 Thank you for being here and welcome to our session on effective global communications during an emergency My name is Catherine Brock. I'm the director of the division of preparedness and response in the office of nuclear security and incident response here at the NRC So I'll begin with a few logistics that you're probably already comfortable with at this point The format of our session is going to be each speaker will speak for around 10 minutes and then at the end we will take questions and so you can use the The QR code if you can put that up, please You can use the QR code and I think online you also have an opportunity to enter some questions So we'll get those ready and loaded up so that when it's time. We'll have lots of good conversation and questions So continuing with the session Geopolitical events are changing and communication is changing We need to be ready faster than ever to provide information to decision makers and to the public using modern communication methods With us today. We have Practitioners of communications who have experienced communicating with the public from a variety of vantage points We have Peter Kaiser from the International Atomic Energy Agency He's going to talk with us about sense-making when communicating during a crisis David Castleveter from the NRC's Office of Public Affairs our director We'll talk about the fundamentals in communication and public trust Benjamin Weiss is a reporter he comes to us from the courthouse news service And he's going to talk to us about his experiences in getting accurate messages to the public Catherine Higley is from Oregon State University She's a professor and certified health physicist and she'll talk with us about her experiences in competing in communicating tough scientific issues with the public a Nashka Moncosa from the National Atomic Energy Agency in Poland and Roman Holanka from the state nuclear regulatory inspectorate of Ukraine are here to talk with us about the challenges of Public communications while under the aggression of the Russian Federation in Ukraine We hope that through these presentations will all have a better appreciation of the communication Complexities and how to apply the right tools at the right time for the right audience So we'll start the session with Peter Thanks, Kathy, and thank you for having me today, I just wanted to give you some idea of a tool a method that Thank you a Tool or a method that I think might be very useful for all of us who are involved in public communication When dealing with a crisis like the one that we are dealing with in Ukraine So it is called sense-making and as you might have heard yesterday from the director general's remarks the IA director general Grosy was saying that This is not business as usual for anyone who's involved with it the IAEA has field teams right now at all Five of the Ukrainian nuclear power plants the incident and emergency center where I work We are in continuous operation and We maintain frequent contact with our Ukrainian colleagues just to be certain that we can provide the public with accurate and up-to-date information and That's the goal. That was what the director general was talking about is that we cannot communicate as experts We have to communicate empathetically and in plain language Frequently so that we can provide information that people will Believe is trustworthy and it must remain as the director general said laser precise so to do that I just wanted to show you a methodology called sense-making that's been around for a while it's a relatively simple mental framework and it builds team Resilience because of course we all communicate with subject matter experts with our management And it also builds public trust because it can deliver the messages that respond to the public's real needs Now the response to the Ukraine crisis is like many other crises that public communicators face It is characterized by a lot of confusion in the beginning an Absolute scarcity of quality information and at the same time a great deal of uncertainty among the experts about what's going to happen next and Despite those challenges we public communicators still have to give the public the information They need to be able to make informed choices about their own safety Now the photo you see here is a typical situation for public communicators I've taken this from the Twitter channel of the California governor's office of emergency services It shows communicators and something called a joint information center So these are people communicators who are from different California state agencies responding to last year's wildfires and they come from Public health police transportation emergency medical services forest fire death services and Other services together and the reason why they're sitting in one room Looking at social media monitoring looking at live TV reporting is to be able to develop a common understanding of the situation That's sense-making in let's say practical terms The photo you see here was taken It's called the fish pond. It's near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant during that Accident and after that accident emergency responders around the world changed their emergency public communication Processes we published a safety standard on it and the reason why I'm showing you that photo is just to make you aware of the Let's say the technical background necessary to be able to respond to a nuclear radiological emergency It it's very very difficult as we were discussing earlier amongst the colleagues here to deliver that information Understandably and as Roman best knows of the panel here We are also continually updating our procedures to be able to deal with the current situation In Ukraine and the question that people have for me, which is why I'm always looking for new protocols promising protocols Member states asked me how do we adapt? How can we be confident that the way we change our tools is going to work? And I want to show you something down at the bottom of the screen you can barely see it as a link to an article from a Professor at the Netherlands Defense Academy in 2019 his name is JP Kalkman in 2019 He did a series of experiments where he simulated with public communicators in exercises terrorist attacks And he wanted to find out how do they cope what works and what doesn't and what he did find out Which is quite useful is that we actually only have to answer three questions as a team to be able to improve our Collaboration and productivity Significantly they're going to go through those three questions really fast The first one's pretty obvious. What's what's happening? The second one is who am I which is a pretty strange question and the third one is how do my actions matter? And the reason why these questions need to be continually asked is because you're going to be Responding to emergencies with a diverse team of Different disciplines from different agencies with let's say different cultural Expectations and therefore you have to find a way to respond to a really dynamic situation in a very very coherent and Understandable predictable way So if you don't ask those questions, you simply don't know what the answers are or you're assuming that the answer is one That you like and it may not be in which case you have to enter into dialogue Which is why these three questions are the critical questions Let's apply this to the way that the IAEA has adapted itself to be able to respond to the ongoing threats to nuclear safety in a Ukraine as a result of the war So here you see in a graphic compressed into the simplest possible terms the types of Events that have taken place that have threatened nuclear safety there over the past year actually more and you Can see that all five nuclear power plants have been affected in some way as you well know and different types of Events have taken place everything from occupation to missile overflights each one of these events as our colleagues from Ukraine Report them to us and as our teams report them to us cause an event In our own communication. We have to find a way to deal with it We have to find out what's happening and at the very beginning We go back to the 24th of February last year and certainly when we go back to the 3rd of March last year when Zaporizhia was occupied Under armed attack We had to adapt our processes Overnight to be able to manage One of the inevitabilities of a crisis and that is what you're hoping will work doesn't work in other words The Ukrainian regulator's website was no longer accessible and the website of the operator was no longer accessible So that we didn't have that source of information. We just had the telephone and telegram which is a social media Platform that some of you may know and so we overnight created a Process to be able to monitor social media not just telegram 24-7 we have on-call Staff members