When is it okay to say no comment to the news media? The answer is never. It is always a stupid, stupid thing to say. Now, I understand there may be times when a reporter calls you, and you can't comment. I understand that. And maybe you want to what your lawyers are saying, if you comment, you're going to get us all sent to prison.
And it's a horrible thing to do and you're going to be fired. Well, obviously, you're not going to comment. But you don't literally have to say no comment to report. Here's the problem. With saying no comment, it's instantly quotable. And as you learn from our section on soundbites, reporters love absolutes, they love attacks, they love emotion.
They love things that evoke images from pop culture, will say no comment does all of those things. It's absolute. There's an emotion to it. It's an implied attack on how dare you You asked me that evokes images from pop culture of criminals and mobsters and crooked politicians saying no communists, they cover their face walking out of the courthouse in shame. So for all of those reasons, it's never a good idea. Plus, it's not your message.
There may be times when you can't comment, I understand that. But that doesn't mean that is the one message you want the whole world to know on this subject. There are softer ways of saying that you can always say something like, we'd be happy to comment on this issue. Once it's worked its way through the court system. Same thing, but now there's no judge and there's no lawyer who can criticize you for commenting to the media because you didn't say anything of significance. But it goes down much easier.
And you could always say we'll be happy to talk to you once we've got the okay From the judge on this issue, again, they're unlikely to use that if they did. No one's going to be upset with you. The general rule of thumb here is do not tell reporters what you can't do what you aren't doing. I'm not a crook. I'm not this. We're not doing not comment.
Don't tell people what you aren't doing. tell people what you are doing. tell people what you can say. But then deduce you can't comment on something. You can always start off by saying what I can say is we wish everyone in this whole community to and then something positive. That in some way it relates to the question but doesn't get anyone in trouble.
So remember, no comment is the worst possible answer you could give most of the time.