Practical PR Guide for Solicitors — How to take control of a media enquiry in the first five minutes

Communications consultant Stewart Argo explores what to ask and what to do so you can protect your organisation or client’s reputation from the very first moment.

The clock is ticking

When a journalist calls or emails time is of the essence, no matter how you or your client intend to deal with their enquiry. Even if there’s going to be no response, the right handling during and immediately after a request can make the world of difference.

While the advice in this article can apply to positive opportunities, the main focus is on those occasions when the approach is less welcome.

At one end of the spectrum, gathering the right information and acting on it promptly could result in the story being withdrawn if it’s without foundation; at the other, forewarned is forearmed and advance knowledge of what’s coming could be vital in minimising the fall-out; and somewhere in between is the opportunity for a straightforward right of reply. Plus, all give you a chance to build goodwill with a journalist, which can be worth its weight in gold some other time.

Did they even get to you in the first place?

Before delving into the mechanics, we need to consider one small but vital detail: how easy is it for a journalist to reach you? Make media contacts obvious on your website and have a process for capturing and expediting urgent queries (most enquiries from the media are urgent). So many times I’ve seen an enquiry go to a generic email address for want of a better option, which then languishes for hours – or even days – due to a lack of checking or appreciation for how time-sensitive they can be.

Something else to be aware of is that there is increasingly no deadline for a story. The adage ‘publish and be damned’ has more relevance today than ever before, with an increasing tendency for stories to just appear and responses be added later. ‘Acme Ltd has been approached for comment’ is a familiar addition at the end of articles now. It might not be fair, but it is how it is.

Turn the tables and ask your own questions

Having established that time is usually against you from the start, the priority is to gather information. Let’s work on the basis that the enquiry has reached a colleague who can handle it. Many firms will have a dedicated PR professional; others will have a marketing person who is comfortable dealing with the media; some will have neither.

In any event, asking these key questions takes less than two minutes, yet gives you most of the information you need to act effectively:

• Who are you? (name, media outlet, role)
• What’s it about?
• What’s requested? (specific response, interview, general comment)
• Why now? (what has triggered the enquiry, timing, urgency)
• What deadline? (if there even is one)
• What channel? (newspapers do video news; broadcasters do online news)
• Who else are you speaking to? (helps you understand story scope and risks)

Expect some journalists to dislike being asked questions, even when doing so can be to their benefit! You should still ask them anyway. It’s always a risk annoying a journalist; it’s a bigger risk to act without having at least tried to get all the information you need.

Why speed helps shape the story

It’s not exactly revealing a trade secret that many news stories are flimsy and some are way worse than that. Why that’s the case and what you can do about it is a subject for another day; so is exactly how you respond. For now, it’s sufficient to say this: get your facts and response in as quickly as you can to influence the story.

Even if you can’t stop a negative story (fair or otherwise) you may be able to diminish its prominence or significance. There’s a world of difference between a front-page ‘splash’, as it’s known, and a NIB (news-in-brief) that only ends up online.

You can also influence the tenor of the story and have your response higher up in the copy. Why is it that so many comments from story subjects appear at the end of an article? One reason is that’s where the journalist chose to put it for editorial reasons; more likely is the comment took so long to arrive that the only option before publishing was just to bolt it on.

It was often the case during my time in local government that a department would agonise over a response all day, and then wonder why the comment they approved at 5pm wasn’t in the first paragraph of a story largely written hours earlier.

Another seemingly small matter, that so often derails plans, is to make sure people know their input to an enquiry might be needed as soon as it comes in, not when the response process is well underway. Again, I’ve seen too often the despair caused when it turns out the vital approver is uncontactable due to meetings, illness or holidays.

Creating goodwill costs nothing

Just letting a journalist know promptly you have received their query and will respond is helpful. It might be uncomfortable to think of the media as a customer, but do that and it will often be to your benefit.

It also sends a small but important signal that you are a competent organisation. This kind of framing matters, even if you disagree with the principle of it. Nobody said the media made sense, and you’ll find plenty of journalists who think the same!

Being helpful doesn’t mean exposing your firm or client to risk. You can treat the media with respect no matter how they behave, what you believe about them or how you handle their interest in you.

Get out of the blocks quickly

How the first contact is handled can pre-empt escalation, reduce misreporting and minimise how disruptive the query is to your day. In media relations the real question is not always how you respond – it’s how you start. Enlightened self-interest means making those first five minutes work for you.