Lying low is rarely a good strategy when it comes to dealing with reporters who are searching for comments or answers. Failing to make oneself available to media when problems arise only yields the floor to others who will speak, and what they say will no doubt be critical. As an old public relations adage goes, "Mess up, 'fess up." Within days of taking over from Eliot Spitzer as New York governor, David Patterson held a news conference to admit infidelity by both him and his wife. "I didn't want to be compromised," he explained. "I didn't want to be blackmailed. I didn't want to hesitate taking an action because a person on the other side might hurt me or my family."

In covering tragic or distressing stories, reporters look to put a human face on those affected or harmed by the negative event. Putting a face on a story humanizes it, making it much more personal and emotionally charged. Too often, however, companies or organizations accused of perpetrating the wrong remain faceless. If they offer comments at all, it is frequently in the form of a news release or prepared statement, rather than a heartfelt message delivered by a human being. These kinds of approaches leave members of the public believing that a company responsible for or associated with a major problem is unwilling to take ownership of it.

I'm not suggesting that just showing up and saying something is enough to mitigate damage. Telling a reporter "no comment" can be nearly as detrimental as not saying anything during a PR crisis. Anyone who believes bad news stories go away when companies refuse to talk to the media is presumably watching SpongeBob SquarePants while Dateline is on. A self-incriminating quote that implies you know something and choose not to answer, "no comment" is generally uttered by guilty people with a bead of sweat slowly trickling down their forehead. It is a hackneyed phrase that only serves to reinforce distrust and make a story appear more ominous and compelling. As such, a "no comment" response extends the news cycle of a negative story at a time when a spokesperson's objective should be to shorten it.

An example of the damage a "no comment" response can cause occurred after an August 1993 explosion at the Alusuisse Flexible Packaging plant in Shelbyville, Kentucky. The explosion killed a nineteen-year-old student named Paul Brierly. Local reporters converged on the plant looking for comment, but Alusuisse refused to speak to the media. When a company official finally decided to comment, what he said left a lot to be desired: "My name is Phil Sheppard. I am safety director of Alusuisse. The comment we have at this time is that we will not have any comment until ten o'clock tomorrow morning." That evening, the local news reported the company had "no comment." Sheppard's lack of message spoke volumes and was indeed a message in itself, devoid of fact or feeling. This solidified the community's impression of a company on the run. By the time Alusuisse did choose to say more, the tragedy, as well as the company's presumed guilt, had become a nationwide story on network newscasts and in major-market newspapers.

Alusuisse's delayed response and the ensuing media attention led to a coroner's inquest, followed by a criminal investigation and lawsuit, all of which caused long-term damage to Alusuisse's business and reputation. A teenager's death is always a heartrending tragedy, and Alusuisse failed to comprehend the interest it would attract or the intensity of emotion it would unleash. That's why it is critical for spokespeople not only to understand the emotions triggered by a negative news event but also to acknowledge those emotions publicly.

When bad news happens, you have to be among those most upset about the situation, even if your negligence caused it. Media and other stakeholders will look to you to see your reaction. Are you responding with genuine concern? Or, is there a callous or indifferent manner to the delivery of your message? Your response must reflect compassion and empathy, both in content and tone. In addition to saying the right words, you must look as if you genuinely believe what you're saying. In some cases, you will be handed messages crafted by others. Then your challenge is to convey those messages in a real and authentic way. Being among those most upset demonstrates your sincerity in acknowledging a damaging situation and reflects an appreciation of the impact that situation has on stakeholders. When bad news happens, people don't care how much you know, they need to know how much you care.

There is often reluctance, however, to express regret or remorse, especially in situations where litigation is either possible or actually unfolding. By being among those most upset, some people are concerned they give credence to the claims made by those who have either been wronged or feel wronged. "I believe that it actually has the opposite effect," says lawyer Jim Golden, whose clients have been responsible for accidents leading to fatalities. "The premium value on claims comes in when you refuse to step up and admit the truth as opposed to the reverse." Golden believes expressing regret and empathy facilitates mutually beneficial outcomes. David Parker, the CEO of Covenant Transportation Group, one of the largest truckload carriers in the United States, agrees: "Because of this empathetic, proactive approach, our claims costs have been reduced by millions of dollars." Parker also believes his company has benefited in its relationship with its insurance carrier. "This approach contributed directly to a $1,000,000 insurance premium rebate we recently received," says Parker. Likewise, Mark Whitehead, VP of Claims and Litigation for trucking giant JB Hunt, estimates that an empathetic approach has created savings of 15 to 30 percent in catastrophic personal injury claims. In most cases, these types of reductions in claims costs translate directly to a company's bottom line.^[27]

