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 Insider Tips - 15 For a communications person, delivering bad news or dealing with an unexpected problem that puts your company squarely in the path of the media, is a critical time: Share prices can rise or fall as well as reputations, not the least of which may be yours. 1. Make sure your senior management team gives you all the facts, right away. There's nothing worse than going nose-to-nose with a reporter who has more information than you do. If you are the "designated spokesperson", the owners/management need to know that if you look or sound puzzled, or underprepared, (or worse yet, you deny any allegations which later turn out to be true), the reporter will assume the company is also underprepared, and potentially devious. It will also be hard to retrieve the company's credibility, and yours, with the media if they think you've lied or misled them. 2. So, don't deny anything a reporter may say to you about your company. Unfortunately, bad news doesn't catch up with the communications person as quickly as it should sometimes. If any question is asked, critical or not, and the subject is not one with which you are familiar, back off, as firmly and professionally as possible, no matter how hostile or probing the reporter becomes. Then go immediately to your team and clarify the situation so that you'll be able to get back to the reporter quickly, with a full understanding and best of all, a plan to handle the situation. 3. The biggest part of that plan should be some solid steps towards solving the problem, whatever it is, and telling the media what those steps are. We refer you back in time to the Tylenol situation where some bottles of the company's gelcaps, already on store shelves in the U.S., were found to have been tampered with. Tylenol's first action was to retrieve all their products from retail outlets and announce that fact immediately to the press. Only after the products had been recalled did the company start its investigation. Its quick, and correct, response may well have saved lives. It certainly saved the brand and its credibility.
Contact Davidson Communications for any help you may need in writing and releasing news or statements, and for appropriate follow-up. |
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 INSIDER TIPS - 15 |
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