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CHAPTER FOUR:
RESULTS
4.1 Analysis of Media Coverage
Representation in media coverage (RQ1). Apple Daily, China Times, The United Times, and The Liberty Times had been covering this gutter oil crisis for two weeks until Taipei Lee-Chi
resumed normal operations. Among these four publications, The China Times had the most coverage about Taipei Lee-Chi’s tainted oil crisis. But Apple Daily’s reports received the most discussion among the four publications. On the same issue, United Daily News had only covered 4 reports on Taipei Lee-Chi. A detailed examination of the four publications revealed no significant negative reports on Taipei Lee-Chi’s tainted oil crisis. Tone of the news coverage was generally neutral, but a slight difference can be observed from each publication’s stance on the issue. For instance, tone of the reports from the Liberty Times were mostly neutral, meanwhile The United Times did not have much cover on this issue. Apple Daily’s stance on Taipei Lee-Chi’s tainted oil crisis was more inclined to netizens’ judgements. Scrutinizing Apple Daily’s media coverage, it was found that commentary received a lot more discussion than news reports. It is an interesting phenomenon that personal opinion could trigger more heated debate. Apple Daily was also the publication which published the most commentaries during the crisis.
The China Times did not have a consistent stance on this issue. Among all the news coverage by China Times, it was found that many of the reports were similar in content. Numerous reports were short blurbs written in only a few sentences and described little detail other than the headline about the story. Not only did The China Times have the most coverage on Taipei Lee-Chi’s tainted oil crisis, it also wrote relatively more supportive articles for the brand. Among all the reports from The China Times, it was found that many positive reports published by a certain journalist appeared
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to be written by public relations professional. These reports especially focused on how Taipei Lee-Chi destroyed the returned products, and used very detailed and exaggerative phrases depicting how upset the shop owner was. For example, one such report is provided here (translated to English):
“Seeing boxes of hand-made pastry products were destroyed, the shop owner’s heart was broken.
While she took the last cake from the recycling truck, she could not hold back tears anymore. Her teardrops kept falling, just like pearls from a broken necklace. The shop owner could not stop sobbing. It was like saying goodbye to the children she born.
She put the last cake back into the recycling truck with shivering hands. The shop owner and her staffs stood by the recycling truck, seeing 120 thousand pastry products destroyed, and could not calm down the mood.” (The China Times)
「面對一箱箱純手工製作的餅全倒進垃圾
Another evidence indicating The China Times may have cooperated with Taipei Lee-Chi’s public relations practitioner was the fact that it had published an article describing the new display of the brand’s store after its reopening in a very detailed way. It not only introduced the new packaging of the Sun Cake, but also described how Taipei Lee-Chi decorated the shop “with the arrangements represented Taiwan, the paintings of sun flowers, and a statue of praying angel.”
Interactions with media. Although the China Times had written many supportive articles for
Taipei Lee-Chi, it also had reports with less supportive tones. An unsigned editorial of the China Times criticized Taipei Lee-Chi’s refund policy was too strict, and complimented Keelung Lee-Hu had a better performance on the refund procedure. In addition, a journalist of the China Times, Chiu Wen-siu (邱文秀), published a report that included personal opinion. She pointed out that Taipei Lee-Chi should improve their crisis management strategy because a friend of the shop owner had
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blocked off media and interfered with the interview.
Source cited. Another interesting finding was that Apple Daily was more active at seeking
multiple sources than other news media. In addition to the shop owner, Mrs. Chang, and Taipei Lee-Chi’s spokesperson, Mr. Yang, Apple Daily also interviewed the staffs and random customers. Other than the information from official documents like Taipei Lee-Chi’s Facebook fan page and
governmental announcement, Apple Daily also included public opinion in their news coverage.
Apple Daily not only collected the opinions of Taipei Lee-Chi’s tainted oil issue from opinion leaders like movie director and politicians from their Facebook accounts, but also readers’ comments from its previous news reports. In addition, Apple Daily was the only publication which cited the
“Support Taipei Lee-Chi” Facebook fan page in the reports.
