Principle 5: Be candid and responsive to journalists. At all times, spokespersons should be responsive to journalists, respect their deadlines and work closely with them to communicate information that’s important for their readers. This means company spokespersons should be forthcoming about a problem and, at the same time, outline positive steps the company is taking to address the issues.
Principle 6: Know when to proactively initiate calls to reporters. Often, calling a reporter can draw more attention to the issues and give the journalist more reasons to write about an issue. During a crisis, company spokespersons should proactively contact journalists only to provide critical information that the public must know or to request corrections for factual errors.