Historically, public relations professionals bombarded people with facts and figures designed to persuade them that there was no reason to worry about company performance, the new dumpsite, or the proposed low-cost housing project. Corporate executives and spokespeople traditionally talked over and around the emotional concerns of others, not fully realizing the alienating nature of that approach. The fact is that news is about emotion.

At the MIT–Harvard program "Dealing with an Angry Public," which I deliver with Larry Susskind and Mike Wheeler, attendees often tell us they take the course to learn how to get emotional people to focus only on facts. Hearing that makes us chuckle. Spokespeople, especially those schooled in engineering, science, and technology, rely on the recitation of facts to persuade people of the rightness of their cause. Facts, after all, speak for themselves. But facts used to counter emotion are not enough to convince people who are upset or distraught. For them, facts are incidental. All the facts in the world may prove a point, but if individuals feel strongly about an issue they'll go with their gut.

Consider the case of Olestra, a food additive created by Procter & Gamble that lowered or eliminated fat content in snack foods. Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1996, it was released with the warning that "Olestra may cause abdominal cramping and loose stools." Even though the condition only occurred in a small number of cases and due to excessive consumption, the general public became alarmed at the prospect of losing control in a humiliating way. The widespread use of terms like "anal leakage" only increased the fear of embarrassment. In response, Procter & Gamble worked to highlight the statistical safety and positive attributes of Olestra. Procter & Gamble's spokespeople pointed out that over five billion servings of Olestra-infused products had safely been eaten by consumers. They referenced the hundreds of clinical tests that validated Olestra's safety. They explained that since Olestra's initial approval, the FDA had reviewed the food additive three additional times, including an extensive post-marketing study that led to the removal of the "loose stool" warning. But no matter how many studies or statistics Procter & Gamble provided, it couldn't overcome the cultural condemnation created by people's fear of humiliation. By 2002, Procter & Gamble gave up on Olestra as a food additive and sold its factory in Cincinnati.

Because facts and numbers can never win over emotion, spokespeople tasked with communicating bad news need to identify the underlying emotions felt by the people directly affected. Are they angry? Frightened? Worried? To help empathize with stakeholders, imagine the iceberg of emotion that lies beneath your issue. For instance, if you're in the utility business and part of your power grid goes down, customers will feel frustrated and angry. Even if it's just one block in a grid that serves miles of households and businesses, the affected customers will be without lights and cut off from news and information outlets. They may lose important data and perishable food. Likewise, if your factory mistakenly ships a tainted product, consumers will be suspicious of your processes. Even if your quality control rate is 99.99 percent, if a single child or pet is hurt by your mistake the damage will be considerable. The ensuing feelings of outrage and grief will be reported, not your 99.99 percent quality-control rate. Therefore, instead of regurgitating facts and figures, focus on the emotions that underpin the issues you and your organization face. The Value Compass, explained in Chapter Two, is a particularly helpful tool for identifying the primary emotions of stakeholders and victims.

Communicating with confidence is important. The secret, though, is in knowing when to convey confidence, when to convey humility, and how to hold each in perfect balance. Confidence without humility is perceived as cockiness, while humility without confidence is perceived as weakness. In counseling and coaching corporate and government leaders, I emphasize the importance of communicating with humility. I tell clients the richer and more powerful they are, the more they need to be humble. Otherwise, the media will pounce on any opportunity to disgrace them.