How Apple Daily collected the sources for the news coverage could influence the organizations and public practitioners’ crisis communication procedure. It means that the organizations and public practitioners could feel pressure to make the crisis response in time. As mentioned previously in the part of literature review, a quick response helps to create the impression of control and is necessary to get the organization's definition of the crisis-its side of the story- into the media and out to
stakeholders. Moreover, organizations and public practitioners should not underestimate the power of word of mouth, since it is now one of the important sources for media to collect human-angle
information for the reports.
Social media engagement. The online news reports nowadays all embedded the hyperlink to personal Facebook and Google Plus account, which means readers can directly share the report on their social networking sites. From the observation of the online news coverage of these four
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publications, it was found that not many people were using Google Plus. On the contrary, people tend to share the news article through Facebook, or to comment via Facebook account. Among Apple Daily’s coverage about Taipei Lee-Chi, a commentary written by a reader had received 48,000 shares on Facebook, which might reach even more readers through the Internet. The high engagement of social media users makes Apple Daily a dominant role to public relations practitioners among Taiwanese media.
Evaluation of the outcome. Public reviews from the news media could be identified into two
main categories: supportive vs unsupportive frames. More detailed types of public reviews and the examples could be classified as below:
Supportive:
1. Considered it was not Taipei Lee-Chi’s fault, and the government should be responsible for food safety control. For example:
Ching Hsu. September 10, 2014 at 19:18 Both the bakery and consumers are victims. The problem is whether the national inspection bodies are monitoring the quality or not. (Apple Daily)
許清 9 月 10 日 19:18
店家與消費者都是無辜的受害者，國家認證檢 驗單位到底有沒有在為我們真正在把關，這才 是大問題。（蘋果日報）
2. Considered Taipei Lee-Chi did not intend to use tainted oil, and was also the victim in this tainted oil crisis.
Jessie Hsu. September 9, 2014 at 21:06 Well said! These businesses are also victims.
They should be strong and request national compensation. These demanding customers are also the livelihood of the business, so it would be better not to offend them. Hope people stop putting the bakery in a difficult position because of a little money! (Apple Daily)
Jessie Hsu 9 月 9 日 21:06
說得好！這些店家也是受害者，應該硬起來，
向政府申請國賠。奧客，唉，衣食父母，很難 得罪。希望大家不要再為了那一點錢，為難無 辜的店家了！（蘋果日報)
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3. Consumers emphasized their personal relationship with Taipei Lee-Chi and believed in the innocence of this century-old bakery.
Yi-chun Chiu. September 10, 2014 at 9:21 This law-abiding business is innocent. (Apple Daily)
邱奕鈞 9 月 10 日 9:21
商家守法是無辜的。（蘋果日報）
Wei-lin Chien. September 12, 2014 at 1:00 It still tastes good. We always buy a box every Moon Festival. Cheer up Lee-Chi ^_^ (Apple Daily)
簡偉玲 9 月 12 日 1:00
其實還是好吃，每年中秋必來一盒，犁記加油
^_^ （蘋果日報）
4. Sympathized with Taipei Lee-Chi’s staffs who have confronted irrational customers.
Grace Chen. September 9, 2014 at 22:08 Feel sad seeing these staffs cry. They are victims too. Those who are dissatisfied, go blame on those suppliers ok? (Liberty Times)
Grace Chen 9 月 9 日 22:08
看到員工哭心裡很難過，他們也是受害者，心
裡有氣去嗆源頭的奸商好嗎？（自由時報）
Unsupportive:
1. Taipei Lee-Chi intentionally used poor quality ingredient to reduce the cost.
Wen-chuan Lai. September 11, 2014 at 8:51 Um… These century-old shops did not adopt traditional procedure to make pastries (self-rendered lard), nor carefully checked the source of oil products. They just want to reduce the cost.
When the crisis broke out, they claimed
themselves as victims. Does food business make easy money? Is it all government’s fault when having problem? Don’t you have responsibility at all? (Apple Daily)
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2. Publics disagreed with Taipei Lee-Chi’s crisis response, and complained refund policy too strict.
