 25 May, “Against this backdrop RKI and BfR recommend, by way of precaution, not to consume raw tomatoes, cucumbers and green salads, more particularly in Northern Germany, until further notice … The consumption of one or more of the mentioned foods would explain a large number of the HUS cases but it cannot be excluded that other foods play a role as an infection source, too” (BfR Press release 26 May 2011). In this case, no direct mention to cucumbers from Spain was made, and no more health alerts were sent in the following days.

Five days later, by 1 June 2011, experts came to the conclusion that analyzed cucumbers from Spain were not linked at all to this lethal E Coli strain (BfR Press Release 1 June 2011)

In the daily update provided by ECDC, the European disease surveillance body, has no departed from the initial lack of specific identification of the source of the contamination. Today, the wording is as follows: “The source of the outbreak is under investigation, but contaminated food seems the most likely vehicle of infection” (ECDC Epidemiological Update 5 June 2011). No reference has been never made to cucumber or any other specific vegetable.

In sharp contrast no formal correction of the initial statements against cucumbres from Spain came from Hamburg Senate and Ms Cornelia Prüfer-Storcks. In fact, Prüfer-Storcks has inisited that even if cucumbers are cleared as source of the contagion, she acted in the correct way.

As it can be noticed, in the press release by the Hamburg Senate anouncing that cucumbers did not contain the lethal toxin, no mention at all is made to their Spanish origin.

The content of this statement was crucial for the reputation and economic interests of Spanish farmers as Hamburg Senate and its Health responsible was the origin and the epicentre of the massive media explosion.

Apparently, some other top officials from Germany ask for “comprehension” to Spain as they are undergoing a severe health crisis and the wrong accusations came inside this framework of emergency and uncertainty.

All this evolution of the events is surprising to me as scholar how Germany is tackling the cucumber crisis and its impact on reputation and media impact: we have a clear case of wrong allegations against products from a specific country, potentially having devastatings economic effects in the affected industry and no political reponsibilities emerge, and no even apology is asked for. Imagine that instead of accusing cucumbers from Spain the chosen victims were Franch cheese, or the big mac from McDonalds, Kellogg’s cereals or milk from England. In all cases, even if the accusations are false and negated few days after, the reputational and commercial damages would be colossal and mostly irreversible. This is probably what it actually happening to cucumber production in Spain and also in other countries in Europe, and vegetables exports in general from Spain.

Media impact of German accusations

This is a unduly cucumber crisis inside a true health crisis with a dramatic impact for an industry in a country completely unrelated with the source and responsible actors of the health crisis.

We want to show in this post how devastating is this false accusation against vegetables from Spain in terms of media coverage and reputational impact.

As we tackle crisis through its impact in media, we are able to measure how harmful this accusation by a German public authority has been for Spanish farmers. We want to proof whith measurable data how serious is the problem caused by false accusations by a German politician.

First element appears in the following map. We show media coverage worldwide given to each country in Europe in relation with the E Coli crisis. Data is calculated by the newspapers articles where each country is explicitly mentioned in news directly related to the Hamburg E Coli outbreak. We translate this raw information into a Media Impact Index. A country with a value 1 of the Media Impact Index means that this country appears in news about E Coli crisis in the same amount that the average of 160 countries from all over the world monitored by us.

Not surplisingly, Germany is the leading media reference, with an Index value of 46 points. It appears in the news about E Coli some 46 times more than the average of all countries. Second country most visibly associated to the outbreak is Spain, with 32 points. Spain appears in 2/3 of all news where Germany appears in relation with the E Coli crisis. This is the measure of how massive has been the media reaction and impact to the false accusations by German authorities.

Third country most present in the news worldwide is Sweden, with an Media Impac Index value of 14.6 points, less than half the presence of Spain. The Netherlands and Denmark present a similar level of media attention than Sweden.

The map results show that media attention is distributed geographically in circles around Germany the epicentre. The exceptions are Spain and Russia. Russia references are not linked to locally reported cases, but because their decision to ban the imports of all vegetables and fresh products from any country from Europe.

We show an example of how media covered the accusation against cucumbers from Spain. Later in this post we will provide more systematic information about the media impact of the wrong accusation.

This is the cover page of German tabloid Bild, by 27 May 2011, the day after Ms Cornelia Prüfer-Storcks identified Cucumbers from Spain as the source of E Coli outbreak in Germany.

