Review the crisis communications plan before anything public leaves the building.
Crisis language fails when facts are ahead of what you can prove, when ownership is vague, when legal and customer promises diverge, or when the hostile reading of a sentence is worse than silence. Speed matters. Speed without a private attack pass creates a second crisis.
What must be true
- Every factual claim has a source and an owner who will stand behind it publicly.
- What you do not know yet is stated as unknown, with a time for the next update.
- Counsel, customer, employee, and press seats have each had a turn attacking the draft.
- The rollback or correction path is written before the first send.
- Internal and external versions do not contradict each other on material facts.
Hostile readings first
Ask the review to produce the worst fair reading of each paragraph, the question a reporter or customer will ask next, and the promise the company cannot keep if the facts move. Do not ask a model to invent calming adjectives. Ask it to find the sentence that will be quoted against you.
Also run a platform gatekeeper pass when the crisis intersects with app stores, marketplaces, payment networks, or a major distribution partner. Their policy language and trust posture can matter as much as press. See war-game your message to the platform.
Private pass, then send
Paste the draft, fact sheet, and constraints into Pingpong. Use sequential passes for counsel, customer, employee, and skeptic seats. Verify every fact before publish. Prefer short sentences that survive quotation. Cut speculative causes, unverified numbers, and blame that counsel has not cleared.
Separate empathy from admission. The review should flag sentences that sound caring while quietly conceding liability the company has not decided to concede. Counsel and communications seats often collide here. Make them collide in private. The public draft should only contain admissions that have an owner and a cleared legal posture.
Related: AI for high-stakes decisions, before you post, before you send the letter, CEO decision review, and A-minus to A-plus review. Process: how it works and how to run a Pingpong.