who are fluent in Ukrainian so that we can be able to keep up to date That was the first let's say major adaptation that The war brought the next one next question I should say is who are we in this crisis? That's very easy for us in the incident emergency center to answer that question is answered for us by two emergency conventions and a number of resolutions taken by the IA's General Conference so we know what we need to do and we exercise it on a regular basis the picture you see there shows an emergency response manager and the DG's advisor for nuclear safety discussing valuable about a Emergency exercise which was going on in October 2021. It was a global nuclear emergency exercise So in this case, we didn't need to adapt We just needed to make sure that we delivered within the mandates we were given But it was the third question that I think Has the most dramatic results for us is that we were asking ourselves if we follow the procedures We normally follow given the unprecedented nature of the breaches of say nuclear safety in Ukraine Will we be able to deliver on our mandate if we do the same old thing and we didn't the director general and you Heard him yesterday. He wanted to have a communication with the public and with stakeholders that really would be easily Understandable and so he created his own format the director general's update. We've issued about 150 updates since The war began that was on the simple side But internally to create the updates and this is the reason why I'm showing this to you is that these three questions can lead To some significant internal Cultural shifts so here you see in a diagram the Very linear linear step-by-step thorough Voting process for public messaging during an emergency it starts with a public information officer It moves to the emergency response manager who's actually running the incident and the incident Operation center then it moves on to various directors a deputy director general and then the director general himself Then on to the member's date then it comes back to the emergency response manager if every one of those steps is taken Diligently and within the time frame. That's a two-hour Process and we just didn't have the time and more importantly the situation was evolving so quickly that if in the process Something changed you needed to change that update if you needed to change the update the whole process would have to be Restarted again, you'd be investing another two hours So this was the cultural shift now. We're dealing with Classic sense-making classic sense-making means that we are all together Involved in the communication We're not in separate silos or bubbles and we can see what the others are thinking and what the others are concerned about So here you have the director general management the spokesperson Social media team and all the subject matter experts that are relevant for a particular update on a particular It's a safe safety event They can see what's being developed. We share everything via email Everybody can jump in when they need to to provide Input and it's a much faster much more durable process and also one that can adapt very quickly And this is the reason why I want to show it to you is that sense-making will require some cultural shifts But it won't require an investment in equipment. It won't require an investment in training It will just simply require the willingness to bring everybody around the same table. You will Gain productivity. You'll gain resilience and you'll gain agility Through this it may not be appropriate for every kind of emergency response And there's one kind of response for which I would certainly suggest we should be cautious And that is the very initial 15 to 20 minutes of a response there You should follow the procedures as written as quickly as possible But as events evolve as this picture shows that's from the night of the 3rd to the 4th of March 2022 you can be swiftly overwhelmed by events and a Number of disciplines need to come together quickly to be able to develop the kind of communication that would help the public understand Safety hazards and also to support your team in understanding The event so I just wanted to put this on the table as a possible tool We're going to try to put it into our guidance, and I just wanted to with this just to introduce it to you. Thank you Thank You Peter David Thanks, Kathy. I Want to first thank you Kathy. It was your idea to have this panel and I and I think it was a brilliant idea And your staff who has worked very hard on this as you can see My colleagues came a very long distance to be here not from other not just other countries Catherine from Oregon And and they felt it important enough to be at at an NRC regulatory information conference So a warm thank you to all for that and Peter You've been a friend for quite some time and well you don't work for the NRC you and the IAE have really been instrumental in Helping pull this group together. So a very warm thanks to you as well You'll be happy to know that while I have a written script. I don't follow it. I never do I won't be reading to you and you'll regret that because I will go off on a Tangent at some point in my staff who's here in the room when I get back to the office will rip Madly into me and say why did you say that? It's just the way I am but I I tell you that because one of the Importances of what we do requires flexibility agility Resilience and over the course of the last couple of days I was listening to the presentation and the buzzwords that have been using that have been used and how they apply to us I was thinking and I had recently been in Abu Dhabi and then not long ago at the IAA IAEA ministerial and we talk a lot about climate change and we talk about building trust and to overuse and over Use term I've heard so many times over the last day and a half that we're facing challenging times And I started to think to myself. What does that mean the challenging time is as I was combining What others have been saying and as Peter mentioned the war in Ukraine has created new challenges not just for the nuclear industry, but us as communicators Issues related to climate change Have created challenging times because there's there seems to be a renewed interest I won't call it a renaissance, but there seems to be a renewed interest in nuclear energy That's challenging times But and and again building trust in the communities through how we communicate continues to be the most Perplexing part of all of this to me We were having a sidebar conversation Catherine and Peter and I before this session started And we were listening to the various panelists talk about how will you convince the public to trust you and You know during a media session yesterday when the reporters said how how nice it is That you know you're establishing all of these practices and procedures To gain the public trust, but how are you going to get the public to trust what you're doing and You know, it took a little bit of thinking to be able to address the question And then as we chatted this morning, we said to ourselves. Well, it really is a challenge For us to say how can we optimize or maximize the work that we do to build that public trust so then it translated to me to The challenges we as communicators face and I'm going to rewind way back to when I was a youngster And you can tell by the lack of hair and the gray hair I've been on earth quite a while But I was thinking about when I first became a journalist and when I first worked in public relations I typed press releases on an old Selectric typewriter and to make copies I had carbon copy and at one point there was something called a mimeograph so then you can make multiple copies and then you Addressed envelopes and you put your press release in the envelope and then if it was going to be a news item that was Untimely you had to find ways to get it to the media who had interest in it And then you would hand the liver it to the Reporters that were in your area because it all had to be nicely Coordinated, but we didn't have technology. We didn't have email And then when email came along we started emailing, you know press releases up and then came this beast called social media And I remember when social media was introduced Experts were saying this is going to challenge all of us because there are no laws There are no rules that govern what is valid or invalid information using social media It hasn't been tested, you know the laws of malice the laws of That protect people from from liable liable didn't apply You know journalists who used to be credentialed journalists were no longer Credentialed because they either had a blog or they had a some sort of a social media account And they put information out there and then you had to start saying to yourself as communicators How can I use that tool to my best interest? And how can