At Fast Company, an article about using weblogs to communicate during a crisis.

From Shel Holtz at Holtz Communications:

There's always a symbol in a crisis. For the Exxon Valdez, it was dead birds. For Enron, it was people leaving their offices with boxes. Your priorities need to be with the affected party or parties. A key example is Odwalla. The philosophy at Johnson & Johnson is that shareholders are last.

Respond quickly, accurately, professionally. Treat perceptions as fact. Acknowledgement mistakes that were made. Tailor messages with the angry public in mind. And acknowledge the other side's concerns. Don't confront anybody, though. That just doesn't pay off. Take advantage of existing relationships you have.

So, why a blog in a crisis? You have the ability to offer updates instantly. You can use a human voice to accommodate the public's emotional response. And it produces a record of your response.

He goes on to say: "Stay on focus. Have one author represent the organization. Make sure the posts are approved."

I would revise that last--"Make sure the posts are approved." In a perfect world, I would want to make sure that the person posting to the weblog was the person with the power to approve the posts. The poster ought to be someone with the full trust of the organization and complete authority to act. If the highest level individuals are too busy managing the crisis or if they don't feel they have the right communications skills, then they should put someone in charge who they trust completely and who they will keep full informed. And then they should stand back and let them do their job.

Requiring approval, while extremely tempting and seemingly prudent, makes it too easy to give in to siege mentality (don't tell them anything, everything's fine, we're working on it, just trust us) and risks losing the 'real' voice and the real value that a quickly updated, informative weblog can provide.

On the other hand, giving your crisis blogger a pool of people who are ready and willing to review posts, provide perspective and generate ideas can only help. Everyone needs a second or third pair of eyes, especially when dealing with rapidly-changing information and stressful situations.