Take the case of publishing mogul Conrad Black, whose empire spanned more than five hundred newspapers, including the prestigious London Telegraph and the popular Chicago Sun-Times. On trial for fraud and obstructing justice, Black, who owned four luxurious homes and two dozen cars, asserted that a typical Chicago jury member who "does not reside in more than one residence, employ servants or a chauffeur, enjoy lavish furniture, or host expensive parties" should not be considered one of his peers.^[29] Of shareholders upset about his excessive compensation, Black said, "I would like to just blow their asses off."^[30] He even told audit committee members he would "hose down" investors unhappy about the millions of dollars in fees he paid himself. "My advice to Mr. Black was to be a little more humble," said Marie-Josée Kravis, a former member of his company's audit committee.^[31]

U.S. sentencing guidelines allow judges the latitude to go easier on defendants who show contrition or are generally of good character. In hopes of mustering empathy for Black, his friends launched a campaign to spread the message that he is gracious and humble to all he meets. "Conrad Black is a person with a deep reservoir of kindness and generosity consistently exhibited to people of all stations in life," his friends claimed in a court document.^[32] But it made no difference. Attempts to build empathy for Black were too little, too late. He was sentenced to six and a half years in a Florida prison.

When executives and spokespeople shy away from being honest, the truth has a way of catching up with them. Not being honest or not coming across as honest makes a spokesperson look and sound evasive and untrustworthy. This is not to suggest that a media interview needs to be a confessional. Certainly, there are some questions that for a variety of legal or ethical reasons cannot or should not be answered. Those include questions pertaining to privileged or confidential information. Yet there is a difference between having a good reason not to answer honestly and attempting to mislead people. Balancing this need to be honest while not saying something harmful can be like walking the thin edge of a razor: it is easy to teeter. In my experience, though, it is always better to teeter toward the side of honesty.

For instance, when retail sales are weak, most store executives choose to blame the economy, job losses, or cyclical spending rather than their own strategies. Yet Mona Williams, vice president of communications for Wal-Mart, responded truthfully when the retailer's strategy of offering less aggressive discounts led to a drop in sales. Williams said, "We are disappointed with our sales performance for the Friday after Thanksgiving and the full weekend." With hindsight she said, "Our overall program was too predictable and our competition capitalized on this."^[33] Williams's candor no doubt surprised reporters who expected her to toot Wal-Mart's horn about size, scope, and value. Predictably, the stock price took an immediate hit. But because Wal-Mart was honest with both itself and the public, sales rebounded within the next twelve months. Today, Wal-Mart is viewed by investors as one of the strongest companies in the discount and variety store sector.

In contrast, following the coming together of Chrysler and Daimler, Jurgen Shrempp, chairman of the German company, claimed the alliance of the two automakers was a merger of equals, not a takeover. The statement turned out to be bogus. It was definitely a takeover, as Chrysler's leadership team was largely pushed aside so the Daimler people could run the business. Asked later why he lied, Shrempp said he chose to be "misleading" for "psychological" reasons.^[34] Shrempp's mistruth triggered legal action in the courts, with investors saying material information was withheld. In the end, Daimler was forced to sell Chrysler in 2007 to a private equity firm for $650 million, a 98 percent discount from the $36 billion Daimler originally paid in 1998.

While the two preceding examples are deliberately clear-cut, the fact is that honesty can be viewed as existing on a continuum. On one end of the continuum is the absolute "tell the truth" and on the other end is "don't lie." For spokespeople dealing with sensitive matters, there is significant maneuvering room between these two extremes. Consequently, they must be able to negotiate this continuum, especially when much is at stake. For example, in the later stages of the U.S. Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln did not want reporters to find out that Confederate representatives were en route to talk peace. Asked whether the southerners were indeed in the U.S. capital, Lincoln, who knew they were en route to Fort Monroe, Virginia, responded, "So far as I know, there are no Peace Commissioners in the city, or likely to be in it." President Lincoln was in fact answering honestly based on the way the question was asked. He did not lie, though clearly his answer was intended to mislead. Doing so, however, helped bring the Civil War to a quicker end.^[35]

Admitting that some people may feel skeptical about an issue or situation can be difficult for a spokesperson. Once again, the fear is that by acknowledging the doubts that others express, those concerns are being legitimized. But sometimes people need to hear a spokesperson acknowledge that stakeholders are unconvinced by a specific claim. Doing so actually helps enhance credibility.