I be aware of the information that is out there on social media that might be misinformation or Disinformation and you know, there's a uniqueness between misinformation and disinformation For my colleagues from across the pond they look at football different than we do but Some of you might remember it wasn't that long ago that during a National football league game a player for the Buffalo Bills hit Had a great defensive play and he hit an offensive runner and he fell to the ground and he got up And within seconds he fell to the ground and for the first time ever in American football He had to go through he went through resuscitation his heart stopped twice they they put the defibrillator on him and then they carted him off the field and You know praise be he lived that young man was from my hometown and members friends of the family But I tell you that because for two and a half hours maybe three hours Nobody had any idea what was happening the National Football League made no announcements The teams made no announcements the public address Announcers made no announcements and all of the information that the announcers were giving about this football player was coming from social media Players on the field that were tweeting Other people in the stands that were saying this is what I'm seeing with some what I'm feeling and and the interesting part to me was the Those sports casters had to determine how much of this was legitimate how much of it was worth Speaking to and how much was it worth dismissing whether it was misinformation or disinformation I realized again that social media is a beast that is is our friend, but at many times It's it's our enemy We have to figure out today differently than when I was a youngster how to how to use that and I know my staff oftentimes gets tired of me saying this but You know our communications is not that long ago when news releases and interactions with the media today I think that traditional news releases and Ben can attest to this as a reporter are still looked at as valuable communications tools But it's complemented social media is is That it complements the social media that we put out when we were doing our emergency Exercises our exercises were basically news releases and then we tweet it So we finally as a group said you know if we're gonna build public trust if we're gonna get information out there And we're gonna get it out there quickly we have to start using social media and and we and we have to put snippets of information out there so that we're Continually reminding the public that we know what's going on We're in charge and the actions that we're taking and then the more detailed communications related to that emergency communications What would then be the news releases and I'm not a proponent of putting things out for the sake of Putting them out, but you have to be visible part of the sidebar conversation We were having earlier was that if you're not out there and you're not out there quickly You leave yourself to other people to comment and that's those bloggers And that's those people who claim to be experts because the media are looking for people who are talking heads And if we're not out there allaying the fears of the public by what we know Then what's happening is other people are driving the narrative and we're playing defense to use a sports term and and not offense So so our focus is to get out there to get out there quickly You know to make sure that we're communicating the message that we want to communicate relative to what the event is and Kathy was very kind to accept the recommendation that I had and that was To treat this panel is not just Emergencies or crisis but both because I think as everybody know Every emergency isn't a crisis right every crisis is an emergency and we looked at and we continually look at crisis is is a some sort of a radiological Dismersed but the history for us is there hasn't been anything in the United States since three mile island So we use as a backdrop Fukushima in Chernobyl Well now we have Ukraine and we have Zafron Asia to use as a baseline for some of the work that that we do But I'm also reminded that there are other emergencies that affect us and and we have those emergencies under control but the public doesn't necessarily understand or believe and Specifics or hurricanes Flooding events extreme weather events hot heat, you know Cold weather and the public wants to know are they safe when these events happen? So well we look at crisis we can't ignore Emergencies and we do train and we turn when we train we actually are Exercisers are mostly emergency driven and not crisis driven as some sort of a you know a radiological release but not to the level of a crisis if you you want to characterize it that way so We train we do and I'm going to go over some of the fundamentals and I asked that you just indulge me But it's like if anybody plays the game of golf. There's something called muscle memory You know at some point your muscles tell you what to do You don't have to think too much about it because you practice and that's the the philosophy that we take at the NRC Practices you're going to play and we practice and we practice and we practice and we train and we train and we train Sometimes we over practice we over train in my view You can never over practice or over train and we do a whole lot of it And we've been adapting our training to include our regional offices But one point it would be a headquarters emergency or it would be a regional emergency and now we've integrated that training into a Combination of the headquarters and and the regional staff. We're incorporating tabletop exercises more into or will be tabletop exercises more into our emergency preparedness and and you know that is that is critical to us because Again, if you don't practice as you play you kind of forget and you don't have to go through the full-blown Exercise when you're doing a tabletop, but it keeps you fresh it keeps you On top of what you need to do and it helps you adapt The other thing that we're looking at and and I learned this from the IAEA And I feel badly that I took me so long to figure it out is our community our Communications for emergency preparedness of social media. It is news releases. It is the old-fashioned You know have a media briefing we're using bridge lines or today teams But I learned from D.G. Grossi that you guys quite effectively during you the Ukrainians and it's used Streaming of news Conferences, so the media did not need to come on-site. You know it was hybrid like that this event is so our staff is Working very hard at trying to find ways for us to effectively Get to all of the audiences that have a Concern over a potential emergency and that does in fact include some sort of hybrid event or or Livestreaming so I'm going to to wrap up by just going and let me address real quickly then There's a debate going on as to who the public is and in my eyes the public are all I say my aunt Evelyn because if my aunt Evelyn doesn't understand it Nobody understands it. You know she I have to communicate with her at the lowest level So how do I get to my aunt let and Evelyn in part through the media? But they're reporting based upon how they feel the need to report so we're now debating How do we get to the public? Do we get to the public only through the media or do we have other? Mechanisms when there is emergency to get to the public Some of you might remember some time ago a US Airplane went on Having left LaGuardia Airport. It's the movie that Tom Hanks made about Captain Sullenberger I used to work for that airline and I knew I spent 27 years there and I knew Captain Sullenberger And when the airplane went down, I immediately fired off a message to the chairman I wasn't the airline any longer and I said get out there and he said I don't have anything to say and I said the hell You don't you get out there right now and say we have an airplane that landed on the Hudson And you don't have to speculate and say I'm on my way to New York to deal with it So he did it and he got on a plane and he flew to New York But MSNBC had somebody on the sideline On the shoreline that was tweeting everything that happened, you know the airplane was floating The wing was tipping people were stepping out of the fuselage there and the images you all saw about that The airline took so long to tell the people what happened these guys were driving the narrative And they had to play a lot of defense and luckily for them nobody died as a result of you know That smart decision by by captain Sullenberger. So I When I think about the media, I just have to say don't speculate But that doesn't mean you can't be out there giving updates based upon what you know I know it's it's kind of dismissive to call it trickling But if you can trickle information out there that keeps the information