The Academy Awards have added a crisis communications team for the upcoming broadcast following last year's incident in which actor Will Smith struck comedian Chris Rock.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences CEO Bill Kramer told Time magazine this week that "we have a whole crisis team, something we've never had before, and many plans in place" in case of a surprise incident.
"We've run many scenarios," he added. "So it is our hope that we will be prepared for anything that we may not anticipate right now but that we're planning for just in case it does happen."
When asked about the incident with Smith, Kramer said: "Because of last year, we've opened our minds to the many things that can happen at the Oscars. But these crisis plans — the crisis communication teams and structures we have in place — allow us to say this is the group that we have to gather very quickly."
He continued: "This is how we all come together. This is the spokesperson. This will be the statement. And obviously depending on the specifics of the crisis, and let's hope something doesn't happen and we never have to use these, but we already have frameworks in place that we can modify."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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