Navigating the pressure to respond without compromising accuracy or trust.
From 1993 to 1996, I was an editor at my college newspaper, The Scroll. In 1996, I wrote and edited for a local newspaper and magazines with weekly production deadlines. I also started freelance writing for monthly magazines based in New Jersey and New York. A weekly or monthly deadline is a gift you do not recognize until it is gone. You had time to check, and you knew that whatever you printed would sit in the world, uncorrectable, until the next issue. The question I learned to ask, and to be asked, was “How do you know that?” It produced one habit that was not negotiable: verify before you publish.
I took that habit with me when I moved from journalism into public relations. I taught myself the work, later earned my BA in Public Relations at Tulane, and now I am building Vysyons Communications, where Communications & Media is one of four pillars. The job changed sides. I used to ask sources how they knew something, and now reporters ask me. Today nearly every organization is a publisher, every post is a statement, and the pressure to respond right now has changed what responding means. This piece is about how I decide when to speak.
The pressure
Speed is rewarded, and correction is slow. A post that goes out in a minute can be seen by thousands before anyone asks whether it was true, and the correction that follows usually reaches far fewer of them. I call it a fast-food mentality, and I mean the phrase lightly, because the pressure behind it is real. Whatever is quickest to grab wins, and nobody checks what is in it.
Inside an organization, it can feel as though silence will be read as having nothing to say, or something to hide. A rumor about a program is circulating. A product ships with an error. A storm closes an office, and people want to know whether it is open. Someone is waiting, and not answering feels like a decision.
Speed and accuracy are not the same thing, and attention is not the same thing as credibility.
Three questions
Before I say anything in a fast-moving moment, I ask three things.
Do we know it? In a hurry, it is easy to lose track of what is confirmed, reported, or only assumed, and a headline or a short clip can make a fact, an allegation, an interpretation, and an opinion look like the same thing. I go looking for the original source instead of the version that reached me secondhand. Suppose a rumor appears online that an organization is closing a program. Is it true? Can I document it? If it is partly true, which part? If all I have is a screenshot of a summary of a report, I do not know it yet.
Newsrooms have an old rule for this: two sources, verified and independent, before something runs. Its best-known telling comes from Watergate. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein described an unwritten rule at The Washington Post that a charge involving possible criminal activity did not run unless two sources confirmed it. The word that matters is independent. Ten accounts sharing the same screenshot are one source. A second outlet repeating the first is not confirmation, and neither are two people who heard it from the same third person.
It is a rule of practice, not a law, and newsrooms have always made exceptions, such as a document in hand or a source with direct, firsthand knowledge. I still use it as a test. Before I repeat a claim, I ask whether I can find a second source that did not get it from the first. On the public relations side, the question now comes to me. When I give a reporter information, I expect to be asked how I know, and I want a documented answer.
Is it ours to say? My own rule is that I do not post anything about a person without approval from those directly involved. When a family member passes, I do not post about it, even in a private Facebook group, until I have talked with the immediate family: the spouse, the children, the parents. I also confirm what they want me to share and what they want left out. The news may be true, and the group may be private, and it is still theirs to announce.
The same thinking applies at work. At Tulane, handling confidential records taught me to ask whose information I am holding before I ask what I would like to do with it. If a customer reports an error in a product, the facts about the product belong to the business, and the customer’s details do not. When a decision belongs to someone else, I wait until they make it.
What happens if we wait? Waiting costs something, and so does being wrong, and I try to compare the two honestly. If a storm closes the doors, saying so cannot wait. A response to an accusation I have not verified can usually wait an hour, or a day, and the wait is part of getting it right. If waiting only means I feel behind, it costs nothing. This question keeps the other two honest, because it makes me say what the delay would actually cost.
When you cannot say everything
Most real situations fall between saying everything and saying nothing. The middle has a simple shape: what we know, what we are still verifying, and when we will update.
