The first 24 hours of a media crisis: what to do first

A media crisis rarely starts with a press conference. More often it starts with a journalist on the phone wanting a comment by the afternoon, a social post that is spreading fast, or an internal email about a problem the public will soon hear about too. What happens next shapes the story a week later.

The first hours are not about the perfect communications strategy. They are about getting a clear picture, speaking with one voice and not making a mistake that cannot be undone.

Facts first

The first job is to establish what actually happened. Before anyone says anything externally, you need answers to at least these questions:

What happened, when and where — and what do we know for certain versus what are we still assuming?
Who is affected: customers, staff, patients, neighbours, investors?
Is there any ongoing risk, and what is being done to stop things getting worse?
Who already knows — regulators, the media, people on social media?
What are the legal and regulatory obligations, such as duties to notify?

Separating the verified from the unverified is essential. Anything said in those first hours will be remembered. If it later proves untrue, the second crisis — a crisis of credibility — tends to be worse than the first.

A crisis team and a single spokesperson

A crisis cannot be run by the whole company. It needs a small team with a mandate to decide: typically someone from senior management, whoever is responsible for communications, a lawyer, and a specialist in the area concerned — operations, production, IT, depending on the issue.

Externally, one person speaks. The spokesperson need not be the chief executive, but they must be properly briefed, able to stay calm and clear about what they can and cannot say. Everyone else should know where to send journalists and questions — and not to comment themselves, even on their own social accounts.

A crisis plan prepared in advance saves the most time here: contacts, roles and sign-off are already settled before the phones start ringing.

The first statement: a holding statement

You rarely have all the facts in the first hours, but silence lets speculation fill the vacuum. The answer is a short initial statement, known as a holding statement.

A good holding statement:

Confirms you are aware of the situation and briefly states what has been verified.
Shows you are acting — what is being done right now to resolve it.
Shows concern for the people affected, where there are any. Specifically, without stock phrases.
Says when more information will follow — and that promise has to be kept.

It should not speculate about causes, assign blame or promise anything that is not yet certain. It should work for the media, the website and social channels alike, and be signed off quickly by the crisis team, lawyer included.

What not to do in the first hours

Mistakes that recur:

“No comment.” It reads as either an admission or arrogance. If you cannot say more, say why and when you will be able to.
Speculating. Guesses about causes or scale that turn out to be wrong will come back to haunt you.
Playing it down. “This is an isolated incident” is a dangerous line until you know it is true.
Blaming others — suppliers, customers, journalists.
Deleting posts and comments. The screenshots already exist, and the deletion becomes another story.
Talking off the record. In a crisis, assume anything you tell a journalist may end up in print.

Pause your paid campaigns

This step is often missing from crisis manuals, yet it can shape how the company comes across. Paid advertising runs on autopilot: the plan was bought weeks ago, the spots are scheduled, the billboards are up.

An upbeat spot airing in the ad break straight after a news item about the company’s problem, or a billboard slogan that suddenly reads like a cynical joke, can make a crisis markedly worse. That kind of juxtaposition gets spotted quickly.

So one of the first steps should be a review of every live campaign:

Which spots, ads and sites are currently live, and when do they air or appear?
Could any of them land badly in the context of the crisis?
What can be stopped immediately, and what is subject to a deadline or notice period?

TV and radio spots can be pulled from the schedule at relatively short notice, print has copy deadlines, out-of-home sites have to be physically pasted over, and digital screens can be switched quickly. The terms for pausing and any cancellation fees are set out in the contracts with the media owners. The team that bought the campaign knows what is running where and whom to call — a real advantage in a crisis.

Pausing is not cancelling. Once things have calmed down, you can decide whether the campaign returns as it was, in an amended form, or not at all.

Monitoring from the first hour

You cannot manage a crisis blind. Media and social monitoring should start immediately and run continuously: what has been published and where, its tone, which questions keep coming up, who is spreading the story and what information is circulating — including what is untrue.

Monitoring shows how the crisis is developing and feeds the next round of communication. If the same incorrect figure keeps appearing in coverage, it needs correcting. If a question keeps coming up that the statement does not answer, that is the subject of the next update.

After the first day

After 24 hours a company should have verified facts, one spokesperson, a published statement, its paid communications under control and a clear view of the coverage. Next come regular updates, responses to press enquiries, communication with staff and the people affected, and finally a review — what happened, what will change and how that will be communicated.

A crisis handled factually and openly in its first hours usually closes faster than one where the company stays silent, denies everything or lets its advertising run as though nothing had happened.