flowing Keeping the public aware that you're on it that there aren't these long gaps these long Pits of information where where you're relying on so-called experts, then you're going to be a lot more effective in In what you do so in summary for me be prepared be responsive Communicate communicate communicate I call it the three C's, but that's pretty simple I think a whole lot of people called the three C's don't overreact stay poised Show that you're calm understanding But also in controlled event I've heard it said so many times today, and I I still say we never practice what we preach communicate in plain language Everybody at NRC are engineers or lawyers and you know for us to translate what they want us to say in language That my aunt Evelyn will understand is is really you know something that we work hard on so please do You know consider making sure that your emergency plans are our plain language Keep people who are knowledgeable Trained and prepared to go out and speak on your behalf your public affairs people can't be your only spokespeople Subject matter experts need to be out there talking about the specifics of An emergency and then lastly learn from the last event Don't just say we had an event in and let's move on to what God forbid happens next learn from it hot wash Do after actions? Adjust be agile and then you know prepare your next action your next training based upon what you learn Thank you for your attention Thank you for the wise words now there is a reason why Ben came after David so that Ben could have the last word Media so please go for it. Well, I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to get the last word Hello everyone, my name is Ben Weiss I am a currently a reporter covering Congress for courthouse news service here in Washington But as of about a week and a half ago, I was covering the nuclear power industry for the exchange monitor So I was very much in the trenches with all of you in the industry. Just a few short weeks ago Thanks to Kathy and to 10 RC for organizing this today and for putting a reporter on the panel You probably will not regret it And thanks Dave for for everything you said I I always find our conversations outside off the record and outside of my reporting duties very Illuminating so you're just violating the belief that nothing's off the record Well, yeah, actually what I should say is Everything that I say today is my own opinion and I'm not they're not reflective of the opinions of my current or former employers So I'm just speaking as a practitioner of the media and and somebody who has been doing this for a little while So on that note, I've been asked today to give you the reporter's perspective on crisis communications So what that means is, you know, what we in the media need from federal agencies from the industry to inform the public during urgent developing events Um, I also imagined that I was asked to appear today because I am one of the few Gen Z years I think the only Gen Z are on this panel to my knowledge In the industry. So as the ambassador for zoomers today I'm gonna talk to you on particular about new media and social media And I so I was glad to hear a Peter and Dave talk a little bit about that Because I really do want to emphasize the role that social media plays in communicating with the public in particular communicating with the media but before I do that, I want to come up on my ivory tower a little bit and Explain what my work was like covering agencies like NRC and and nuclear power and The value that I think it brings to the broader conversation around nuclear power issues So, oh, also, I should mention I decided to go for go slide stay because a this base has been strategically placed in the way of the of the slide deck and also, you know, I'm I am Like many of you and end user of the information that is disseminated from from agencies like NRC and from the nuclear industry So I just felt like it was, you know, more personal to address the audience about about these issues So to go back to, you know, what I do as a reporter I think if I do some of my experience covering nuclear power with one verb It would be demystify. I don't think I'm overstepping my bounds By saying that the average person doesn't have what you might call an intimate knowledge of nuclear power issues Before I started reporting on the on the industry in early 2021, you know All I knew about nuclear power was, you know, the what I learned from the the HBO Chernobyl miniseries And I think that that's a pretty unique or not a unique experience for most people So, you know, as a reporter covering nuclear power. It is my job to Take the more obtuse parts of Of these issues. So, you know, how nuclear energy is regulated how the public is nominally protected from Radiation, how waste is handled. That was a big part of my beef And I have to boil those things down so that while I'm reporting the news I'm giving people the context that they need to fully understand what's going on. And so when things go wrong You know, people don't just need to know what's happening They need to understand how and why and so I consider that to be part of my job as a reporter That said I am in sort of unique position because over the last couple of years I worked for a trade publication. And so my audience was largely people who sort of understood the basics of Nuclear power issues a lot of reporters especially reporters who work local or Or national beats and don't cover nuclear power or even energy issues So so closely It's possible that they lose some of the context or You know important information that used to be disseminated to the public during a an emergency situation and During a crisis if you're not solid on the basis basics that can be a problem So I wanted to talk a little bit about where I think the industry and agencies can help with that and the big thing is is social media and I don't necessarily mean social media in a traditional sense in that I don't I don't view social media as being a Way to reach the general public although it certainly is you know, I was happy to see NRC joined Instagram a couple months ago I wrote about it when it happened and they've become quite frequent posters and I View their Instagram stories every time they're out and things like that I think are good for humanizing the agency and Getting people familiar with the kinds of work that people at the Commission do and and people in nuclear power space do But the reality is The number of Americans who use social media is actually deceptively low, right? The statistic is I think 20% of Americans say that they are Twitter users so, you know when when you're posting as As an agency or industry on Twitter, especially during a developing situation, you're actually not reaching as many people as You might be As it might appear that you are And so for me as a reporter I look at social media as a tool in my journalist toolkit You know sometimes and and actually like the Dave, you know Positioned social media as Complementary to press releases or to the public affairs office because sometimes as a reporter You know, you find it difficult to get in touch with the public affairs officer Although, you know, I'll say I really had that problem in our seat But you know, sometimes it's it's difficult to get in touch with a public affairs officer during a developing situation And so social media having, you know, a little red phone on my desk I don't know who's the US who's a Soviet Union in an analogy But having that direct line to the agencies is really really vital During a developing situation It's having that constant open line of communication helps me turn around and disseminate information To the public that isn't necessarily receiving it And I was thinking of recent examples of this and having been out of the industry now for a couple weeks have been focusing on so so many more Generalist subjects that it was sort of difficult to think back but in Late February there was a minor fire at the NSA is Y-12 complex. I know that that's Weapons complex stuff, but that was on my radar when it was happening You might have read about it in the exchange monitor the NSA and Y-12 separate Twitter accounts while that was happening were Pretty active throughout the day while that situation was developing and we're providing Constant updates and what I thought was particularly useful about that was that the agency's posts made Clear what the perceived threat was, you know, how much the public should be concerned and and provided some or provided that information that Made it easier for for people like me to turn it around and Describe what was going on. I made it easier for someone who is less familiar with, you know, what sort of work is done at Y-12 to understand exactly what the threat Threat profile was and how that could be how that can be framed for an audience of of