One parent, who said that she was upset and frustrated about the matter, told the Lepanto Institute:Again, the central principles of crisis management are to be out front and transparent with a sympathetic spokesman who acknowledges errors where they have occurred and addresses positive steps in moving forward. Instead, nobody's answering the phone.“My boys are at school today (Covington Catholic) and they were addressed [by] our bishop, Roger Foys, sans parents. In fact, there has been no info given to parents about how the kids were to be treated or what would be said to them. We didn’t even know the bishop would be addressing them. The school isn’t answering phones, the voicemail is full, the website is down and we were given a statement that basically said we weren’t allowed at school today.”Other sources, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, told us that Bishop Foys was completely unapologetic about his public condemnation. Addressing his condemnation, Bp. Foys told students that he couldn’t please everyone. He also mentioned that he has hired an investigative team to look into the incident and would not be making a statement until the investigation as completed.Lepanto Institute is told that Bp. Foys told the boys that he is “100% on the boys’ side and always was,” while claiming that “if [their] actions had been bad, it would be a good statement.”
The critical audience here, more than the students, is the parents. Foys seems pretty clearly uncomfortable about addressing adults and is still hiding behind the "independent investigation".
I don't think Foys recognizes that he's got a crisis.
UPDATE: Additional reports say Foys has told the school administration that he doesn’t want the kids doing any more interviews, although the boys have acquitted themselves quite well in them, and it's important to note that neither the diocese nor the school has offered any media corrective of its own or message of any sort besides that it has no message so far.
On one hand, normal policy for an organization is to limit media contacts to the organization's own press operation. However, this is to ensure a consistent message. The problem with the diocese and the school is they have no message -- they aren't answering the phone, while insisting that they won't say anything until an investigation is completed at some unspecified future date. Meanwhile, the Sandmann family had to take the initiative to maintain its reputation.
I suspect both Bp Foys and the school principal will be out at some point.