De-he Huang. September 11, 2014 at 20:36 1. Not responsible for the quality control , 2. lost reputation, 3. compensation was not sincere. The bakery only refund half price and claiming that other products had no problem, but did you tell me that the pastries might have problem before selling them to me? What if I already ate the pastries and had thrown away the receipt, but these pastries turned out as problematic product the other day? Still have a pineapple cake at home.
I’m not going to request refund. I just want to return the product to the bakery, and I’m not going to visit Lee-Chi anymore. (Apple Daily)
黃淂和 9 月 11 日 20:36
3. Did not appreciate Taipei Lee-Chi’s owner acting like innocent about using tainted oil.
Ting Yi. September 28, 2014 at 21:36
Learn something from Lee-Hu. Don’t act like so emotional and upset. I like Lee-Chi, but I decided not to buy your pastries after seeing these emotional appeals. (Liberty Times)
Ting Yi 9 月 28 日 21:36
跟李鵠學學，別一直搞悲情，雖愛吃犁記，但
看到一直搞悲情，決定不吃你家的餅 （自由
時報）
Scrutinizing public reviews of the news reports, it was found that the public had hot debate on whether Taipei Lee-Chi was innocent in using low quality oil or not. Many discussions turned into a debate on politics, arguing the government was irresponsible and careless about the people. Many of the public review express blame and anger on the government rather than on Chang Guann
Corporation, which produced these tainted oil products and sold to the business. For those people who considered Taipei Lee-Chi used low quality oil on purpose, they thought Taipei Lee-Chi’s strict and complicated refund policy meant that the owner did not take enough responsibility for what they have done. Some people also called into question that Taipei Lee-Chi did not provide the correct number of tainted moon cakes.
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When it comes to organization’s crisis responses, many people did not appreciate the fact that Taipei Lee-Chi’s owner acted innocent and upset about using tainted oil to make their pastry
products. They thought the owner was emotional when facing the press during the crisis, and thus did not give the appearance of being a professional leader. People also regarded the owner as a bad example of crisis management, because her decision on refund policy did not cease customers’ anger, but rather, aroused even more disputes between customers and staff.
It is worth mentioning that some people noted only Taipei Lee-Chi got so much news coverage compared to other businesses involved in tainted oil crisis. These people called into question and suspected that Taipei Lee-Chi’s dispute with customers was a show staged by public relations professionals. Many netizens also did not appreciate Taipei Lee-Chi’s act of destroying the tainted moon cakes on television. They thought it was more like a show, which was aimed at receiving attention and creating buzz. Despite netizens disliked how Taipei Lee-Chi dumped the returned products, this act did receive media attention. For instance, The Liberty Times had 23 reports about Taipei Lee-Chi’s tainted oil crisis, and five of them were about this dumping event.
Organization’s crisis communication strategies (RQ2.1). To analyze organization’s crisis communication strategies, the first step is to examine the level of crisis responsibility and whether the organization has intensifying factors. Scrutinizing the media coverage, Taipei Lee-Chi had few actions which can be interpreted as its crisis communication strategies. These strategies would be discussed in the following paragraphs.
According to the owner, the lard oil that Taipei Lee-Chi used in making pastry products all received GMP certificates. The shop owner claimed that Taipei Lee-Chi was also a victim in this
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tainted oil crisis because they did not know Chang Guann Corporation had used poor quality ingredient to produce its lard oil. On September 7 the Apple Daily reported Taipei Lee-Chi‘s shop owner Chang Wan-ling (張婉玲) burst into tears many times in the media interview. She claimed the lard oil product was “specially ordered by Lee-Chi. It has milky-white color, and the smell was normal.” She also emphasized that only Chinese Sesame Pork Cake made in March to June had used this lard oil product (Taipei Lee-Chi owner burst in to tears and felt sorry to the customers 2014). By this statement, it could say that Taipei Lee-Chi has relatively low crisis responsibility in this case.
