The PIO Podcast
The PIO Podcast is a platform for Public Information Officers (PIO's) and Public Affairs Officers (PAO's) in public sector organizations, including Police, Fire, EMS, FEMA, state, local, and federal government organizations. The podcast aims to facilitate learning, growth, and discussion of issues that PIO's/PAO's may encounter within their profession. If you would like to support the podcast and connect with other PIO's/PAO's, please email us at thepiopodcast@gmail.com.
The PIO Podcast
Dana Whyte - Communications Manager - Michigan State University, Department of Police and Public Safety
In this week's episode, we interview Dana Whyte, the Communications Manager from Michigan State University Department of Police and Public Safety, on the shooting on campus on February 13, 2023.
Dana's Bio
Dana Whyte is the Communications Manager and Spokesperson for the Michigan State University Department of Police and Public Safety, leading all strategic communication initiatives for MSU DPPS. She manages the department's website and social media pages, serves as the spokesperson for media interviews, and is in charge of internal communications, including developing and distributing a monthly employee newsletter.
Dana comes to MSU DPPS from a journalistic background, serving as a television news reporter for four years. She worked for both WOOD-TV8 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and WLNS-TV in Lansing, Michigan, covering historic events such as the coronavirus pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the 2020 Presidential Election. She received her bachelor's degree from Central Michigan University in Broadcast & Cinematic Arts and is currently pursuing her master's degree in Strategic Communication from MSU. In her spare time, Dana enjoys reading, traveling, and serving as a fitness instructor at The Barre Code East Lansing.
Dana's LinkedIn
Dana's Email Address
Discover how top storytellers build content that connects and converts. Follow us!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Our premiere sponsor, Social News Desk, has an exclusive offer for PIO Podcast listeners. Head over to socialnewsdesk.com/pio to get three months free when a qualifying agency signs up.
Good afternoon. Today on the podcast, we have Communications Manager Dana White. Dana is from the Michigan State University. Thanks for being on the show, Dana. Thanks for having me. So, Dana, let's talk about your background and how you became the Communications Manager at MSU. Yes. So I come from a background in journalism and my switch to communications was kind of unexpected. I was a reporter for four years in Lansing, Michigan, as well as in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And while I worked in Lansing, I met the police chief at the time who ended up working for MSU police, and I interviewed him a couple of times just for general stories. And when this position opened up at MSU, he reached out and encouraged me to apply for the job. And at first I was like, Well, what do you mean? Because I never really thought about leaving news at that point. I knew it may have been a possibility down the road, but didn't think it would come at that point in time. But I thought I might as well just apply for it and see how the people are and see if I have a connection with the department and if it's something that I would enjoy. And it's turned out to be a great fit. And I have now been there for almost a year and a half. Oh, that's awesome. So you were a journalist. You went to school for journalism. I'm assuming. That's correct. I went to Central Michigan University for broadcasting. And then journalism and journalism is tough, especially in certain markets, where the pay is that is always that great and you're stuck odd shifts or late shifts. So this is probably a little bit better set up for you, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That was that was a big selling point too, is when I was reporting, I worked the morning show, which was 3:30 a.m. to noon, and we were live for two and a half hours in the morning nonstop doing live shots. And we're in Michigan, so it is cold half the time when we're outside. So that was a big selling point for me, as well as the normal day side hours that I would be working and have holidays off and have weekends off. That was another big perk. So yeah, it kind of all worked out awesome. All right. So we're going to kind of get into it because the whole reason for me even reaching out to your current chief now was because of what happened at MSU. But school shootings have been in the forefront of everybody's mind, in particular because of Uvald\e that really kind of I think that kind of we got complacent, I think, for a while. But then after Uvalde the it really became what is law enforcement doing and how are they communicating and how were they addressing things? So do you feel comfortable in talking about what happened on February 13th of this year? Yes, I do. Do you want me to have an overview or. Yes, please. Yeah.
