Something has happened and the organization has to say something. A closure, an incident, a departure, a finding.
Two kinds of statement exist. One ends the matter as a subject of speculation. The other becomes the story, and generates a second round of questions the original event would not have produced.
What extends a subject
Four things, and each is an instinct rather than an error of drafting.
Vagueness about a knowable fact. If the answer is known and not stated, the omission is what people examine. A gap in a statement is more interesting than anything in it.
Characterisation instead of fact. An isolated incident, a small number of accounts, a routine review. Every one of those is an invitation to establish the actual figure, and the actual figure then arrives as a correction to you rather than as information from you.
Defensiveness. Any sentence asserting that the organization takes something seriously, or is committed to something, is content-free and reads as preparation for an excuse. It also signals that you expected to be criticised, which tells readers what to look for.
Partial disclosure. Covered in the Character subchapter and it applies with equal force here. Conceding some of it establishes that you know the shape of the whole thing and chose what to release.
The structure that closes
Four parts, and most good statements are under two hundred words.
What happened. Specifically, with the numbers and dates you have, first sentence.
What it means for the people affected. In their terms, concretely. This is the part readers actually want and the part most statements bury or omit.
What is being done. Actions with dates, not intentions. Reviewing our procedures is not an action.
What you do not yet know, and when you will. Naming the gap yourself removes the discovery. We do not yet know the cause. The engineer’s report is due the fourteenth and we will publish what it finds.
That last part is the one leaders omit and it does more work than any other. An unnamed gap is a question somebody else gets to ask.
Answer the question people are asking
Statements are frequently written to address the question the organization finds most comfortable rather than the one being asked.
A district that closes a school building writes about facility utilisation and long-term planning. What every parent wants to know is which school their child attends in September and how they get there. A statement that does not answer that has not communicated anything, regardless of accuracy.
Before drafting, write down the three questions the affected people will actually have. If the statement does not answer all three in the first half, it is written for the wrong reader.
Timing
The window in which a statement can frame an event is short and closes without warning. After it closes, anything you say is a response to the account that already exists.
Waiting for complete information usually means waiting past the window. The alternative is a statement that says what is known, says what is not, and names when more will follow. That is publishable within hours and is a stronger position than a complete statement three days late.
Where you commit to a date, meet it. A follow-up that does not arrive when promised does more damage than the original silence would have.
Legal review without legal voice
Counsel should see anything consequential. The failure is letting counsel write it.
A lawyer’s job is to minimise admissions. That objective, pursued alone, produces a statement that concedes nothing, expresses nothing, and reads to every ordinary person as guilt with careful grammar. The legal exposure has been reduced and the institutional damage has been increased, frequently by more.
The productive instruction is the same one covered in the mistakes entry: ask what specifically must not be said rather than what may be said. The first returns a short list. The second returns a paragraph of nothing.
The obvious test
Read it as a person directly affected. Not as a reporter, not as a lawyer, not as a board member.
Does it tell you what happened, what it means for you, and what is being done? Does any sentence exist to protect the organization rather than to inform you? Would you feel dealt with straight, or handled?
Statements that fail this fail it obviously, and they fail it in the direction of self-protection every time. That direction is also the one every incentive in the room is pushing toward while it is being drafted.
Edited by Patrick J. Wolf, PhD