generalists You know and yeah for a reporter that's that's that's valuable information as always room for improvement You know, it's my job to collect as much information as possible. So I always want to see Agency is provided as much information as they can as quickly as possible And and I think that for I like what Peter said about, you know, it just for agencies and for the industry that that demands a willingness to come to the table and Actually make the effort to make that happen I think that obviously there are some considerations in the way that get in the way National security issues proprietary information that sort of stuff is, you know as a reporter you sort of have to work around those things but You know, I think when it comes to keeping the media in public informed you should always strive for the most detailed possible The other thing obviously in addition to social media is a strong public affairs office Dave has attested to that. I think that's vital. I think an important facet of having a good Public affairs officer as a compliment to social media is someone who is happy to break down the minutiae of more complicated issues Like I said when I when I first got involved, you know, I knew very little I very very learned on the job and having a Public affairs officer a trustworthy public service officer you can go to and say, you know, can you clarify this rulemaking for me? I You know, I want to make sure that I get all my facts right having someone who's willing to break it down for you Is is useful for me as someone who was a specialist but even more so for a generalist who you know Doesn't work with these with these issues on a day-to-day basis I think it's also worth mentioning You know when reporters are covering an issue We're still reporters. We're still gonna ask questions open line of communication is useful in that context because You know, it gives us an avenue to be to be critical when things are developing to ask the the right sorts of questions to hold agencies and industry to account when things go wrong and You know, it's not necessarily the most fun Experience to have a reporter in your mention saying hey, can you you know? Shut a little bit more light on why something that's happened But it is vital for public accountability as a reporter. That's something that is is is crucial to me Yeah, so I mean hearing directly from an agency as situations is developing gives me as a reporter the tools that I need to ask pointed Inform questions about exactly what's happening and I've spent a lot of time talking about the agencies but I think that a lot of this stuff is applicable to To industry as well and you know in my experience sometimes industry Public affairs and communications has been a bit more opaque than than the agencies So I think that this is useful. I see it social media strategy and a political strategy is useful for for the industry as well, and I Agree with David's point that that These these sorts of strategies are not just Unique to developing a crisis situations A strong social media strategy is Important during you know times where not a lot is going on because you know as reporters who want to Keep an eye on the agencies and what they're doing having that having that little red phone is Remains valuable even when there's you know, not something urgent going on At the end of the day reporters covering nuclear power in any capacity have a pretty difficult task in front of them Especially if they lack fundamental knowledge of these issues But it's an important job it's important to demystify how the government industry are working on nuclear power issues for the public and Keeping them updated on how they're responding to crises or threats and nuclear safety and security I think that the industry and government should and does have an interest in accomplishing that goal and They can help facilitate it by leveraging that the media tools available to them and providing a constant clear stream of information Which reporters can turn around and provide to the public? I Will I'm not sure if I'm over time, but that's that's what I've got. So thanks for your time I've only really scratched service at service of this topic. I'm sure I'm sure everyone else will talk about today We could spend probably four hours talking about The the positives and negatives of using social media to communicate with the public and with reporters But so I'm looking forward to having a larger conversation with that and looking forward to your questions Thank you, Ben. Thanks for painting a picture of how we can all be partners in emergency communications Okay All right. Well, so I don't work for an agency I'm not in in the nuclear industry per se. I'm actually an academic. I'm not an engineer. I'm a scientist so it's a little bit of a a odd Position but I'm gonna I've been doing risk communication and I guess you'd call me a subject matter expert I'm a certified health physicist and I've been doing work in nuclear adjacent stuff for Almost 50 years now and and so I've finally gotten to the point in my life where I feel pretty comfortable Talking about this and I and I realize, you know, I sort of consider myself Maybe a science whisperer a little bit that I do research in a really really obscure field I mean health physics is obscure radio ecology is like even more obscure and And that involves looking at radioactive materials moving through the environment affecting people or ecosystems or non non-human living things and The work that I do 99.999 percent of the time Doesn't rise to the level of interest to most anyone until maybe something happens and then Agencies can't respond quickly enough or or feel constrained about what they can say and I'm an academic and academics are known for getting up and talking at length about just about anything and I am able to answer questions and I will you know I will qualify it and I will tell people what I know and what I don't know But I'm able to pick up a phone Sit for a zoom call or whatever and so that's made me over The years pretty available to folks to talk about a variety of subjects So this is kind of what I'm gonna be reflecting on but again the thing is, you know, the science that I do gets Sort of reflected through a number of different lenses from maybe if I'm lucky influencing policy in the government There's a political lens that can come to play with any of the things that I do particularly Ecology radio ecology and then also the media so Any little bit of work I do can wind up Knocking the microphone around or I use my hands a lot too so The major points that that I want to make when I'm reflecting on the issue of risk communication is that it's really a Two-way process academics are used to standing up in front of a group of people and Lecturing till the students in the back go to sleep and that's not really Effective when you're trying to talk to somebody who is is terrified and for people that are working with a radiological release It's an emergency whether to a regulator or not. It's an emergency to them. It's an emergency and you need to figure out a way to Communicate with them and get them the information that they need in order To to make an appropriate decision appropriate for for them under those circumstances So this is one of the things that I think it's important for for people to understand now again I'm I'm a health physicist. I teach this stuff at the university and You need to keep up on the science. I would have said, you know, 10 15 years ago. It was kind of I don't know the science seemed to be on autopilot not a lot going on Recently a lot of changes and it's really important as as a professor But also someone who communicates out to the general public to really understand where where the science is going and Because I'm an academic. I'm going to show you a couple of graphs just because I can't and then When you talk to the public at least again at least for me because I I reach out to communities that are impacted Maybe because of a cleanup that didn't quite go the way that people expected or Somebody found a radio-nuclide in an area that they didn't anticipate it You need you need to be able to to talk to folks and you know, if you're if you're helicoptered into a situation You know, you're you're an expert, but you're also viewed as not from that community and why should anybody trust you? And so one of the things that you need to do in these sorts of circumstances is bring your whole self to this Conversation so that people can see you as not just a tool of the man. That's a that's an old person's bit but as a as an honest to God Authentic individual that you can have a conversation with so you need to bring your experience to the to the discussion So communication is two-way and and one of the things that that bugs me Both as a scientist as a health physicist and I guess Thirdly in