Navigating Media Communication: Interview vs. Statement in Crisis Situations (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to PR Playback here at Haunt Texas. This is our weekly segment where we take questions you've submitted from the website and we try and give you some guidance or advice, sometimes about difficult situations. This week's letter comes from Parker B. Parker is in Houston, Texas and he's asking me, Jeff, one of the most challenging situations I face is deciding how to communicate with the media after an incident or in a difficult situation. We struggle to determine whether it's better to do an interview or just release a statement. We don't want to put our spokesperson in a bad situation, so how do you decide what to do? Well, Parker, thanks for the question. Interesting dilemma that you're asking about. I kind of like to use a two-part model to help me make a choice in this situation. Here you see it up on the board, past, present. Pretty simple model, but it allows me to start asking and answering the question that you've posed to us in a rational way. Okay, so first question, was the situation in the past? If it was, my favored format is an interview because you have a chance to prepare for the questions and the responses that you might want to give. You can also talk about what you've been doing since the incident and that's an important way to control an interview. If the situation is happening in the present, meaning right now you're in a difficult issue, then you have a different calculus to consider. I think in these kinds of situations, I prefer a statement accompanied with a short question response. Remember, we never answer, we always respond in interviews. And so I might set that situation up as a gathering of press or even one or two reporters. Delivering that statement, taking control of your interview from the top, always start with that idea of first and foremost, here's what you want to say. And then you can take a few short questions, but emphasizing that this is an ongoing situation, we don't have all the answers, we'll keep you informed as we go. Take a look at this clip. It's a good example of a spokesperson using that staying in the present idea inside of a difficult situation. And you kind of get a flavor for the fact that he controlled the interview, but he also took a few questions that he was able to respond to and stay with his talking points.

Speaker 2: Well, currently we put together an investigation team and per the county working with the county,

Speaker 3: we will conduct a full taproot investigation of this incident. Right now what we're doing is safety is our number one priority. We are assuring that there are no other active leaks in the plant. We're bringing in all the right personnel. We're bringing in our engineering help. We're bringing in people from outside this facility to look at this and to understand exactly how much damage there is. But it's going to take us a little time to truly assess the amount of damage for this facility. I wouldn't be able to say at this time effectively how long it will be before we can give an assessment. What we will do though is we will be transparent. As we learn things, we will share those immediately with both the city, the county, and with the media. As soon as we know more, we're going to share that.

Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for your question. We'll see you next time on PR Playback.