So on February 13th at 8:18 p.m.,
so it was a Monday night past 8:00. A shooter came on to our campus and started opening fire, and Berkey Hall then walked over to the union and opened fire. And there as well before leaving campus. So immediately that night I got a call within 2 minutes, around
8:20 pm that there was a shooter on MSU's campus. So I immediately called my chief and he was also getting a bunch of calls at the time to just try and figure out what was going on. But that first initial alert that was sent out was sent from the department, from a person that was on staff. There in the department at the time, and all of us who were at home, since this was in the evening, started heading into our emergency operations center our EOC, where we set up our communications table and were there for hours into the night, into the next day. The days after that was kind of where we all touched base and led communications from this effort. We had folks from university communications that came to the EOC as well that I sat alongside with, as well as a few PIOs from other local agencies and their agencies. Chiefs may have been at the EOC as well, but it was a very large coordinated effort when it comes to the law enforcement response. But just going back a little bit into what exactly happened. So after the shooter left campus, he was eventually found about five miles northwest of campus in the city of Lansing when a an active citizen called and saw the description, we put a photo out of what he looked like. That person saw that photo called 911 and police responded and found him. And then he ultimately died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. So it was right around midnight when that happened. So we were putting out updates that evening every 15 minutes or so, as well as hosting news conferences and just trying to be as transparent as possible with the little information that we knew at that time. Okay. So you originally didn't put out the run hide fight notice to the students. You said a staff member that was on duty. Was that is it a dispatcher or a just a staff member that has access to activating, I'm assuming, an app for students. And then also. Sorry. Go ahead. No, no, go ahead. It's our front desk employee that sent out that initial alert. And then I was ultimately running our social media. So what we were putting out through the alerts we were putting out through our social media pages as well. Okay. So as a reporter, former reporter, now you're in a different role and now you've got to respond in this school and you're coming from home. What's going through your mind? So when I first got the call, I didn't think it was real. And after opening our cad calls on my phone, all of the responding units just said Berkey Hall. And I was like, okay, this is not a joke. Like, this is actually happening. So I start heading in and one of the pillows from another local agency called and said, What do you need? Do you need help? I said, Yes, come to our EOC. So it was it all happened so fast. It like looking back, we a lot of us say that it seemed like an out of body experience because we were just trying to make sure that we were getting everything that we needed to get done as quickly as possible. One of the first thoughts that came to my mind was, where are we sending reporters? Because they're hearing the scanners just as everyone else is, and they're already coming to campus. We have three local TV stations as well as newspapers in the Lansing area, and they were already there. And we don't know where the shooter is at this time. So that was one of my three first thoughts is we need to set up a media staging area that's in a safe location. Ultimately, it was in the same building as our EOC, which worked out very well when it came to making sure all of our leaders were in one place and then going upstairs and doing those media briefings. But there was just a lot of things going on at one time. Okay.
So in that time from 8:18 p.m. through midnight, you put up you put out like 12 updates up until you really shut you end of the shelter in place. What were you sending out? So during that time, the initial run hide, fight notification, telling folks to shelter in place and the next large thing that we were trying to get was a suspect description. So we initially put out a shorter description at that point, followed up with the photo of the suspect, as well as a more comprehensive description of what he looked like. But we were trying to give our community instructions, almost telling them what to do, and that would be that run, hide, fight. And what does that mean? Right. So making sure that we're explaining that as well. But something that was really important to me was making sure that we were communicating at least every 15 to 20 minutes, even if we didn't have something new to say because students are scared and people who are on campus are scared and they're waiting to hear from us. And when we're silent, they don't know what to do. They don't know if they should continue to shelter in place. So we wanted to make sure that we were continuously putting out those updates, even if there wasn't necessarily new information. Okay. And in that timeframe, I should say that night you put out an actual three full media briefings that happened. So I'm assuming that's your chief, the chancellor, whoever else is from the university and so on to walk me through the the three what were they individually. Yes. So once we decided on the location where we were going to have our media briefings is in a sort of a conference center. So we picked an indoor location. It was February in Michigan at night, so it was cold. We didn't want to stage the media outside and knowing just the situation that was unfolding, we knew that they were going to be there for a long time. So it being an indoor location, there are bathrooms, there were outlets. And as a reporter, that was something that I was thinking of as well, because there's a lot of times you go out to a scene for hours and you don't have food, you don't have water. So we really wanted to make that location specifically accommodating for the media. So that first briefing was ultimately very police heavy at that point, the university