To speak or not to speak

In April, a certain First Lady gave a surprise, unscheduled press statement to a flummoxed Washington Press corps.

“The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,” she said. “I have never been friends with Epstein… to be clear, I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice Maxwell… I am not Epstein’s victim.”

Choosing when to speak. The podium stands empty.

The audience, not to mention the rest of the world, were left scratching their heads: ‘What’s this about?’ and ‘Why now?’

She propelled the Epstein crisis back to the forefront when the topic du jour was The Iran War.  The optics and delivery weren’t great.  Nor did she take questions.

There are pros and cons to making a proactive public statement.

Potential Opportunities

• Get ahead of the narrative and try to control the message

• Establish an on-the-record denial

• Flip the narrative from ‘accused’ to ‘advocate’

• Pre-empt forthcoming stories

• Separate yourself from current headlines

Possible challenges

• Contradicting existing in-house strategy

• Reopening a sensitive issue to greater scrutiny

• Highly unlikely to ‘bury’ forthcoming news

• Taking insiders by surprise

• Potentially kicking an ‘own goal’

The result? Further news scrutiny; confusion about her motives and timing, even her own team was allegedly baffled; some victims claimed it was disingenuous that she came out in support of them at this late stage and to some extent put the onus back on them.

Time will tell.

There’s always a judgment call that comes into play when dealing with an issue or crisis. The old maxim ‘tell it quickly, tell it all and get ahead of it’ holds a lot of wisdom when reputation is at risk. And it requires a considered risk-benefit evaluation.