the risk communication is that often oftentimes people are nervous about having to make a statement To the public and so they have like their flashcards of radiation Factoids that they can you know quickly work through and okay. I'm gonna I've got a relevant factoid Bananas you get dose from eating bananas. Well, I Want to put a stake through the heart? Bananas don't have hearts and probably a stake wouldn't work But I want anybody who uses that as an analogy to just stop it because it's wrong For the for the science nerds in the audience, you know the dose from bananas is from potassium 40 Your body regulates potassium really really tightly So if you eat a banana for a little bit you have more potassium, but then your body goes I'm getting rid of the excess stuff out Someway we won't go into that so you know make sure if you're using examples that they're actually relevant and scientifically based Another thing is you know we tend to have these great graphics We talk about the pathways of exposure and we show how how people are potentially exposed from a release from a plant And I don't know if you guys can guys in the all-encompassing general sense I don't know if people in the audience can see this image in the middle but it shows sort of a generic facility releasing stuff going to some large trout-like thing and impacting a guy in a blue suit and That's probably not your target audience Right, so if you're if you're wanting to talk about release of radioactivity through the environment Impact impacting the general public Suit guy is probably not it so ask your graphics department to make something a little more Relevant to the population that you're going to be talking to so that so that again They see you as a person that actually is trying to understand their their circumstances and Another example is this radiation thermometer and again EPA uses it DOE uses it and It has different sources of radiation and what you might see on there is an example of The dose you get from a plane flight from Seattle to Washington DC Well, if you're talking to a community in Pikedin, Ohio Why on earth would they be on a plane from Seattle to DC? How is that relevant if it's a community that's pretty impoverished? plane flights may be a thing of Aspiration but not reality so again make sure your examples are appropriate to the community that you're addressing a Bit about the science So here's a graph that looks at you know radiation risk versus dose now Again for the science nerds in the background We've been studying radiation for for over a hundred years really serious Epidemiology has been going on since the atomic weapons detonation or a few years after and in Hiroshima and Nagasaki We've got a lot of data on the effects of radiation in the high dose range and We continue to follow different populations. There's a talk in another session later today I think that's going to touch on the million workers study and The thing is that you know, we have this information out in the high doses. We can put all sorts of different Mathematical models to explain that response And we typically are regulating down in the in the lower regions Now if you want to see two health physicists knock the living crap out of each other You can either advocate for the linear no threshold model or you can advocate for hormesis or a threshold and You know right now, it's a hot topic in health physics Meetings and people literally are yelling at each other about it But I think the important thing is you have to keep this in perspective, right? We have data on on doses above about 10,000 millaramp science is going to move our knowledge Again, I hit the mic. Sorry science is going to move our knowledge into lower dose regions But we're regulating occupational doses below the level where we see effects Public exposures and public regulations are way way way down in the weeds And so the big takeaway from this is that you know It doesn't really matter what mathematic model you use to predict risk down in this really low region It could be a threshold. It could be linear. It could be whatever the risk is low to nothing Down in the very low region where we regulate groundwater. We do cleanups We regulate emissions from a number of plants. So you need to keep this in in perspective When I say bring all your experience to the to the discussion, I absolutely mean that I've been working in this field For nearly 50 years from research reactors to power reactors to weapons cleanup to laboratory research But I also I'm an academic I educate students and I turn them loose on society God help you all but I'm a parent And I'm also I love being in the outdoors I'm a pet owner, you know or a pet parent depending on your inclination I'm also a cartoon character. I was so so when you go to talk to a community Don't just wear the one hat of I'm a regulator It's you're a person and try and relate to your the group that you're dealing with In all of these different facets of your of yourself So the final elevator pitch to this group is You know when you're communicating listen to your audience Never try never stop trying to communicate. It's really important be bullheaded be dogged Take that feedback try another approach understand your subject or Let somebody else talk about it and also be honest about what you know and what you don't know I really want you to try and avoid canned sound bites because it makes it look like you're phonated in And and try to be honest and authentic Don't take things personally you will get yelled at you will be called a tool of the man or what have you but Again, I I had teenagers I mean they're now out of that phase But I'm used to being yelled at and and really trying not to take it personally And finally don't be overly impressed with yourself because you're going to mess up at some point You're going to say something stupid and people are going to call you on it So you need to you need to take that into account as well So I just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity Kathy I very much appreciate being part of this panel and if anybody wants to get a hold of me there you go Oh, thank you Kathy. That was great tips. Thank you Aneshka, I'm ready for the poland experience. Thank you. So good afternoon. I'm Agnieszka I'm Angosa and I'm from Poland and I work as a spokesperson at the National Atomic Energy Agency of the Republic of Poland and So yeah today today we are talking about crisis communication But I want to focus on two main challenges that are important now and will be in the future as this week is For navigating the future. So let me tell you something about of course our crisis communication due to the war but also our Communications plan plans with reference to Polish Polish nuclear program But first let me introduce myself just a little bit not myself, but the agency. I'm sorry So we Are the Polish regulator that operates since 1982 so last year we turned 40 We supervised for nuclear facilities that are in Poland and present It is one research reactor in operation Where one research reactor the commission and two spent fewer storages We also supervise more than 7 000 activities that use ionizing radiation. We also run Radiation monitoring in Poland. So these are the main activities. There's no need to talk about the others and of course we are working on the basis of low and The atomic low also set the scope of our activities also in communication field But we are doing much more than the low requires from us And when it comes to the communication in crisis, of course, we need to respond when it comes to last year The war in ukraine, of course, I suppose that for many of you it was very intense very difficult Time to communicate especially if you are from regulator all over the world, but we can we can suppose that There is more precariousness. There is more Fear in the society and there are more questions also to the regulator when the war is just behind your border So this is This is an unprecedented situation the nuclear facilities in the heat of war and All this is happening So close to us When it comes to our crisis communication Due to the war we Have and still have we had had still have some main goals First of all thinking about the public about the polish people and seeing them sometimes Even put we fight We had we had many calls and from the people that were frightened and They were very unaware We decided to first of all inform them inform them about current radiation situation in poland And we use twitter It is very good tool for this kind of communication Because it gives you an opportunity to contact directly with some responders that are not only journalists The other thing we are doing with reference to this crisis is to Respond in emergencies and we try to react prompt It doesn't mean that we are chasing with journalists. We don't want to be the first We want to be