leaders were responding to the EOC, but may not necessarily have been there yet. So that first briefing was right around 11 p.m. and it was a lot of my chief going up and telling our community what we didn't know. We were explaining what we did now and this was before. This was before he had been located, correct? That's correct. The first one was when he was still outstanding. So we also thought it was important to answer questions, even though a lot of them we knew we wouldn't be able to answer. So before those briefings, my chief and I went over bullet points talking points on what we thought were the main things we wanted to get across and then open it up for questions while letting the media know that we're probably not going to be able to respond to these will obviously still take them. But just so you know, and I think that being open and transparent saying that made the relationship with the media who were there a lot better because they knew that we were doing the best that we could and we are still here trying to answer these questions, even though we may not necessarily have them right now. So then going into the second news conference, we wanted to do one every hour. So when we decided that we were going to do the first one, our vice president for communications for the university said, I have seen these situations before at other universities. I think that we need to do something at least every hour showing our faces. I said, okay. So then that second one was planned for midnight, but at that time we were locating the suspect and we were hearing over the radio that he may have been located, that he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. So we were trying to confirm if it was him and the clothing that he had on indicated that it was potentially him. But we wanted to be sure. So we, of course, sent another PIO who was there helping upstairs to tell the media that we're working to confirm a very important part of this case, and we need to delay for 15 to 20 minutes, but we will be coming up. So we still went up at midnight. One person telling them that will be up soon. But we want to make sure that we have this update for you. So then that second briefing happened around 12:30 a.m. where we were able to tell our community that he has been located. There is no longer a threat to campus and the shelter in place has been lifted. And while my chief was giving these messages in front of the cameras, I was making sure to put those same updates on our social media as well. Because for those people who are securing in place, they may not want to put their phone on loud because they're trying to stay quiet. So they're able to look at our social media and our Twitter pages from there. And then we decided to do one more media briefing at 1:30 a.m. just to kind of wrap up the evening and close it before we came back the next morning. And by that time, the university president, the vice president for public safety, one of the board of trustees, a lot of those leaders started they were able to attend as well. And were able to speak. In addition to my chief giving an update. Okay. So you, I think, answer this already. But why was it so important for you to put out on your social media accounts that you were the official source of news? Were you guys getting misinformation or were you started getting hit with bots? So as you are aware, social media has a mind of its own. So there is a lot of misinformation posts. There were a lot of folks posting pictures of people who they thought were the suspect. We had hundreds of first responders on campus, some of them responding from home. So they were in plain clothes but had their rifles with them. So there were people posting pictures of them saying these are the shooters when they're just first responders with their gear on them. So, yes, there was a lot of misinformation. And it's tough because social media can be used as a tool for us to put our message and communicate out. But then you also have to combat that misinformation. So that was another one of those main talking points that we made sure to say in the press conferences was, we're sure you're hearing a lot of information right now. And if it is not coming directly from us, don't assume that it is true. And if you have a question about it, you can ask us. And if we don't know, we'll get back to you, but make sure that you're coming to us for that information. Dana after this was all over with. Did you go back and look at the social media that was moving through your timeline? Did you look at it and identify if there were postings that were from basically bots that they were just putting information out there? Did you look at that? Did you see that? We didn't confirm that specifically, but it can be assumed that there were a lot that could have been bots or trolls per se, or stuff that people were putting things out for malicious intent. That was not true. Okay. Yeah, I think that's very important that you went out. You put out you're the official source only trust what we put out. Very important, especially when you have students and the public posting pictures of first responders going to the scene, That definitely can cause a lot of confusion. Okay, so MSU Alert is a student app and they get that via email and they get it by by app if they choose to download the app and sign up for it. Correct. So our alert system MSU alert. It is automatically enrolled through email through their MSU dot edu email, and then they can opt in to also receive a phone call or a text message. But they have to go into the website and log in with their student account, making sure that their preferences are set. And did you feel that anything that some of the students that maybe didn't sign up for the app or download the app on their phone that they weren't getting information? That's been something that we've looked at a lot since February 13th, and we really want to make sure that we're communicating how to go in and add your preferences and add your cell phone number, because students may have been getting the messages through their emails, but not as a text message, which is in a situation such as that is a little bit quicker and you're able to see it right away. Right? That