What not to do when a journalist makes a mistake

by Jacco Zwetsloot

Last week my colleague Matthew shared 3 simple pieces of advice about what to do when you make a mistake when writing in public relations. It also happens from time to time that a reporter makes a mistake when writing about your company or client. What should you do? Today I want to give some tips about how NOT to respond when a journalist gets something wrong in a story.?

Don’t assume ill intent

It’s sometimes tempting and easy to believe that someone has acted deliberately to harm your interests. That’s especially true if that someone is a person not directly known to you. But most people in their professional lives try to do a good job, and don’t intentionally act maliciously or in bad faith. Since we can never truly know another human’s true intentions, it’s best to start with a working assumption that bad things are done by mistake, not on purpose, and wait to receive solid information - not a mere hunch - before believing that the opposite is true. You won’t be right all the time, but most of the time it will save a lot of grief and unnecessary conflict.

How not to react

In the case of some companies, when they receive a negative press mention, or if they spot a mistake in an article, their first reaction is to panic and call the journalist, demanding an immediate correction or retraction of the whole story. While in an ideal world all mistakes will be changed immediately, this disregards the human element. You cannot just call people you don’t know and insist that they do what you want with all haste. The work of public relations and media relations involves gentle persuasion, not hamfisted browbeating. Journalists do not react well to frantic and loud phone calls from irate corporate PR people asking for immediate relief. Who would?

Don’t wait until after a mistake is made?

This third tip is very closely related to the previous one. The time for building rapport and trust with a journalist is well before they get something wrong in a story about you, not afterwards. If your company has good ongoing relations with reporters who cover your industry, it will become much easier to approach them when you feel they have written something in error, and it will also mean that they are more able and likely to check facts with you before publishing a story, or at least get your company’s side. Remember that reporters can move to other beats or media outlets, so this work must be ongoing all the time.

With these three tips in mind, your company will be better positioned to handle media relations with relevant journalists, and to react when one makes a mistake in a story about your company or your client.