the most accuracy and we inform public All only when we have a confirmation from the IAEA or our colleagues from atcenario By the way, thank you for our response to us so quickly and answering our emails in case of Emergencies when it comes to this kind of response, it is important what we are saying It's not worth to be quiet. It's worse. It's always worth to say something for instance It was at the beginning of march where Russian troops took over zaporizhia nuclear power plant And it was in the middle of the night that we received first notification from us ea And what we have done first we've decided to put a twitter It was a very short tweet, but it was in the middle of the night Or very early in the morning maybe four or five p.m Then within a couple of hours there was a press conference All together with the president of the paa and the ministry of climate and the environment and of course during This event there was an opportunity to provide public and the journalists with more information so We tried to steady inform the public about what's going on and what does it mean And we also Publish announcements with reference to emergencies in ukraine. We try to use plain language It is yeah, what you are Saying it is very important to say By plain by polite language don't use jargon. Don't be so technical because What we want is To understand to be understand by the public So it is very important to speak in a play plain language And another thing we are doing within this crisis Communication is to fight fake news and Struggle with disinformation For instance, there were many fake news about radiation clouds that Is moving towards poland and maybe harmful for the public of course We tried to fight them to To say that it's not true and to provide public with the relevant information always We always also ask the public to look for the sources for the sources of information as you know Media internet is full of this information and it's very important especially in the crisis to Have this information from the right Source we also want to promote good behaviors among polish people as especially at the very beginning of war There was a massive purchase of iodine pills from the pharmacies. So the shelves were empty What we need to do knowing that Was of course to tell people that it is harmful to take iodine pills with no reason et cetera et cetera so This activities has The main aim and the main aim for us at present is to calm down the public is to ease negative emotions And yeah, this is what we are focusing now And this slide represents some of our activities. There were press conferences With representative of polish governments. It won with the ministry of climate and the environment It was about zoporosia and the second with the deputy minister of the interior and administration. It was about Stable iodine of course plenty of interviews radio television internet of course plenty of Questions from journalists as well as from ordinary People when it comes to the tools. Well, we try to use Maybe not everything but of course social media, you know The audience of this media is getting wider and wider. I suppose that now it's about five billion users throughout the world So it's a perfect tool to communicate to the public Especially when you want to communicate steadily And of course we use traditional media like you know radio television and We also want to introduce to the public our experts because yeah, this is what you are talking about It is important to give the institution a professional phase the phase that can you know build a trust of the other of the of the other of the other People and the conclusions after first year of war certainly First the world boosted interests of media and the public of our institution It's it's not a surprise I suppose But it is very visible especially on our twitter account that with within our within the last 12 months The number of followers on our twitter account increased five fold So now it's a huge number in comparison with the february 2022 and the second Yeah, when it comes to Polish people the world shows us that they still have in their memory 1986 so Chernobyl and they are still afraid of ionizing radiation so These two are the main conclusions and despite This fears despite the threats. It is distinctive in Poland That now we have very high trade for approval for polish governments of building nuclear power plants Why am I talking this because I want to move smoothly to another challenge I want to tell you just a little because you know time is ticking away And I don't want to take this time so The other challenge for us in the future Will be to communicate about polish nuclear power program as you may know Polish government wants to build from six to up to nine reactors in poland from two to three units Last year they have chosen technical partner for first unit. You may know its westinghouse and ap 1000 So it is all happening and for us It's a huge challenge Of course for the agency, but for us the people that we are dealing in with communications And what are we going to do or what are we doing? Of course now We are using many tools to first to introduce to the public Despite the fact that you know or boosted our Let's say popularity many People in poland don't even know that national atomic energy agency exists And if they know sometimes they wrongly Think about our responsibility in this program So we need to use many tools to introduce ourselves to talk about nuclear security and radiological protection Of course, we want to use our experts because it's important as I mentioned And uh, of course, we have 21st century. It's always worth to use this digital digital tools to communicate to the public But sometimes in our opinion it is worth to use old-fashioned tools like Meeting the public in person and this is also what we are going to do With reference to the program. We are going to meet the public in person, especially from The preferred location The name for this location is slubieta facopalino and it is in pomeranian Province and another thing we will need to do is to organize and administrative hearing That will be open to public and yeah, it's going to be another big challenge for us We do hope that we will do our best to meet all the requirements and Thank you for your attention Wonderful. Thank you so much Robin Thank you very much Who doesn't know dear colleagues? I am Roman Halenko and I represent nuclear regulatory inspectorate of ukraine Couple words about state nuclear regulatory inspectorates It was established According to decree of president of ukraine in december 2000 As an independent nuclear regulator previously we were in sight of different ministers And since 2000 we are independent At present time we operate under our statute That was approved by cabinet of ministers of ukraine in august 2014 It was the last update of the statute and we report Directly to the cabinet of ministers We had in the topics of our Here and today is Why The communication why we should communicate to people It's a simple answer because according to to the main law Of ukraine in the sphere of nuclear safety It's on use of nuclear energy and radiation safety article number 24 prompt notification by mass media of Radiation accidents on territory of ukraine and beyond its boundaries In the case of trans boundary release is One of the Competence of state nuclear regulator Beginning on february 24th last year till present day Everybody knows we are under A war condition at that day Emergency and Our emergency center was activated and till today it works Every day every night 24 slash seven Since the last year We suffered the Chernobyl nuclear power plant Exclusion zone as a pretty nuclear power plant research reactor installation at Harkiv Institute of physics and technology Our advanced management facilities in Kiev Harkiv It's The name is radon and Almost all nuclear and radiation sources at the territories of ukraine that were Uh captured by russian federation The threats we face it In this time is military invasion into nuclear power plants and contaminated territory at the Chernobyl exclusion zone bumping and shelling The nuclear installations and drug waste management installations Missiles and military planes over the nuclear power plant sites Loss Our lack of communication And the impossibility to restore and destroy it infrastructural and logistics and Very important the treat it Fakes and lies that we should To Improve Challenges for the staff of SNRU at self-mechanizations because since the invasion starts The almost all all staff of regulatory body couldn't As that lived in Kiev Was moved to the western part of ukraine southern part of ukraine The kiv was almost blocked by russian forces and Regarding to my department of nuclear installations safety we For the first months had only six people who were On their jobs In