is a big communication talking point. I would say that we've been trying to make sure our campus knows how to go in and set their preferences. And then we also have our safe MSU app and we've added the ability for those alerts to get pushed through the app as well. Excellent. So do you guys do you also have the capability to geofence an area and send out text messages? We can only do for those that are signed in with their MSU account or if they want to opt in through Nixel which is just texting MSU alert to 888777. But we do ability to send alerts to university computers or phones that are connected to the VPN. So if you are on campus or if you're working from a work computer from home, you would get that pop up on your desktop as well. That's a nice feature. So Dana, what did you guys feel that you did well putting information out? I think that's one of the biggest things that we've gotten positive feedback on is that we were leading with compassion and we were being very open and honest about what we knew and what we didn't know. And I applaud my chief a lot in that in going up and not only speaking as a police chief, but speaking as a person and a father and that was something that it's everyone's has a different comfort level with how open you want to be when you are standing on the mike. But I think that worked to our advantage because parents are looking to him as a fellow parent and students are looking to him as the police chief and just leading with that open compassion and honesty. We had a vigil a few days after the 13th where thousands of people came to campus, where I went with my chief, and a lot of people came up to us just and gave us hugs and we're crying, saying just thank you for being so open and for letting us know it was going on, which really touched us because we're still in the GO mode, trying to make sure that we're doing everything that we need to get done through. But we know that that wasn't missed by our community. And this is not a knock on other areas that you feel you could you could have improved on something that we have looked at too, is the amount of tips and messages that we were getting to all of our social media accounts that night. And that was something that we didn't have the capacity to live monitor. But looking back a week or few days later, we see the hundreds of DMS that came into Twitter with tips and messages and people who are @ing us with information, some of it true, some of it untrue. But that's something that we think in the future we would have someone lot, someone specifically just to live, monitor everything coming in to those accounts and all of that information. And you know, those those are like what a virtual a VOST is for. I mean, setting up a virtual basically command center where you have people that maybe are nowhere near the campus. They could be in Lansing, they could be in Chicago for all manners. But their job is simply to monitor your social media and then filter through the, you know, the noise, so to speak. Right. All right. So let's finish up with lessons learned from this incident. And where do you go from here? Do you have any any lessons besides the ones we've talked about that maybe you want to you want to key. something big? That I think came in handy was developing relationships with your local PIOs and your university communications team before the incident happened. So we luckily at MSU have a strong relationship with university communications and the Police and Public Safety Department, too, where we already knew everyone's work style, we were able to just jump right in and handle the situation. And then in addition to having those relationships with local law enforcement, PIOs, I was able to call upon them to come in to our EOC and help that evening. So that was a big lesson that I think really helped us and made our team stronger and know that even though we are the lead department that is operating this, that we have support. They're excellent and is there a question I should have asked and if there is, how would you answer it? Hmm. I will just emphasize the importance of having a communicator within the police department, because you're able to serve as that liaison with university communications. You're able to help your officers and your chief in uniform know how to approach the media. It's helpful that I come from a news background and have worked in this market. So I do know a lot of those people who are coming and coming to our scenes and covering and building those relationships to having those relationships with the local media and building that before the crisis happens, because we knew a lot of them from positive stories that we've done. So then when a not so positive story happens, they know that they can trust us and they can reach out to us. A lot of them have my work cell phone number that they can text me with whatever information they need, but that really did help. And then one more thing that really helped me. I went to the FBI LEDDA communications training in November, which the timing of that was crazy how it worked out. But one tip that I learned there was to set your email address to your out of office telling people the media where to go for information, which in our case was our Twitter page and setting your voice mailbox message, telling the media where to go because within 10 minutes you're going to be getting hundreds of phone calls, hundreds of emails, and at that time you can't respond to people individually. But you do need to put a message out there and you do need to tell them where to go. So that's something I think really helped in our case, because everyone knew to go to our Twitter and that was an area that not only the media but students. We have a large international population, so parents who maybe across the country or out of the country were able to go there as well. Excellent. So thought that just came to my mind in this is what would you like your internal communications after the fact with the officers and the first responders that were went to the scene? Because I think we as communicators, sometimes it gets overlooked. Did you guys have any of that? Was it something that the chief wanted to make sure that he sent messages, The staff? Yeah. So