THIS WEEK’S SIGNAL
Two Words for One Threat
"Disinformation loves a vacuum. So you stop and say nothing and it will absolutely fill it." - A disinformation lead at an international broadcaster, in a Crisis Lab interview
When a disaster outruns the official warning, most of the people in its path hear nothing from anyone in charge. Across the wildfires, floods, and nuclear accidents on record, the official channel reaches only a fraction of those affected during the window when a warning would still change what they do. The rest are left to work it out for themselves. Into that silence, something always flows. Usually it is rumor and a neighbor's best guess. It does not have to be.
Two professions watch this same gap, and they use the same word for what fills it. Emergency management says misinformation and pictures false alarms, panic, the public getting things wrong on its own. National security says disinformation and pictures a foreign adversary running a campaign. They are describing one empty space from opposite ends. Neither one is watching the place where the two meet, the moment a hostile actor times a lie to your disaster. That seam, between the people who manage your crisis and the people who track your enemy, is the subject of this issue. What lives in it, why it stays open, and what it would take to close it.
What this issue works out
Why the official warning reaches so few of the people in a disaster's path, and where that ceiling is actually set.
Why two professions use the same word for what fills the gap, and keep missing the place they meet.
How an opening that forms on its own becomes a security exposure, not just a safety failure.
INTELLIGENCE BY CRISIS LAB · ISSUE 002 · DISINFORMATION
Two words for one threat: the space disinformation fills when your warning never arrives.
CURATED BRIEFINGS
Wildfire Lies and Trolls on BlueSky
CAAD Data Monitor · June 4, 2026
CAAD's June data monitor documents what practitioners have suspected: wildfire disinformation is now being coordinated on BlueSky, where moderation is thin and crisis-aware audiences are growing. The tactics mirror legacy platforms, but the old Twitter playbooks don't transfer cleanly.
Your Anti-Disinformation Safety Chain for Danger Season
Union of Concerned Scientists · May 28, 2026
Kate Cell at UCS maps five tactics disinformation uses to break the chain from accurate data to public action: cause distortion, blame distortion, trust attacks on agencies, false safety signals, and narrative hijacking. Any one degrades the response environment. Stacked, they erode the conditions under which emergency management works.
Disaster Disinformation Is Bulldozing the Community Trust We Rely On
Australian Journal of Emergency Management (AJEM) · 2026
AJEM traces disaster disinformation from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma through today, where AI has compressed spread timelines dramatically. The argument is operational: false narratives shape whether people follow guidance, accept assistance, or comply with evacuation orders.
LOOK AHEAD
Emergency Management Conference
July 14–15, 2026 · Melbourne, Australia (Emergency Services Foundation)
EMC 2026 theme: Strengthening Victoria's Future. Two days of practitioner talks, panel discussions, and workshops for emergency services personnel and volunteers. Registration closes July 13.
Disaster Risk Reduction Summer School
August 10–14, 2026 · University College London, London
A five-day intensive on disaster risk reduction concepts, frameworks, and practice. Registration closes June 30.
National Homeland Security Conference (NHSC2026)
August 10–13, 2026 · Louisville, Kentucky
The annual gathering of homeland security and emergency management professionals from across the country.
THIS WEEK FROM CRISIS LAB
Executive Briefing: Project Management for Emergency Managers
This month, Crisis Lab hosted Andrew D. Boyarsky, President of Pinnacle Performance Management, for our Intelligence+ executive briefing. The topic: project management built for emergency management. Boyarsky made the case that crises should be run as projects, not just operations. Standard project doctrine has to be adapted, he argued, when time, scope, and resources are all uncertain at the outset. Working through a chemical-release scenario, he showed how a work breakdown structure, rolling-wave scheduling, and built-in buffer time turn chaos into clear, accountable action. He also held that a project framework often moves faster than forcing long-term work, like standing up mobile vaccination units, into an Incident Command System. Practitioners from Australia to the United States pushed on the money side, where every expense still has to survive post-incident scrutiny. Conversations like this are what the community shows up for. These executive briefings run monthly as an Intelligence+ benefit. If you want a seat at the next one, join Plus to attend.
Course: Innovative Crisis Exercises: From Design to Execution
Building on the principle that you can't wait for the real thing to find out if your team can handle it, this course walks practitioners through the full lifecycle of exercise design: from scoping and scenario development to facilitation and after-action learning. A well-designed exercise is also one of the most effective tools for exposing how an organization performs under information pressure. When communication breaks down, when teams default to assumptions, when conflicting inputs and rapid rumor spread surface, it shows up in an exercise first. For teams working through Issue 002, this is a direct next step.
Podcast: Navigating the Information Maze in Crisis and Emergency Management - From the Archive
In this episode, Kyle King sits down with Chris Kremidas-Courtney, Senior Fellow at Friends of Europe and a member of the NATO Civil Experts Group. Kremidas-Courtney makes the case that emergency managers treat disinformation as someone else's problem, usually communications, usually after the fact, when it should be built into the response structure from the start. He introduces the concept of information first responders: locally trusted people trained to communicate with the public and counter false narratives in real time. The episode covers how to debunk disinformation without amplifying it, why transparency is the most durable counter available, and what it looks like when a government gets this right.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Crisis Lab
INTERNATIONAL CAREER OPPORTUNITIES
Role | Apply |
Consultancy for Staff Capacity Building Training Content, Self-Paced E-Learning (ForAfrika, Remote) | |
Global Remote Sensing Manager (MAG, Remote) | |
Regional Communications Coordinator – ENA (Tearfund, Iraq/Jordan/Lebanon/Pakistan/Syria) | |
Media and Crisis Communications Specialist (UNFPA ESARO, Johannesburg) | |
Advocacy Advisor – Lebanon (Première Urgence Internationale, Beirut) | |
Communications and Engagement Coordinator (IRC, Sudan) |
Crisis Lab is the intelligence and education arm of Capacity Building International. Twice-monthly intelligence briefings for senior crisis management practitioners.