person other people as our colleagues were accessible only through the remote mode What is Established communication In targeted groups we divided the public in some targeted groups. It was general public As our my colleague said whom we should Provide information in the simplest manner the executive body And cabinet of ministers What we should explain what happens? And what is Probable Consequences professional society It's a nuclear scientific medical first responders Whom we provided information regarding their They Requests and international communities and non-government organization whom we Communicated as As much as we could and as fast as We could Tools we used It's internet website social media interviews in media Open letters Emails meetings consultation discussions personal explanations Main topics what we are trying to reflect in our Information is verifying and providing real real information on the status of nuclear power plants situation in the Chernobyl exclusion zone They damages that we Seen in nuclear infrastructure Also we provide information on the radiation monitoring In the case of As Agnieszka said Iodine prophylaxis Rumors and fakes we should we had to To Improve this information We provide information to our Our colleagues in IEA and As well as we ask the assistance Which we need In this circumstance circumstances, sorry my English a little bit As an example from February 24th On our on website of SNRU was submitted more than 300 publications in Ukrainian More than 80 publications in English During the first 100 days of invasion In facebook we Provided the publications in Ukrainian in English In the first days of Invasion it was up to eight publications later Two to five per day and As Just just after the invasion the Messenger Twitter Telegram as was Mentioned previously was Very popular in Ukraine and we began Start messaging in In the telegram we created special news page in telegram and people would Refer for information Acting chairman Mr. Alekh Koryakov actively took parts Took part in television programs Conducted a lot of interviews different media TV programs also we have such Tool in in the regulatory body as Public counsel That helps Provide information to public and to Professional societies On May 26 27 we had Special Counsel we met them and On a regular basis since that time We Inform them About everything that happens in Nuclear installations in Ukraine Beside the regulatory body We have very strong Support from our technical support organization scientific Center of nuclear radiation safety As well as regulatory body they inform The public the Their colleagues regarding the situation On Through their website facebook page What we Have learned from our communication with public What they were interested Nuclear and radiation issues is possibility And possibility of disaster as it was at channel nuclear plant Was the one of the main Concern of the public of Ukraine And Non-radiation issue That was Very interesting to the public is necessity to Live homes Again, especially for the people who suffered at Chernobyl And disaster that was in 1986 And They should be Evacuated from this exclusion zone I Actually, I was prepared for five minutes, but thank you very much And thank you very much. I would like to thank as my colleagues and all the colleagues through the world who Assessed us who helped us and Again, thank you No, can we give a round of applause to everyone before we get to Just an outstanding panel. This is this has been great. I really appreciate everyone And I even have a comment in the list of questions about what a great panel it is and how nice to have great communicators So I I think we'll only have time for a couple so I'll pick and choose here Dr. Higley, we have a question for you It's a tough one You mentioned terrified member of the public From what we've seen over the years people are concerned, but that doesn't mean they're terrified They may have questions and concerns Perhaps as communicators we may need to change our perspectives on the people we're trying to reach That might help us do a better job when we communicate thoughts on that so I would push back on that a little bit and Following the the fukushima accident There was again a sort of a vacuum of people being able to communicate and so as an academic I Was speaking to folks and I had people One woman in particular called from california. She was a goat Owner herder and she was terrified literally terrified that Radio activity coming from the fukushima plant would come to california And kill her animals and so she had brought them all in her house with her and and so You have to go through the discussion about how far away it is and dilution and the fact that It's going to be very difficult to even detect it. So in certain circumstances People are literally terrified and and so you need to recognize it and not minimize Not minimize and downplay their concern Thank you We have a question for you You mentioned that people Still very much remember chernobyl. Yeah, and they're concerned about ionizing radiation. The question is what about the demographics? Are the younger people who weren't Around for for chernobyl as worried as the older generation that lives through it Can you just repeat the last sentence of the question our people In poland who were not alive During chernobyl still feel the same fear that the older generation feel It's hard to answer for all the young people that are in poland, but supposedly no, of course We could have seen that the That the biggest fear Were among the elderly people that you know Remember that date that maybe as a child they had to go to Doctor and Drink lukolas liquid. This is the name for the medicine With stable iodine because at the time poland Was the country in which we decided It wasn't not us, but the the government and The institutions responsible for nuclear security and radiological protection Decided to give to the public stable iodine so I think That young people of course react different and the most fear was among elderly people Wonderful. Thank you very much. This one's for ben Very often media outlets send out copies of tweets or instagram How does this figure into how much of the public receives information that nrc might send out via social media? Send out copies meaning Retweets oh, oh, oh, I see uh Yeah, I mean I think I think that there is a danger in media outlets Retweeting statements from from anyone, but you know agencies and industry fall into this category You know reposting those things verbatim and non-critically Like I said, I think the way I think about social media is the number of people that are going to see A retweet is You know lower than people who might You know read about what an agency said on twitter in a story And that's why at first I thought you were referring to to like embedding a tweet in a story, which I think is actually almost a more valuable Vehicle for for communicating What an agency is saying on social media through the media In in my experience in my reporting experience. I always make a point when things are developing to You know include, you know, obviously what? A agency says agency says in print, but if there's media available To include it, you know in a little box on On my copies so that anyone reading my work can also see Concurrently what the agency is saying so so I'm surrounding You know the the statement that's being made with my own original reporting. Um, so I think that I think amplifying Uh, you know the message of of an agency or an agency that's trying to disseminate their information by social media on social media is valuable Um, I think that there's the other ways that that can be employed to to reach a broader audience Okay, thank you. We have one last question. It's for david and we have two minutes left. So just I can't do it in two minutes Thank you What evidence do you have that supports your statement that the public doesn't trust the nrc? They tell us It's pretty simple. They tell us, you know, it doesn't take much for people To tell you what they don't like It takes a lot for people to tell you what they do like but when they don't trust you They tell you that and you see it in social media comments when we put things out when we have end of cycle Meetings the people who don't care for nuclear don't trust us stand right up and just tell you to your face We don't believe you your liars or whatever words they choose to use to amplify that So we know it we recognize it. We try to change that thinking You have to manage the expectations and say I will only get so far But you have to keep trying but they tell us listen Great answer. Thank you very much. And I think with that, um, we'll close the session But the panel who's just been amazing. Thank you We can remain up here for a little bit because there were many questions. We didn't get to so thanks