Tell It All?: Challenging Crisis Communications’ Rules

It has long been a public relations maxim that if a company in crisis proactively releases additional information that could prove damaging, rather than waiting for if/when the media uncovers it, this will shorten the news cycle of the story and could lessen the overall reputational damage. The researcher sought to determine academically whether there is validity to the truism. The number of news stories generated about crises were counted, stock fluctuations were tracked, and journalists were surveyed to determine whether learning that a company withheld information affects journalists’ trust, causes journalists to search harder for additional negative information, and/or increase the total number of stories published/broadcast