Scrutinizing the media reports, Taipei Lee-Chi did not confront similar crisis in the past. It also has pretty positive reputation and was well-known as a century old shop. Refer to Coombs’ SCCT recommendations (2012), crisis with low attributions of crisis responsibility and no intensifying factors, organization can add excuse and/or justification strategies to the instructing information and care response. In addition, the compensation strategy, reminder and ingratiation strategies can be used to supplement any response. Coombs also suggested that the base response an organization should do is to provide instructing information, including recall information. The second-half of the base response is the care response, which is to provide an expression of sympathy, and any
information of corrective actions.
Reviewing Taipei Lee-Chi’s crisis responses, it had first used denial strategy trying to shift the blame (shop owner burst into tears, emphasized they were victims as well), and evasion of
responsibility (stressed their good intention that they chose premium price oil products and thought the quality would be better). Taipei Lee-Chi also adopted many strategies to reduce offensiveness of the event, including minimization strategy (claimed that only Chinese Sesame Pork Cake made in March to June had contained tainted oil), and compensation strategy (customers could have refund
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by showing receipt and product of certain time period). However, these strategies did not fully calm all the angry customers down. Although some of the customers felt sympathized with Taipei Lee-Chi and thought they did not intend using tainted oil, there were also many people complaining the refund policy was too complicated. Taipei Lee-Chi issued further corrective actions in order to minimize customers’ anger (Extended temporary closing to concentrate on the refund procedure, relaxed the refund policy, destroyed the returned products, and announced to sell the Sun Cake representing hope after reopening).
It is worth to mention that Taipei Lee-Chi had apologized many times during the crisis, but its apology was different from the mortification strategy, which indicates apology for the act. Taipei Lee-Chi’s apology was focused on how this crisis made the customers feel uncertain and worried, instead of apologized for using the tainted lard oil product.
The effectiveness of the crisis management (RQ2.2). As what mentioned previously, Coombs (2006) has suggested calculating the amount of media coverage helps to evaluate the effectiveness of crisis management. When the organization has its operation back on track, the stakeholders will turn their attention to other issues, and this crisis event is no longer newsworthy for the media. The following figure shows how the number of reports on Taipei Lee-Chi changed during the crisis from the four publications:
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Figure 1 Number of Reports Varying During the Tainted Oil Crisis
From the figure, we can find out that the Taipei Lee-Chi received the most media coverage on September 10. It was the day after the staffs were scouted and forced to swallow the pastries by the customers. This dispute not only arouse much attention from supporters, many public figures like Taiwanese politician Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), movie director Yang Ya-che (楊雅喆), and celebrity Ili Cheng (鄭家純) also spoke up for Taipei Lee-Chi. Because of this dispute, Taipei Lee-Chi
announced to relax the refund policy. This strategy successfully compensated many customers, and hence there were no more serious arguments at the store after the corrective action. With the decrease of complaints, the number of media reports also had a cutback relatively.
Besides September 10, there were another three peaks of the number of reports in the figure.
The first peak was on September 6, which was the day after Taipei Lee-Chi broke out using tainted oil. The second peak after September 10 was on September 16. It was the day Taipei Lee-Chi
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
2015/9/5 2015/9/6 2015/9/7 2015/9/8 2015/9/9 2015/9/10 2015/9/11 2015/9/12 2015/9/13 2015/9/14 2015/9/15 2015/9/16 2015/9/17 2015/9/18 2015/9/19 2015/9/20 2015/9/21 2015/9/22 2015/9/23 2015/9/24 2015/9/25 2015/9/26 2015/9/27 2015/9/28 2015/9/29
Number of reports
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announced destroying 120 thousand pastry products. This strategy could be classified as the
corrective action, which successfully brought much attention from the media. The third peak was on September 24, which was Taipei Lee-Chi’s reopening day. Taipei Lee-Chi chose to temporarily close operation in order to play a low key during the crisis. The shop then adopted another corrective action, which was to sell the Sun Cake and look forward to starting over on their reopening day. This strategy also seized the media attention and received positive reports about their new start. From that day on, there were only a few reports talking about Taipei Lee-Chi’s tainted oil crisis.
Reviewing the variance of media coverage during the crisis, it was found that Taipei Lee-Chi
Reviewing the variance of media coverage during the crisis, it was found that Taipei Lee-Chi