The title “Todes-Keim Kommt aus Spanien!” can be translated as “Killer germ comes from Spain!”. Bild is the leading newspapers by circulation not only in Germany, but also in Europe. It takes the sixth position worldwide, with an estimated daily circulation of 3.87 million newspapers (World Association of Newspapers)

Which is the pattern followed by media to refer more or less to a specific country in relation with the E Coli outbreak?

If media coverage was relevant as a tool for understanding crisis, we should find a strong relationship between reported cases of E Coli ill people and deaths and media coverage by countries. Countries departing from the general pattern should be explained by other non health causes.

First media reference is also first country by number of E Coli cases. Germany presents a media impact index of 46 points and suffers wth more than 2100 reported cases, 95% of all cases.

Next figure shows the relation between cases and media coverage received by other 11 countries with reported cases. We find in general a positive relationship between media coverage and cases. The Netherlands and Austria receive more media attention in relation to cases, while Sweden could have more media attention according to number of cases (even if Sweden is the media reference among these 11 countries if we exclude Spain). Spain is a clearly departing observation, as there is no relation at all between media attention received and number of cases reported (just one, who visited Hamburg).

The coefficient of correlation between cases and media attention of all 11 countries is 0.21 (out of a maximum value of 1.0). If we drop the Spanish observation from the sample, the correlation jumps to 0.70. Spain is clearly an outlyer in the relation E Coli cases & media attention. Also, if we include Germany in the correlation, the coefficient is 0.78 with Spain, and 0.93 if we exclude Spain. Correlation would further increase if we include in the sample countries with no reported cases, that also count with low levels of media attention, as reflected in the map.

Media interests for Spain in the E Coli crisis does not come from the expansion of the outbreak to Spain, but because of the false allegation that products from Spain where responsible from the crisis.

The intensity of media coverage by countries

We have clearly shown that media attention to Spain in the E Coli crisis is not due to personal casualties in Spain, but due to a wrong accusation of being the responsible for the entire health crisis. We have also demonstrated that the media impact of this allegation has have massive effect, as Spain is the second country most linked to the crisis in the news, being present in two thirds of news where Germany is present.

Now we will provide some additional information about how media from different countries in the world have reproduced this false responsibility of Spanish agricultural products in E Coli health crisis.

The next series of figures show for several selected countries how much local media is covering E Coli crisis and to which extent there are direct references to Spain in news about E Coli case outbreak.

We open the analysis with the set of countries more sensitive to the issue, as they are countries counting with officially reported cases of infected people by E Coli. It can be assumed that in all these cases the mentions to Spanish products as source of their healh problems is taken extremely seriously and affect strongly consumers behaviour and views about fresh products from Spain.

According to our data, 29% of all news published by German newspapers about E Coli case mention Spain. As media attention to the issue is currently massive in Germany, this 29% represent a huge number of some 7,000 articles mentioning the cucumbers form Spain as cause of the epidemy. This number shows how powerful has been the echoes of Ms Prüfer-Storcks accusations and how vast is the dammage for Spanish economic interests. Mentions to Spain in other affected countries in Europe range from 18% (Poland) to 67% (France) of all news about E Coli.

The high ratio of mentions to Spain in French media can may be explained by the fact that France is the second market in Europe in cucumber exports, after Spain. French farmers are evidently also negatively affected by the crisis, even if they were not directly accused as country of origin. But as the cucumber is attacked, it is probable that media in France needs to insist each time that problems come from Spanish cucumbers and not from French ones, referring to Spain as many times as needed.

As anecdotical evidence of how France was suffering with the attack to cucumbers, we show the cover page of French newspaper Libération the day after it was announced that cucumbers from Spain were not responsible for the E Coli outbreak. As we will explain below, the difference in media treatment and in reputational impact is that when the cucumbers were accused as responsible, Spain appeared as visible source in the newspapers, while when the accusation is denied, media explain that cucumbers are cleared, but they do not mention in the same extent that Spanish cucumbers are cleared.

Following figure shows the impact of the cucumber accusation in other countries in Europe with no reported cases by today. Minimum level is reached in Portugal (30%), and maximum implication to Spain is reached in Turkey (80%), Ireland (61%) and Romania (59%). In all these cases, the percentages are really high. Those countries, even if they probably refer negatively to Spanish cucumbers in a less passionate way, they are also very important for Spanish commercial interests, as Europe is the main market for agricultural exports from Spain.

