Telum Talks To: Fortune

Several times recently, a journalist has liked the research, the expert commentary, and the angle, then asked almost straight away whether we could connect them with someone with lived experience.

In some cases, whether the story goes ahead depends on the answer.

That request can expose a gap in the campaign. The research is signed off. The spokesperson is available. The pitch has been through three rounds of approvals. The person whose experience would make the story tangible is still somebody we need to find.

By then, the journalist is working to a deadline and the client is wondering why the agency needs more time.

There is a scoping problem here. Access to credible people is part of what makes a story reportable, and the work required to secure it deserves a place in the plan and the budget.

The person has to stand up to scrutiny

The distinction matters in a media environment where even the existence of a source can require investigation. On 18 September, Press Gazette reported that it could not verify the existence of a supposed art therapist who had appeared in the media more than 30 times. Its analysis suggested her photograph and much of her output were AI-generated. Qwoted removed her profile, alongside another expert’s, after finding breaches of its authenticity policies.

That investigation concerns expert sources. The relevance extends to anyone we put forward to substantiate a story: a convincing profile and a polished quote give a journalist very little assurance on their own.

I cannot say that investigation explains the requests arriving in my inbox. Journalists have always needed people who can speak from experience. It does, however, make the responsibility attached to an introduction particularly clear.

If we offer someone as a source, we should know who they are, what they can speak to, how their account can be checked, and whether they are willing to speak directly.

A case study needs a person behind it

A paragraph in a deck can describe a useful example. Turning it into an interview requires a person who understands what they are agreeing to and has something relevant to share.

For a healthcare story, that might be someone who has navigated the issue being discussed. For a technology business, it might be a customer who can explain what changed in practice, including what was difficult. For a community organisation, it might be someone whose experience helps a reader understand the effect of a policy or service.

The evidence mix depends on the story. Some announcements stand on their own. In others, lived experience helps the audience understand consequences that data and expert explanation cannot fully convey.

Across markets, local relevance matters too. An overseas customer example may demonstrate that a product works, while leaving a local journalist with questions about how it fits the people and conditions they cover.

Consent takes more than a yes

Finding a willing participant takes care. They need to understand the outlet, the likely subject of the conversation, how they might be identified, and the possibility that their experience will be discussed publicly.

They also need room to decide what they are comfortable sharing, to ask questions, and to decline. That conversation becomes harder when the request first reaches them as an urgent favour for a journalist.

We should be equally clear with the client. A participant may have mixed feelings about the experience. They may describe a problem the organisation would prefer to leave out. They may decide the interview is more exposure than they want.

Their willingness to participate should never be mistaken for agreement to deliver the brand’s preferred account.

PR can help someone prepare for an interview and understand media practice. Promises about approving the finished story, controlling its framing, or securing a brand mention create expectations the agency may have no power to meet.

The planning needs to leave space for a person to change their mind, with an honest explanation of what can still be changed at each stage. A timetable that only works if nobody hesitates is a fragile timetable.

One account has limits

There is another judgement call in selecting participants: what their experience actually demonstrates.

A checked account provides evidence about one person's experience. Research can help establish how widespread an issue is. Relevant expertise helps explain what might be driving it. Each has a different job.

A striking individual story can make an issue understandable while still being unusual. A satisfied customer can describe a real improvement without establishing that every customer will get the same result.

Good preparation includes checking what supports the account, where its limits sit, and whether the broader claim still holds. I would rather change the angle than ask someone's experience to carry a claim it cannot support.

We owe the journalist that clarity. We owe the participant care in how we present their experience.

Put access in the scope

Campaign budgets routinely account for research, messaging, spokesperson preparation, and pitching. Sourcing participants, checking their accounts, and arranging access should be just as visible.

That means identifying potential participants early, establishing who can approach them, allowing time for a proper briefing, and agreeing how quickly the client can make decisions. It also means checking availability against the actual media window.

For agencies, this is work to estimate, explain, and charge for. For clients, it is a reason to involve the people who hold customer, patient, or community relationships before the campaign launches.

When the budget or access cannot support the proposed story, the scope needs to change. We can choose a different angle, allow more preparation time, or give the client a realistic account of the opportunities available.

A journalist’s interest creates an opportunity. Our ability to supply evidence and access helps determine what happens next.

If the pitch depends on someone being willing to speak, finding and preparing that person is where the campaign starts.