our staff and our officers, it's been a rough past few months. It's not just working, but personally as well. After trying to deal with the trauma, our risk, our officers who responded that night and were there and Burke Hall within minutes are so brave and their job should not be overlooked at all. They're true first responders in addition to our dispatchers, we're dispatched through Ingham County. So they were processing hundreds of calls as well. But that's something that we've really looked at in the past few months as officer and employee wellness and making sure that we're taking care of our people. So we're really trying to communicate messages internally first before externally to make sure that we're talking to our people too directly and letting them know that we're here. If they have any questions about anything that we're putting out and we're really trying to make it more of a collaborative effort. So our investigative unit that has been going over the investigation for months since the 13th, I've been working closely with them to make sure the information that's requested from the media. Are we okay with putting this out? Is there something that we should put out instead and really trying to develop those relationships to make sure that everyone's work is being involved and that folks feel appreciated? Excellent. All right, cool. Can you sum up and I don't know the numbers and I'm sorry, I don't how many how many dead, how many wounded? What was the final outcome? There were three students that died and five that were injured. And sent to the hospital. Mm hmm. Tragic. Very tragic. Well, it sounds like you guys did a phenomenal job. I mean, just the way you were putting information out and what I read on this story and what intrigued me about it is how you guys message and how you made sure your communicated in a timely fashion, which I think is so important. And I know we as a community in the world are getting much better at it, but it also matters that the command staff realizes that, yes, we have to be there and we have to be basically next to the chief in order to make sure that we get the right message out and we get the message in so that we can disseminated it out. Right. Right. And that's why the location of the media briefings and the EOC works so well because we had all of those leaders in the EOC we talked to around the table of what we were going to put out. I show it to you comms and said, Are you guys good with this? Showed it to folks that our departments, are you guys good with this? And then went up and gave that message which that cut down the time a lot rather than if we had to travel somewhere to talk to the media and we were keeping our leaders close to the EOC in case something did happen and we had to go back down. Right. Okay, great. All right. So let's light this up and go to some rapid fire questions. All right. Texting. We're talking texting Coffee or tea? Coffee. Adult drink of choice. Oberon, Ooh really? I love Oberon. Nice. If you could have a superpower, what would it be? I would teleport because I do not like driving, and I feel like I'm always driving. Teleport would be so cool. Do you have a pet? I have a cat. Her name's Cardi. Cardi? Yes. Nice. Is. Is there a book or author who had an influence on you? Hmm. That's a good one. I've been reading a lot of Colleen Hoover's books lately. Okay. Ask permission or beg for forgiveness. Beg for forgiveness! Typical PIO. Just the way it is. If you could have coffee or tea with any historical figure, who would it be? I would say, Maya Angelou. You know what? I would love to sit down with her and have a conversation. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like she has a lot of wisdom. Oh, my God. Yes. I totally agree with you on that. I final thoughts. What key points would you like listeners to take from the interview today? Develop your relationships with your community and don't be afraid to tell your story as a department. When I came into the department, when I first got there, there were so many things going on behind the scenes that I didn't even know happened in a police department because I wasn't coming from a law enforcement background. And I'm like, We need to tell people about this. And the officers that I work with are like, This is just what we do. And I was like, I know, but like, it's cool stuff that people should know about, right? So don't be afraid to be more proactive and tell your story. And if you're doing a cool training or if you're going out and speaking at an event, just posting pictures and humanizing yourself a little bit and making those connections when I'm one, but also talking to your department up because there's so much good work being done that doesn't always necessarily get seen. It is so important to pitch stuff to the media. You know, that's from your background. You know what it's like in the NEWSROOM when when the the the manager says, I need three stories from you today. Pitch me three stories. So it's pretty cool when the police department says, hey, I got a story for you. There's not a whole lot of work there that you have to worry about, Right? And talking to police. It's always interesting, like it's a more complex and deeper story, like, you know, you're going to get something cool out of it by doing that interview right. Anything you'd like to add? I will just say build up your communications within your departments and have your communications leaders reporting directly to that high level position, whether it's the chief or the vice president, if it's a university. But having your communicator at that table so that when something does happen, they already have access to that information and they're able to share that quickly with the community. Thank you very much. How could people best reach you if they want to connect or follow up about anything ever today? My LinkedIn account is Dana Whyte. My name is spelled D A N A. W H Y T E, So a little different. And then my email address is Whyte spelled spelled like my last name. The letter D. At DPS dot MSU dot edu and I will attach all of the show notes and it'll be easy to find data. Thank you. Thank you very much for coming on the show. I appreciate it. Thank you, Robert.