Final two figures of this series show the impact of the references Spain in the framework of the German E Coli crisis in non European countries. All these countries see right now the crisis as a non direct health problem in the short term.

References to Spain in US newspapers reach a share of 44% of all news about the E Coli crisis. References to Spain in Latin American countries are higher than international average, moving around the 70% ratio. Cultural linkages to Spain show that the ongoing crisis in Europe is portrayed in many American countries under the view of the problems that Spain is facing.

References to Spain are also consistently high in countries from Asia and Oceania. They range between 40% to 55%, with peaks of some 70% in Malaysia and the Philippines.

The overall picture from the last four figures show us that the accused cucumbers from Spain have been one of the main news content driver for explaining the German E Coli outbreak by local media, not only in the most directly affected countries in Europe. In fact, in countries outside Europe the references to Spain are even higher and are present in a majority of news about the health crisis. It can be argued that negative news about Spanish perishable products are not that relevant for the Spanish agriculture insdustry, as distance make them no relevant commercial partners. But in any case, the tarnished image about the quality and the security of the products from Spain will move to other Spanish products and brand country for many minds.

Spanish cucumbers as responsible in newspapers from Germany

We have shown in the first figure about the impact of the wrong allegations against Spanish products that media in Germany published some 7.000 different articles mentioning Spanish products as source of the health crisis. This is some 28% of all news abouth E Coli in Germany. In many countries the degree of presence is even higher, but it is clear that German being the epicentre of the epidemy, media coverage is massive there and many issues are covered in the news.

German newspapers play a key role in this reputation crisis affecting Spain. German public opinion was shocked by the rise of the number of affected people without understanding the origin of this crisis. Finding the source of the infection is vital for restoring public opinion serenity. If preliminary results indicate that the source of the epidemy can come from abroad instead of being produced by local vegetables, it can be expected that media privileges and provides a lot of media attention to foreign responsible food. This information offers relief and confidence concerning local agricultural products and exacerbate anger against exported food.

We show now an example of how different newspapers in Germany have used more profusely the option “cucumbers from Spain are causing our problems”.

Next table show the example of some selected newspapers. First data column shows the total number of different articles referring to E Coli crisis (labeled as EHEC in Germany). Second column shows the percentage of all articles that also mention explicitly Spain. Third column shows the percentage of all news mentioning the cucumbers as source of the crisis.

The leading German international media reference is probably Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. We have identified 57 different articles about the E Coli crisis. In 44% cases they also mention Spain, and in 56% they refer to cucumbers. Die Welt mentions Spain in 34% news, Handelsblatt in 16% cases and Der Spiegel in 51%.

We show again the example of tabloid Bild as example of how the epidemy crisis is treated by presenting the cover pages since cucmbers from Spain were accused as responsible for the infection.

We indicate with a green arrow the days were the Coli crisis appeared as main cover news. First cover is 27 May, when Spain is directly accused (with no ambiguity). Edition by 30 May suggest that the source could come from Africa. We have marked with a circle the day after labs cleared cucumbers from Spain as source of Hamburg outbreak. In this case, no mention at all is made about Spain. Last cover page corresponds to the next formal accusation by German authorioties that the source may be soybean sprouts. This time the the suspected vegetables are locally produced in Germany, in a farm some 80 kilometers away from Hamburg. Now, the title chosen by Bild is: “Pathways to killer-bacteria. Was it contaminated sprouts?” Compare this title as question with no reference to German origin to the previous suspect: “Killer germ comes from Spain!”.

Where do the news come from?

We have provided some information about the source of the news with the figures that showed the share of news about E Coli that also mentionned Spain, by countries. We provided there the information about how many news where published in each country.

We show now the aggregate information in the following figure. As mentioned, some 25.000 different press articles referred to Spain when covering the E Coli crisis.

The distribution goeas as follows: some 33% of all worlwide news were published by German newspapers. This is the country at the origin of the health crisis and suffers 95% of all registered cases. The accusation to Spanish cucumbers came from local German authorities and as we have explained and showed, it was expected that the degree of public anxiety would be translated into a massive media coverage of the allegations again Spanish products.