Too often, however, spokespeople who comment on problems they would rather not address rely on traditional media response strategies that focus mostly on benefits and positive messages. Students at Toronto's York University were traumatized by the rape of two women in their campus dormitory. "I'm scared to go to the bathroom myself," said the two women's neighbor, nineteen-year-old student Houry Seukunian. "We go (to the bathroom) in packs now," Seukunian told the Toronto Star. "I knew our campus wasn't safe." Commenting on the dorm attacks, a university spokesman defended security at the school. "Our dormitories are safe," he stated unequivocally.^[36] Two young women were raped in the dormitory and the spokesman says the dorm is safe? As a parent myself, I can't help but feel that the spokesman's quote is dismissive and fails to acknowledge the anxiety of both students and parents. Instead, the spokesman should have said, "Though we do all we can to keep our dormitories safe, we'll work with police and students to see how we can keep terrible events like this from taking place."

Acknowledging skepticism can go a long way toward enhancing credibility and assuring people that their concerns are being taken seriously. When shareholders weren't buying into the supposed merits of a merger between brewing giants Molson and Coors, Molson CEO Dan O'Neill knew his messages about improved profit margins and shareholder value weren't resonating. The proposed merger looked doomed until O'Neill admitted to the Globe and Mail business section that Molson had not done a good job of selling shareholders on the deal. "I think the overall feeling that we have is there's still a lot of skepticism," said O'Neill.^[37] Although it may have seemed that he was admitting defeat, shareholders later voted to approve the Molson-Coors merger.

Admitting there is skepticism can sometimes involve the acknowledgment of a painful truth. In the wake of sex scandals involving the Catholic Church, some of their spokespeople went so far as to blame their youthful victims. Realizing this approach of denial and attack was doing the Church great harm, Father James Flavin of Boston took it upon himself to act as a voice for those clergy outraged by what had been allowed to happen. Father Flavin told Newsweek magazine, "I wouldn't trust other priests right now, either."^[38] Father Flavin's quote acknowledged what everyone already knew to be true and acted as a first step in the long process of atonement.

In bad news situations, it is not nearly enough to express concern; there must be action taken to confront the problem. Concern without action is meaningless rhetoric. Consider the story of six BP Amoco scientists in Naperville, Illinois, who developed the same rare form of brain cancer. The scientists worked in what became known as "the cancer building." To investigate, BP Amoco brought in medical experts to confirm what role, if any, the company played in causing the cancer cluster. At a news conference to share its findings, BP Amoco confirmed it was the cause of the problem and made three announcements. It closed the lab in the "cancer building." It offered free MRIs for anyone who ever worked in the building. It hired medical experts to review seventeen hundred medical records. Lawyers will argue that without evidence plaintiffs may not be able to bring a case forward, let alone prove it in court, but BP Amoco chose a different path. Of the six scientists, five of the families settled with the company.

However, there may be some situations in which people are worried about health impacts even though there is no concrete evidence that a problem exists. In this case, a company should acknowledge the concerns that people have, but is it obliged to take action? Picture a crowded town hall meeting, the type that takes place in a high school auditorium or church basement. A local developer is on hand getting an earful from townsfolk worried about chemical contamination at the old battery plant site, where an office building is planned. The site is adjacent to a park where children play ball, and until state environment officials confirm the chemicals pose no problem, the community remains unconvinced. A microphone is passed to a mother who stands and asks the developer, "What if there are dangerous chemicals buried at the site? What are you going to do to keep our kids safe until we know for sure?"

Thinking quickly, the developer remembers that a media trainer once told him never to answer speculative questions. So, he tells the mother, "It's inappropriate to speculate on what's in the ground," adding "the community is not in danger." People then grow angry because the developer is not listening to their safety concerns, which makes perfect fodder for reporters in attendance. So far, the incident has loads of conflict, driven by outraged residents and a defensive developer. It's shaping up to be a classic good-versus-evil narrative—and a front page story.

What is actually required of the developer is an answer that captures the emotion of the moment coupled with an action step that will satisfy the upset community. Once again, the mother's primary question is, "What are you going to do to keep our kids safe until we know for sure?" Remembering his Value Compass, the developer now says, "It's very clear the community has important concerns about the property, so until everyone knows for certain we will build a fence to keep people off the site." The developer's response is empathetic and conciliatory. More importantly, it doesn't merely articulate the community's concerns, it promises action that will provide a solution to their immediate needs.