The Good News is Bad News Isn’t Up Much

From tornadoes and typhoons to the sub-prime meltdown and food recalls, 2008 was chock full of front page worthy disasters.
 
But according to the Louisville-based Institute for Crisis Management (ICM), it could have been worse. The organization recently released its annual report that tracks media coverage of business crises. While 2008 may be a year many businesses are hoping to forget (think Madoff Investments, General Motors and Bear Stearns), ICM finds crises were up only a little compared to previous years. And 2008 was not as bad as 2005, when the number of crises reached a peak for the last 10 years.
 
Hoosiers made their mark in the report though. Of the 10,386 newsworthy disasters in 2008, five Indiana crises were cited in the ICM’s six-page report. The study mentioned when a flash flood wreaked havoc on Columbus Regional Hospital (read about the hospital’s recovery in the current BizVoice magazine) and a lawsuit filed against a Lafayette YMCA.
 
Still, ICM data shows the number of business crises has remained fairly steady for the last four years. While bad news will continue to lead the newscasts, at least the good news is things really aren’t any worse.

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