Second country by number of news references is Spain, the affected coutnerpart. It has produced 21% of all news. Many of them were also accusatory, as during six days the cucumbers were presumed to be the responsible of the outbreak.

Media from countries affected directly by E Coli outbreak because they count with reported cases represent 14% of all news. Media coverage from these countries is expected to be also negative for Spanish image and interests, as public opinion share the anxiety about the causes of the outbreak.

Our results indicate that some 78% about the E coli crisis accusing Spanish products come from media based in Europe. United States and Canada published some 15% of all news and the remaining 7% comes from Latin America, Asia and Australia. This information tells us that at this stage the German E Coli outbreak is perceived as an European health alert, and not yet a global alert attecting media attention all over the world. By 8 June, only 4 cases where identified in the USA, out of 2747 registered cases.

In terms of impact for the reputation of Spanish products this European profile of the crisis is not specialy beneficial. Main negative image media coverage comes from Europe, and it is precisely European markets that buy Spanish cucumbers and all other fresh vegetables.

In the previous figure we showed world distribution of news about E Coli referring to Spain. Now we compare this information agains the world distribution of news about E Coli mentioning Germany.

The figure shows that media in Germany provide a wider relative number of news mentioning Spain in the E Coli crisis than those mentioning Germany. In Spanish media the share is similar: they write about the source of the problem, Germany, as well as the consequences for Spain. In media from countries affected by infected people, they provide more room to Germany than to Spain.

The whole picture shows how intense has been in Germany the identification of Spain as source of their health crisis. And Germany if the first market for Spanish agricultural products, with a 25% market share.

Just as term of comparison, we add a figure where we include the relative distribution by regions of all news related with the e Coli crisis, in comparison to those mentioning either Germany or Spain.

How much is 25,000 news accusing cucumbers from Spain?

We have shown in our analysis how the accusation by German authorities against cucumbers from Spain as source of the outbreak has had a huge impact inside the E Coli media coverage, as Spain is the second country most mentioned in relation with the crisis after Germany, while Spain only counted with one reported case.

Using our techniques we have identified some 25,000 different news articles referring to the Spanish cucumbers all over the world. We have shown also the share of total news about the crisis directly mentioning Spain, which ranges between 20% and 80%.

All this raises a directly related question: How harmful is this negative media campaign for Spanish farmers? How massive is really for media perceptio about Spain?

The way used by some media consulting firms is to translate the media coverage received in terms of millions of euros that an equivalent advertising campaign should cost. This figure will probably come soon.

Another alternative way that we propose to show the extent of the reputation damages is to comapre the media impact of this current crisis against the media impact of some previous events. As the mission of Media, Reputation and Intangibles center MRI Universidad de Navarra is to monitor media coverage and treatment of relevant events, we count with a number of terms of comparison. We have shown a number of these analysis in previous post of this blog.

We propose in this post to compare the magnitude of the negative media coverage caused by E Coli crisis to Spain against the positive media impact produced by recent events.

First comparison is the media impact of Spanish cucumbers against the media coverage given to the UEFA Champions league title recently won by FC Barcelona against Manchester United.

Scoording to our results, global media coverage of the E Coli cucumbers from Spain has been 60% higher than the news after the FC Barcelona victory.

We propose a visual analysis of the relative media attention given to both events by countries in Europe.

We have identified four groups of countries. First, countries were news published about the cucumbers form Spain double or more the number of articles about FC Barcelona success. They are red contour countries. Leading country in this group is Germany, with a value 3.1. Number of news about E Coli cucumbers of Spain triple news about FC Barcelona success. Second contry most sensitive is Russia, with a value 2.6: Russia banned fresh vegetable products from Russia. Austria and Bulgaria are also in this group.

The second group contains countries where media coverage about Spanish cucumbers is higher than news about the Champioons League final, but less than twice. Interestingly enough, Spain is in this group. It also includes other affected countries by the crisis or German neighbours like Sweden, Switzerland or Poland.

Thier and fourth group of countries are those that have covered more widely the UEFA Champions league final than the accusation to cucumbers from Spain. If we compare the results of this map with the one showing the countries mentioned in news about E Coli we find that they overlap with countries lowly related to E Coli. Italy, France, Britain, Portugal and Norway published at least twice the nuber of news about FC Barcelona success in comparison to mentions to actual health crisis and Spanish linkage.

