Public Relations · Crisis
The 48-hour crisis comms playbook
Most crises are won or lost in the first two days. Here's the working checklist we teach.
Dr. Omar Khalil··1 min read
Crisis comms is not a personality trait. It's a checklist, run under pressure, by people who rehearsed.
Hour 0–6: contain
- Lock the spokesperson. One voice. Everyone else routes inquiries to her.
- Build the fact-base. What happened, what's confirmed, what's unknown. Stamp every fact with a timestamp and source.
- Draft the holding statement. Short. Empathic. Factual.
Hour 6–24: posture
- Decide tonality. Apology, explanation, or correction — pick one and commit.
- Brief the executive. They will be asked tomorrow.
- Pre-empt the obvious follow-ups in writing.
Hour 24–48: engage
- Place a sit-down with the most senior journalist on the story.
- Update affected stakeholders (customers, partners, regulators).
- Publish the longer post-mortem when the facts stabilize.
A working PR team doesn't avoid crises — it makes the recovery readable.