If you haven't already... now is a perfect time to have a conversation with church/house of worship leadership on processes/steps in handling media relations and/or public relations. Handling an incident isn't just the "handling" part. A critical aspect of taking care of the incident is by moving on and learning how to best communicate about the incident to ensure there is no collateral damage to the church and it's impact in the community.
Consider the following:
1.) Is there one person that can handle media and incident inquiries?
2.) Is there someone skilled at understanding how to communicate with the public or media in offering a press release or public statement?
3.) What is your relationship like with local media? Are you happy to work with them? If you consider them an irritant, they will sense that. Their communication abilities can be a double edged sword.
4.) If the public/media relations person (often the lead pastor) is unavailable- is there a process for guiding the media to wait until he/she is available? Is there someone else that can fill in? Someone else that is trusted?
5.) Understand that being able to communicate on an incident is a critical step to effectively handling the incident itself, and can make or break the outcome of the situation.
6.) Can the individual work with the staff member over social media and communicating interactions? Are they available to serve and be ready with a blanket communication statement/outline at any time?
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