Next map shows the same analysis applied to some selected countries outside Europe. We have shown that up to now the German health crisis is mainly an European oriented issues, as almost 80% of all news about e Coli outbreak come from media located in countries from Europe.

Media interest in countries from America and Asia is lower. It could also be expected that the media coverage to UEFA Champions league is lower also in many countries, as this is a football competition played solely by teams from European countries, even if they count with football players from countries outside Europe, mainly from South America and from Africa.

Lower media attention to both E Coli crisis and FC Barcelona success makes unsure the final result concerning the relative impact of each event.

Our media monitoring shows that apparently China is following E Coli crisis more profusely than the football competition. This is also for the Philippines. Other countries in group 2, providing more media attention to E Coli are United States and Canada. In all these cases local football tradition is poor and local media fllow more intensivelly other sport competitions.

In the other side, there are some countries that deserved much more media attention to FC Barcelona winning than to present German outbreak. There are some countries that published more than twice the number of news about FC Barcelona than to e Coli. This is mainly Latin America countries: Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Peru. This finding is interesting as we observed that countries from latin America where also those showing a higher ratio in the world of mentions to Spain when covering the E Coli crisis. Clearly E Coli crisis is capturing just minor media attention in these countries.

Our results indicate that in other countries like India, New Zealand and Australia the media coverage to e Coli is lower than UEFA Champions league, even if the range among countries with low football tradition.

To close the analysis about how relevant is the media coverage given to the attacks to cucumbers from Spain, we compare now media coverage to this issue against media coverage provided to other recent relevant events in Spain, in terms of media impact.

We will compare the extent given to news about cucumbers from Spain in the e Coli crisis:

versus the media coverage given to the following events related to Spain:

1. FC Barcelona UEFA Champions league title won to Manchester United (May 2011)

2. Rafa Nadal wins Roland Garros 2011 (June 2011)

3. Flamenco declared intangible heritage of Humanity

4. Golf champion Seve Ballesteros dies (May 2011)

5. Pope Benedict XVI dedicates Gaudi Sagrada Familia in Barcelona (November 2010)

6. Alberto Contdor wins Giro d’Italia 2011 (May 2011)

7. International Film Festival San Sebastián (November 2010)

8. ETA announces permanent ceasefire.

9. Movimiento 15-M emerge during Spanish local and regional elections (May 2011).

Now we show media coverage given to each single event, by relevant countries and regions. The aim of this exercice is not to analyze the media power of each event, but to show the place given to the current E Coli outbreak.

Value 100 in each table corresponds to media coverage received by the average of all events monitored, excluding the E Coli episode.

First table shows media coverage given by Spanish newspapers. Media coverage given to cucumbers in the E Coli crisis is the second event most followed by the media, right after the coverage given to Movimiento 15-M.

Second example is media views from German newspapers to Spanish related events. The conclusions emerging from the results are clear: current health crisis outpaces all previuos event in terms of media attention. Spanish cucumbers take a value 1,500. Second event most published in German newspapers is FC Barcelona success, but at a long distance, as it takes value 470. Third event most followed is the visit to German Pope Benedict XVI to Barcelona, but it takes a value of 113 points. It means that German media coverage to Spanish cucumbers are some 13 times higher than the news about the Sagrada Familia consecration.

We have at MRI Universidad de Navarra the data about the media impact of events monitoring newspapers from almost every country in the world. We present the results of another country, to be used as term of comparison with the behaviour followed by the media directly affected by the Spanish cucumber crisis (media from Spain and Germany). We have selected United States as it is a powerful market in terms of media impact, and has not been directly concerned by the E Coli crisis.

Our results show that this current crisis is the single event most widely covered by the media in the United States. It takes a value 350. Second event is the coverage of Rafa Nadal participation in Roland Garros in all stages of the competition. Third event are FC Barcelona Champions League and the coverage of Seve Ballesteros death.

This result is an indication on how harmful is the current crisis for the commercial interests of Spanish farmers oriented to exports in Europe.

The final figure shows a global result with the media coverage worldwide to each event, but excluding news from Spanish newspapers.

We find again that the recent event with the highest media impact is the accusation to Spanish cucumbers of being responsible for the German E Coli outbreak. It takes value 330. Second event is FC Barcelona success. Third event is Rafa Nadal at Roland Garros 2011. But if we consider only the media coverage of the winning game against Roger Federer it dropts to fourth place, with a value 110.

