Just hours after student-athlete Lauren McCluskey was murdered on campus, the University of Utah reached out to a national crisis communication firm for help in framing the situation. The school wanted to know how it should answer questions from the media and — its primary focus — how it could maintain its public image.
For the company’s advice on that, the U. paid nearly $50,000. It paid the same advisor another $8,000 months later, before a retiring administrator discussed the case on “Dateline.”
It’s the most the university has ever spent on outside public relations after an emergency.