Updates about the massive Toyota recall are coming out daily, sometimes hourly. There are more recalls and more concerns from drivers—a public relations nightmare of the worst kind. Not only are huge dollar amounts and a company’s reputation at stake, but potentially people’s lives.

Yesterday a statement in the media by Chris Gidez, director of risk management and crisis communications at Hill & Knowlton, a public relations firm, got my attention. He made this point: “Today companies have to be Johnny-on-the spot as soon as something hits,” he said. “We live in a Facebook world and you have to move fast to keep consumers informed.”

I contacted Mr. Gidez for an interview and posted a story on our Web site today at http://property-casualty.com. He made some good observations comparing the two cases.

In today’s world, for example, the Tylenol case, for years seen as the “gold standard” in risk management, might not fare as well. Tylenol waited about a week before recalling product from store shelves. In today’s world of blogs and Internet news sites—which means reporters often are churning out news 24/7—a week is an eternity. Organizations need to have a plan of action in place well in advance, detailing who is a spokesperson and the types of things that need to be said.

He observed that in our digital world, where even deleted e-mails can be resurrected, anything that went on within the Tylenol organization before the recall would have been discovered and most likely leaked.

While it appeared initially that Toyota has done a good job of responding, the auto giant is now coming under fire for not coming forward soon enough with potentially damaging information.

To make things worse, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood caused a stir on Wednesday when he advised that a Toyota car owner “stop driving it. Take it to a Toyota dealer because they believe they have a fix for it.” He later recanted the statement after Toyota shares began to drop, modifying it to, “if you own one of these cars or if you’re in doubt, take it to the dealer and they’re going to fix it.”

In the digital age, Mr. Gidez said, companies need to keep in mind that not only does word travel fast because of technology that didn’t exist years ago, but that details will be leaked, pundits will discuss every aspect of a situation, every crumb of information will be blasted over the Internet and blogs will be written.

We live in the “Google Age,” he said.

While the company will survive, what lies ahead are years of court cases and class action lawsuits and a “new normal,” for Toyota, Mr. Gidez observed.

You never know what you’ll learn from TV. While flipping through the channels recently, I became engrossed in a show about zoo risk management—leave it to me to find a risk management program on Animal Planet.

As you might recall, in 2007 on Christmas Day at closing time in a San Francisco zoo, a teenage boy was killed by a tiger—named Tatiana—who escaped from her enclosure. Another boy and his injured brother tried to get help and were also nearly mauled. This was the first deadly animal escape in American zoo history. The tiger enclosure, a grotto with bushes and a high fence, was considered escape-proof.

Tigers are considered to be one of the most dangerous animals in a zoo. They are endangered, with only 4,000 or so left in the wild, disappearing at a rate of one per day, according to the show. In fact, more Siberian tigers live in zoos than in the wild—only about 250 are left in the wild. These are sad facts, but they show the importance of these animals and their lure to zoo visitors.

Zoos, I learned, as part of their accreditation with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, are required to perform annual drills—with the goal of always recapturing an animal unless a human life is at stake. The association has a 67-page manual which covers every aspect of zoo keeping and risk management.

As is the case with risk managers in any industry, risk managers of zoos must think of anything that could conceivably go wrong and develop a plan, just in case. They must look not only at the animal enclosures, but at the nature of each type of animal and what it is capable of.

Contingency planning for zoos involves creating a scenario, such as an escaped cheetah, and then responding to that scenario. The response team is equipped with a medical team and anything else that could be needed, such as tranquilization darts, although I learned that these darts are not always as responsive as believed. The darts can take five to 10 minutes to be effective, and sometimes they don’t work at all. The real danger is the unforeseen event and there is always something to be learned from a drill.

In this case the inconceivable did happen. This large, dangerous tiger, perhaps egged-on by the three teens that late afternoon (a partial shoe-print was found on top of the iron fence), jumped the high fence of her enclosure to get at them. She killed one teen and then stalked the other two, who were trying to get help. They called 9-1-1, which responded within minutes. Once on the scene, authorities found that the tiger had the two teens cornered.

Studies of the incident after the fact revealed that the first-rate care tigers receive may have contributed to the situation—again something that would be extremely difficult to recognize and plan for in advance. These large cats eat excellent diets and get a lot of physical exercise, which in effect turns them into athletes.

A large, athletic cat housed in an older zoo exhibit could have been the unforeseen element leading to the tiger’s escape. After the tragedy, according to the program, the tiger exhibit was closed and the outside area completely rebuilt. Among the renovations, foliage along the perimeter was removed, a higher fence was installed and an electrified hot-wire added to the fence.

This situation illustrates, to me, one of the biggest dangers of risk management–looking around the corner for potential risks, rather than going back and examining the situation with fresh eyes.

Risk managers, does this story sound any alarms?

Because I’ve worked as a reporter for the past 20 years or so, I’m used to asking the questions. That’s why it’s been such a switch for me to change hats off the job, where I’ve recently taken up the roles of both public relations rep and the person being interviewed by the press.

I’ve always been interested in the outdoors and more recently in birds and so I became involved with our local Audubon Society chapter. Last year I was elected to chair the publicity committee. Until recently this has consisted mainly of putting together and distributing brochures and flyers to publicize events. It also has meant working with the local newspaper to establish contacts.

But things really started to heat up when I got a call recently from a reporter at the newspaper. It turns out that a half-dozen or so bald eagles had taken up residence in the woods adjacent to a local shopping center and word had reached the newspaper. Since I was established as the Audubon group’s contact, the reporter called me with questions about why these very large birds would choose such a spot, so close to cars and people.

She interviewed someone from our organization, but still had questions. I made some frantic calls and lined up another board member for the reporter to interview. The result was a nice, page-one, above-the-fold article two days later.

That’s when the fun really began. I got a call that a TV news station was doing a story on the eagles and also wanted to interview someone from our organization. No one else was available and I was on vacation that day, so I volunteered.

I’ve had some on-camera TV experience, but it’s been quite a while. So I made a list of the dos and don’ts I could remember and prepared to put them to use again.

In a couple of hours I met the reporter at the site and answered her questions on-camera. The interview went well (and was short, thank goodness) and aired that evening.

It later occurred to me that as interviewer during my day job and as volunteer PR rep and interviewee on my own time, I can offer some tips for anyone preparing for a television interview—some of these points are applicable to print medium as well. Here are my suggestions:

• Find out in advance what the reporter wants to know, or needs to flesh out the story

• Ask yourself possible questions and rehearse the answers

• Try to take an interesting, unique approach if possible

• Think of any other possible related questions that could be asked

• Plan what to wear and keep it simple. No crazy plaids or neon colors

• Since your face is what will be featured, wear a flattering color (but not too bright) near your face, such as a tie or scarf. For example, since I was to be interviewed outdoors and would wear a black coat, I tied a bright tartan scarf around my neck

• Ask where you should be looking during the interview—at the reporter or the camera

• Remind yourself, often, to smile.