Providing comparative analysis offers a better view of the extent of the harmful impact of this present crisis in the international trust and reputation of Spanish produced vegetables. There are some media consulting firms that propose to directly translate media impact into economic impact. The idea is that media impact is the equivalent to an advertising campaing, but for free. Consulting firms monetize media exposure in equivalent euros that should be paid to newspapers to get this space. This approach is highly questionable in scientific and practical terms, as the conexion between media exposure and “free advertising campaign” or willingness to pay is far from direct.

In the framework of the present crisis, translating media impact into economic impact would reflect the cost of an advertising campaign denigrating cucumbers from Spain.

bearing in mind that we at MRI Universidad de Navarra consider that it is not correct to translate directly media impact into economic impact, we want to show nevertheless an illustration of the estimation of the economic impact of an event included in the list shown, in order to provide a comparison with the impact of the attack to Spanish cucumbers.

Kantar Media tracks media impact. It is part of Kantar Group, a market research company. They have published a report about the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Spain and Sagrada Familia in November 2010.

According to their results, they have identified some 6,000 news about the event (3,567 in newspapers, 1,269 in TV and 1,190 in TV). Kantar estimates that this media exposure is equivalent to 66.5 million euros, the amount that would be needed to spend in advertising “to promote the places visited by the Pope and obtain a similar media impact” (Kantar Media Press Release 11 November 2011).

Kantar Media says that Pope’s visit had an advertising impact of some 66 million euros. Now, if we compare media impact of both events, our data indicate that the negative reputation media impact of the E Coli crisis on Spanish cucumbers has had a global media impact (including news from Spain in both cases) thatis 3.5 times higher. If we consider only international news (excluding news from Spanish newspapers), the media impact of references to Spanish cucumbers is 6.8 times higher than references to Pope visit to Spain.

10 June 2011: End of official warning against the consumption of cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce.

As explained in the beginning of this post, German Federal authorities launched an alert by 26 May suggesting not to consume raw tomatoes, cucumbers and green salads.

By 10 June 2011, a joint statement issued by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), the German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) and Robert Koch Institute (RKI) “recommend abstaining from eating raw sprouts”. They also “jointly conclude that the current general recommendation to abstain from eating cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce in northern parts of Germany does not need to be upheld” (Joint Press Release by German Authorities about EHEC, 10 June 2011)

This official press release officially discard cucumbers as source of the current E Coli outbreak. Other food sources are now strongly suspected to be the origin of the infection: bean sprouts.

Hamburg Senate has published also a press release announcing that alert againts cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce has been dropped. Once again, there is no mention at all to previous formal accusation by their authorities against Spanish cucumbers. No mention at all is meda to Spanish products (Hamburg Senate Press Release, 10 June 2011)

Now the German outbreak is officially linked to German cultivated sprouts. Cucumbers are completely cleared, as well as tomatoes and lettuce.

The crucial question for farmers is to which extent this severe health food crisis will be linked in public opinion minds to sprouts or to cucumbers.

Media coverage plays a major role in creating and modifying image and reputation. Up to this point, cucumbers from Spain have received a massive and global media coverage creating an extreme negative perception.

It has to be proven by the facts that this crisis will be linked by the media and the people to German sprouts instead than to Spanish cucumbers. This requires to measure German and global media coverage to bean sprouts in comparion to media coverage given to ccucumbers. It requires also to measure the media coverage given from now on to cucumbers as being not responsible of the crisis, and compare it to previous negative media exposure. It finally requires to check in the short term and in the mid term the actual degree of trust shown by German and other European consumers towards cucumbers and other vegetables from Spain. We will monitor all these issues at MRI Universidad de Navarra.

The idendification of soja srpouts as source of the outbreak opens a new reputation crisis. This will affect all sprout producers, as now the accusation is formal and apparently scienfically supported.

This new crisis will probably seirously affect the reputation of organic food, as guilty sprouts came from an organic farm. This new crisis will reopen the debate between organic food defenders and genetically modified crops advocates. Media coverage of this current crisis will play probably again a major role. This issue will probably be the subject of a future post in this post.

REPUTATION METRICS

Media, Reputation, Intangibles, Brands, Crisis. Based in media and social media impact and content analysis. By Francesc Pujol. A Blog of Media, Reputation and Intangibles center MRI Universidad de Navarra

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