Articles

Your Business On The Front Page
by Dr. Lynne Curry

Something terribly wrong happened at Chilkoot Charlie's one night two weeks ago. We don't yet know what happened. Within hours, the story hit the television news and the next morning dominated the front page. Ready or not, company officials found themselves thrust into the media spotlight.

If a similarly tragic or news-breaking story happened in your company, would you say the right thing on camera and in print?

Not worried because it couldn't happen to you or your company?

Think again. Every organization can find itself in the news through the actions of an employee or manager who does something outrageous or has something outrageous done to them. If you work in the company, you may feel temporarily tarred by the news brush. If you run the company, the public and your employees expect you to say the right thing.

What's the right thing to do or say? Rule #1: avoid reacting to the reporters. Instead, communicate through the reporters and cameras to the public. When an Era flight crashed in 2001, Era's president told newspaper reporters, "We are shocked and grieving. We don't know yet what happened." In just two sentences, Era's president projected a warm and human presence, yet avoided premature speculation.

In contrast, when reporters interviewed Chilkoot's owner about the protesters gathered in front of his bar, he called the protest "irrelevant" and a "media circus," managing in just a few phrases to insult the family and friends of the customer who died. Think you could have done better if your employees had potentially harmed a customer and you found other angry customers carrying signs on the street outside your office? Possibly, however, most business owners react under attack and when given the chance to "set the record straight," make strong statements. If you want to avoid later regretting your words, remember that if you don't say it, they can't print or film it.

Rule 2: You handle reporters best when you realize what "news" means. Reporters want to offer readers and viewers the "what" and "why" behind breaking news quickly and dramatically. Talk too long to a reporter or focus on issues important to you but not to readers and viewers and you force reporters to leave your favorite thoughts on the editing floor, often resulting in a story different than you intended.

If you want to show your best face in print or on camera, before you answer questions, assess what the public most likely wants to know and decide on the message you want to put across. In the Chilkoot situation, readers wanted to know what happened inside the bar and why. Thus reporters gave the bar owner a full three paragraphs of reporting his assertions that assumptions of excess force used on a bar patron were just that – unproven assumptions.

Rule #3: You can run but you can't hide. Although many think they can escape news coverage by "no comment," consider how you feel when you read several no comments from someone key to a news story. Do you think the best or assume a cover up or worse? At best, a "no comment" represents a delaying action. At worst, by the time you decide to ante up your side of the story, you can't find anyone to listen.

Rule #4: You minimize harm when you help the reporter. Reporters find themselves quickly thrown into complex situations involving diverse and often contradictory facts. While quick studies, they rarely have the time to master the subtleties of each situation. Further, most experienced reporters have dealt many times with people who mask the truth, and they have a nose for lies. Thus, if you over-focus on self-protection when in the media's spotlight, forcing reporters to dig for the story, you often wind up reading a story you'd prefer not to see in the morning news. Further, if you shade the truth to make yourself look good, you give any reporter sharp enough to smell the evasion the ability to expose your deceit.

The alternative? When in an interview, state the truth in a way that can immediately be grasped. After the interview, provide reporters concise background material that helps them quickly make sense of the complex portions of the story. Finally, don't try to cover up the truth unless you want tomorrow's headline to be your lies exposed.