This post has been updated with the name of Metro’s insurance carrier.
Thanks to requests filed by The Washington Post and Washington City Paper and a glitch in the agency’s handling of a Public Access to Records Policy (Metro’s version of the Freedom of Information Act) request, we also have some interesting details about the work those firms did.
Back in March, The Post broke the story that Metro had hired the two firms, Hill + Knowlton Strategies and O’Neill and Associates in the wake of the fatal Yellow Line incident that killed 61-year-old Carol Glover and sickened scores of other passengers who were trapped with her aboard the smoke filled train. In a memo sent to senior staff Jan. 30, interim General Manager Jack Requa said both firms had expertise in crisis communications and would assist Metro “with the development of a reputation management communications plan.”
At the time we asked Metro how much the contracts were worth, but were told we’d have to request it through the PARP process. The Post submitted a PARP request on Mar. 11.
Under Metro’s PARP policy, “Within twenty (20) working days of receipt of the request, the PARP Administrator shall determine whether to comply with such request and shall immediately notify the Requester of the Decision in accordance with section 7.9.” Translated, under Metro’s policy those who request information through its PARP process should receive a response within 20 working days.
(You can read Metro’s full PARP policy here.)
We continued to inquire and then earlier this month, when we called Metro’s PR department for comment for a piece we were writing about the delay, it turned out we might not have not had to go through the PARP process at all. Ly told us the contracts cost $250,000 and ended in June. Three days later, a partial response to our PARP showed up at The Post.
But as City Paper, who also requested the records detailed in its account last Thursday, Metro erred in sending the files, including some that had not been redacted as per Metro policy, and some that were password protected. We too received unredacted files and some that required passwords (which WMATA provided us) but only for the Hill + Knowlton portion of the request. The O’Neill and Associates files were redacted, including several pages that once redacted consisted of basically black pages. Like City Paper, WMATA’s lawyers asked that we return the unredacted files we received and we also declined.
So, what do these long awaited documents reveal? Well, according to the files, much of Hill+Knowlton Strategies’ work was focused on shifting the public conversation around WMATA following the Jan. 12 smoke incident. In the firm’s pitch to WMATA it noted that: “The public is losing trust in WMATA as an agency committed to providing mass transit services in a safe manner.” It also noted that because of restrictions imposed by the National Transportation Safety Board, WMATA was limited in what it can say about the incident.
“Because WMATA is unable to react or contribute to the conversation, the ongoing narrative continues to progress unfettered into negative spaces.” Among Hill + Knowlton’s strategic goals for the campaign: “Put measures in place to effectively position WMATA leadership as driving a culture of safety that reassures riders, policymakers and the public.”
Among its desired outcomes? “Media volume and negative tone are reduced” and “Leadership transition proceeds as planned and effectively establishes Jack Requa as both a trusted source of information and a leader in control and navigating both this recent WMATA crisis and ongoing WMATA operations.”
The firm also provided a “Media Overview” which noted that “overall sentiment has been consistently negative with both members of the media and the public looking for answers.” It notes that on Jan. 13 there were 6,036 total mentions throughout the day, the majority on social media. (Note: Hill + Knowlton has previously done media monitoring for WMATA under a separate contract)
According to the firm’s tally, Jan. 12-21, there were 1,032 mentions in traditional/print media; 4,245 in broadcast/radio; and 27,587 on Twitter.
Hill + Knowlton also worked with WMATA on a safety video, and revamped WMATA’s safety Web page.
O’Neill and Associates’ also worked on retooling WMATA’s image, but much of their focus was on preparing Metro’s leaders for two days of NTSB hearings on the fatal smoke incident, which were held in June. That makes sense since Peter Goelz, a senior vice president at the firm, spent seven years as managing director of the NTSB.
Here’s what O’Neill and Associates wrote in their pitch to get the job:
“In virtually every reputational crisis, the battle is won or lost on the local level and there are no cookie-cutter solutions. Therefore, O’Neill and Associates’ formula utilizes the core competencies of a political campaign and its war room tactics, with specific focus placed on WMATA’s reputation and the flawless execution of a campaign plan to enhance it.”
Given the recent headlines, it’s not clear that the enhanced PR effort has paid off. Just last week, Metro’s top management concluded their investigation into why a defective stretch of track that was the site of a derailment earlier this month was not fixed even though the problem had been detected a month earlier and should have been addressed immediately. It found that the Aug. 6 incident was the result of “a failure” of the transit agency’s “quality check process,” in which a technician disregarded a rail defect found by a track-inspection machine several weeks before the accident occurred.
One tidbit that City Paper’s Will Sommer highlighted in his story on the documents: part of Hill + Knowlton’s time was spent focused on researching and providing analysis on @FixMetro, the twitter account that belongs to Chris Barnes, an avid Metro watcher.
As Barnes told Sommer: “I’m happy to sit down and answer whatever questions they’ve got. And that’ll be free.”