What to do when investigative journalists are contacting your people

Failure to deal with internal issues may not only lead to a bad press day, but also to investigation and rebuke.

Corporates often face risks when it comes to reporters circling around an issue that has arisen internally. It may be that they’ve been tipped off by ex employees or someone internally; either way once a journalist has been put on the investigative trail, there are many ways to reduce the risk.

It is not a new trend: as journalists are incentivised to look for the story that is their ticket to a book deal, and investigators look for the big case that wins them private practice partnership, the risks of failing to understand how reputation and investigation intertwine bear ever steeper penalties.

What they do

Journalists often reach out to ex employees first as they are the most likely to be a bit more open to sharing stories or issues that led to their departure. There’s also a risk that they will try and obtain leaked or confidential information in order to confirm a story – often obtained from disgruntled ex employees or high profile leavers of a business who want to use their departure as a platform for their next role.

Sometimes sources may not be within an organisation but a third party associated with it or a regulator.

They look for a gap between expectation and reality and seek to correct the record. This pattern of behaviour has been seen numerous times, sometimes unravelling an entire business - the most extreme recent example being Wirecard, or another useful case study to look at is Brewdog where disgruntled employees took to social media rather than speaking to the press but managed to cause a full blown crisis for the company. They will often trawl through historic press and push on key pressure points a business may have – anything to say that a company hasn’t moved forward or isn’t meeting standards set by regulators, the general public or even the business itself in outward communications.

In the regulated space, the stakes are even higher; failure to deal with internal issues may not only lead to a bad press day, but also to investigation and rebuke.

What is the process

Early on, a business usually doesn’t know that this is happening unless they get an tip off themselves that a journalist (or team of journalists) are looking at the business. Keeping good relationships with employees throughout their lifecycle at a company is important as this may mean that a business has a few more days, weeks or months to prepare for scrutiny from the media if an individual who has been contacted by the media gives the business a heads up.

A journalist once they believe that they have their story will often contact the business for comment as part of a legal checking process – this doesn’t always happen but in order to have a reasonable journalism and public interest defence open to them they often will need to. It’s often at this point where the clock starts ticking; there is a limited amount of time to research and review the allegations and get to the bottom of an issue. It’s crucial to get the facts right initially and not back-track, or that will lead to more speculation and damage (look at Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer in party-gate for example).

What you can do

If you know about the potential story beforehand, there are a couple of reactive points to implement straight away:

• Commission a legally privileged investigation into the conduct/allegations that the journalist is interested in – get ahead of the story and be prepared to answer questions.
• Implement key internal comms processes where appropriate to ensure that if a journalist contacts any current employees, there is a clear process to flag this internally

Equally, whenever a particularly difficult event occurs internally, even if a journalist may not have caught wind of an issue yet, it’s good to have the above points in mind and from a reputation mindset.

If you’re not briefed beforehand and get a journalist’s questions on a Friday evening before a Sunday publication, there are still key steps to think about:

• What is the impact of the article going to be? Who matters most?
• Can you get to the bottom of the issue in the time period before the print deadline? If not, is the best position to be implementing an investigation straight away and to say you’re investigating the allegations? Can you identify the sources?
• Not everything journalists are told will be truthful or complete, you have the right to push back on untrue and manipulated information that may make an issue appear more serious than it is.
• Individuals impacted by speculation have rights too, including privacy and reputation rights. Think about whether they be given the opportunity to assert their position, or whether the business is willing to take steps to protect them.
• Just because journalists have obtained confidential internal information doesn’t mean they are entitled to use it. Only linking it to a genuine matter of public interest will give them confidence to use it. Conversely if you can demonstrate to a media organisation that public interest does not exist, it will often be possible to limit its use.

How to avoid it?

Businesses who identify that they are at risk of media seeking information being sought can implement internal policies around reputation resilience can help prevent this from happening to an extent. We’d suggest the following as a starting point:

• Whistleblowing policies that are effective, developed and enhanced – this creates opportunities for a business to get things right and correct an issue when something goes wrong
• Reinforcing internal policies to create a collaborative and confidential culture internally; this reduces leaks and increases accountability
• Implementing reputation focused employee engagement and internal communications plans to reduce the risk of disgruntled employees going to the press
• Ensure that departing employees are not able to remove or retain any data on departure that can be selectively used to cause damage