How to Plan for PR Damage Control

You may have advance notice that damaging information is about to be announced regarding your organization. Take advantage of the early warning to plan for damage control, and create a response that will help spin PR in a way that causes the least possible harm. Read on to learn more.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Limit Damaging PR by Planning Ahead

1. Appoint one member of your organization as spokesperson for the story. Plan to let this person do all of the talking in order to keep your message clear and on-topic. Limit media contact with other members of your organization.
2. Beat the media to the punch and announce the issue yourself. Your chances for positive PR spin are better if you take responsibility for informing the public. You can also control, at least at first, what information is immediately available to the media.
3. Respond to the main issue or problem before it becomes news. You are best able to control bad PR if you can show the public that you acted to fix the issue as soon as you became aware of it.
4. Publicize your quick and positive reaction to the issue. If you announce that you had a problem but you immediately fixed it, you will likely receive better PR than if the media simply breaks the news about your problem. If you are not able to fix the problem quickly, inform the media what steps you are taking and when you expect to the situation to be remedied.
5. Go public with information on how your organization works to limit and respond to this sort of situation. You may also want to consider making members of your organization available for interviews, although you will need to discuss responses with them and your spokesperson beforehand. The more transparent you are, easier it will be for people to trust your side of the story.

Tips & Warnings

• If you regularly work at maintaining good PR, a bad story is less likely to damage your organization.
• If you are faced with an unexpected PR issue, don't attempt to meet with the media without taking time to plan for the exchange. It's better to let a day go by without a response than to make the situation worse with a poorly thought-out reaction.
• Keeping calm and responding politely to press inquiries can help influence the media in your favor.
• Issues are most likely to damage your PR if they go unaddressed. Hoping that the media simply won't notice a story is poor planning.