Abstract
A three‐person field team devoted four days to gathering data in
Andover, Kansas, USA, after a tornado devastated the Golden Spur Mobile
Home Park on 26 April 1991. They sought to assess the extent to which
the media′s reporting of the local emergency management team′s response
to the disaster influenced the team′s subsequent decisions. The
researchers functioned as participant observers in the emergency
operating centre (EOC), informally interviewed principal EOC members and
media personnel, and obtained copies of media news stories (television
and newspaper) which reported on the organizational response to the
disaster. Assesses the observation and interview data as well as the
content analysis of the news stories and suggests that the EOC team
devoted a considerable portion of their time to responding to the
negative press they received centring around two issues: pre‐impact
warning and post‐impact debris clearance. Some of the media′s news
stories sought to engage in blame assignation. The EOC members devoted
time to developing strategies to control the media damage and changed
some decisions they had made in response to the media′s criticism. The
relevant disaster research literature is utilized to explain the
response of the EOC personnel and the media. Reliance on normal time
roles explains the EOC response to blame assignation.