A Communications Playbook for Public Officials: How to Effectively Manage the Message, the Media, and Yourself

by Robert R. Johnson, MS Michael R. Fraser, PHD

A communications crisis can happen fast. This book allows you to respond quickly with 73 tips focused on common and unusual media relations challenges. Each tip is organized in a step-by-step format to help you prioritize your response. The advice in this book is drawn from the lessons provided by actual crisis communications events. The knowledge shared here is designed to give you, in only a few minutes, crisis communications expertise that otherwise could take years to learn on the job―time you don't have when a journalist is on the other end of the line.

192 pages, Paperback

Published March 21, 2023

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was glad to see the authors taking a supportive position on some my favorite unpopular advice like not offering exclusives when you don't need to, not embargoing information and telling reporters you're heading into a meeting to buy time when they ambush you. (And I'll try to take their advice of letting unknown calls go to voicemail more often, so they don't ambush you in the first place!) I was inspired by how aggressively the authors break their clients' own bad news, once coverage becomes inevitable, even going above the reporter who first hit the trail. They make a solid case for why short, un-editable statements serve clients better than statements that try to explain everything. But the real gold in this book is the chapter on quote-writing. Communications pros frequently phone it in when it comes time to write a hard-hitting, news release quote that actually gets picked up. Johnson and Fraser show the powerful difference between the usual and the usable.

[Amy Phelps · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for work - I’m not really the right audience and a lot pertains to bigger areas than mine