For a product error, that sounds like this: “Some orders shipped with the wrong label. We are confirming how many and which ones. We will update by 3 p.m.” For a storm: “We are closed today. We will post an update about tomorrow by 6 tonight.”
Then comes the update, on time, even if it says “no new information yet.” I only promise a time I can keep, because a missed update does more damage than a short statement would have. A kept promise to update builds more trust than a confident statement I have to take back.
From the public relations side, there is another tool built for this tension: the embargo. An embargo is an agreement. I share information with a journalist ahead of its public release, and the journalist agrees not to publish until a set date and time. It gives the reporter room to read the material, interview people, and check facts, so the story is right when it runs. Two things make it work. The journalist has to agree before I send anything, because an embargo that nobody accepted is only a hope. And it has to be used for news that benefits from preparation, such as a complex announcement. I would not use one to hold back anything people need to know right away, like a safety issue. If the terms are broken, from either side, the damage lands on the relationship.
Two jobs, one standard
I have worked on both sides of the desk, and the jobs are different. A reporter gathers and verifies information for the audience, which includes questioning what a source wants repeated. A communicator speaks for an organization: explaining decisions, correcting misunderstandings, and sharing what has been verified. A journalist should not treat a polished press release as independent confirmation, and a communicator should not present an unverified claim as fact because it supports the message they would like to send. Both depend on credible information, and both lose it the same way. Working with journalists now, I want to make their verification easy, which means having sources, documents, and a person who can answer ready before I send anything.
Silence
Silence can be a message, and sometimes it is just time. It is a message when people are in danger or waiting for guidance, when I am the only source, or when I promised an update and did not give one. It is just time when the story is not mine, the facts are not settled, no one is harmed by waiting, and responding would only amplify something. The difference is whether anyone is relying on me for an answer. Silence with a plan is different from silence by default. A short “we are looking into it, and we will update by this time” turns a gap into a commitment.
Small practices
Large organizations have response teams. A solo practitioner or a one-person department can decide the process ahead of time, which is when it is easiest. If I were setting it up, I would keep one page with five lines: who verifies, who approves (even if the answer is one person and one trusted reader), where updates will be posted, a default holding statement, and how corrections are handled.
On corrections, the rule I carry from print is to correct in the same place the mistake appeared, plainly, with the date. In print, a correction ran in the next issue. Online it can run in minutes, which is one real advantage of the new speed. At the City of New Orleans City Planning Commission, official communications had to meet open-meetings and transparency standards, so an accurate paper trail was never optional. A small practice can keep one by choice.
I do not think speed is the enemy. Speed without the three questions is. The news business I learned had a pause built into it. Most of us have to build our own.
CLOSING TAKEAWAY
A fast response may win the moment. A responsible response helps preserve trust after the moment has passed.
WORTH NOTING
I came up under one code of ethics and now work under another, and I find myself reaching for both.
The Society of Professional Journalists revised its Code of Ethics in 2014, and it speaks directly to the pressure described above. It asks journalists to verify information before releasing it, reminds them that neither speed nor format excuses inaccuracy, and calls for acknowledging mistakes and correcting them promptly and prominently.
The PRSA Code of Ethics asks for the same discipline from the other side of the desk. Its Disclosure of Information provision asks members to be honest and accurate in all communications, to act promptly to correct erroneous communications they are responsible for, and to investigate the truthfulness and accuracy of information released on behalf of those they represent. Its Safeguarding Confidences provision, which holds that client trust requires appropriate protection of confidential and private information, addresses what is ours to say. Honesty is one of its six core values, alongside advocacy, expertise, independence, loyalty, and fairness.
Neither code is a legal requirement. Read together, they describe a shared standard: say what you can support, correct what you got wrong, and respect what is not yours to share.
Kelly Howard
Founder and CEO, Vysyons Communications
KWBHoward@VysyonsCommunications.com
If you would like help building a one-page response plan for your organization, a free 20-minute Discovery Call is a good place to start: www.VysyonsCommunications.com/discovery-call