Jasmin Hyde is the founder and director of Hyde & Seek Communications, a senior-led PR agency working across Australia and Southeast Asia. She advises founders and leadership teams on earned media, executive positioning and reputation, with clients across technology, healthcare, financial services, property and social impact.

Read more from our columnists in The Earned View

One of the most dangerous assumptions an organisation can make is that an issue it has lived with for years is an issue it understands and controls.

It may be neither.

While management becomes increasingly comfortable with a familiar problem, others may be accumulating the evidence that will turn it into a crisis. An organisation's greatest vulnerability may not be what it doesn't know, but what it knows and has learned to live with.

In my last column, I wrote about the danger of allowing questionable operational practices to become business as usual. The same danger arises when organisations become accustomed to persistent criticism, particularly from activists whose concerns have been heard, answered, and perhaps dismissed for years.

The absence of a crisis is not evidence that an issue is under control.

The warning signs were there

In October 2019, I was advising racing interests in Victoria when the ABC's 7.30 programme aired The Final Race, an investigation into the fate of retired racehorses.

The animal welfare concerns were hardly new. Protesters had been a familiar presence at major race meetings for years. The Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses had campaigned publicly and persistently, while the racing industry had introduced welfare initiatives and committed substantial resources to improving outcomes.

Yet on 17 October, the issue changed dramatically.

The ABC's investigation brought together evidence gathered over two years, including confronting hidden-camera footage from a Queensland abattoir. The investigation identified approximately 300 racehorses at the facility during 22 days of visits.

What had previously been a longstanding dispute between racing authorities and animal welfare campaigners became a national controversy.

Within five days, the Queensland Government announced an independent inquiry. Eleven days after the broadcast, Racing Victoria committed $25 million over three years to accelerate and expand its existing equine welfare program.

The industry had not suddenly discovered horse welfare. Racing Victoria had released a three-year Equine Welfare Strategic Plan earlier that year, identifying more than 40 priority projects for its first year.

But the investigation raised serious questions about what happened to horses after they left racing and whether existing safeguards were adequate.

The distinction matters. The crisis was not created by the television programme. The underlying welfare concerns already existed. What the program did was assemble evidence, expose the issue to a much wider audience and demand accountability on an entirely different scale.

Familiarity is not safety

This is where organisations can make a serious mistake.

When an issue has been around for years, management can become conditioned to it. The critics are familiar. Their arguments have been heard before. Responses have been prepared, positions defended, and improvements made.

Over time, the organisation may begin to measure the seriousness of an issue by the attention it is currently attracting rather than the possible consequences if critics prove their case.

That judgement is often reinforced by the organisation's own reporting. A decline in complaints, fewer headlines, or an uneventful annual meeting may be presented as evidence of progress. Yet none necessarily establishes that the underlying conduct has improved or that the most serious allegations have been resolved.

There is also a human tendency to defend decisions already made. Once management has invested money, reputation, and effort in a response, acknowledging that it is insufficient becomes harder. The question quietly shifts from whether the organisation is doing enough to whether it can justify what it has already done.

Meanwhile, its critics may be doing something quite different.

A determined activist group can devote years to a single issue, gathering evidence, building relationships, identifying weaknesses, and finding ways to bring its case to a wider audience.

An organisation, by contrast, must balance many competing priorities. What is one issue among many for management may be the sole focus of an activist campaign.

That imbalance deserves attention. It does not make every activist claim correct. Evidence must be tested and allegations challenged where they are wrong. But dismissing a critic because their campaign is familiar, repetitive, or unpopular is no substitute for examining the substance of the case.

The racing example illustrates a more fundamental point. The industry's vulnerability was not simply that activists and journalists had assembled compelling evidence. It was that the evidence raised questions about whether welfare commitments were being delivered in practice.

No communication response could resolve that contradiction. It required action. Organisations need to distinguish between managing criticism and addressing the conduct that gives rise to it. The two are not interchangeable.

Knowing when to act

For communicators, the lesson extends well beyond media monitoring and responding to criticism.

The more important intelligence is whether credible evidence is accumulating, whether apparently isolated incidents are beginning to form a pattern, and whether a journalist, regulator, whistleblower, or other credible third party could bring those elements together. Knowing that AI use is now a staple for many, what points of evidence could it help draw together, in the click of a button, for these parties?

And, critically, what would happen if they did?

A useful discipline is to examine an established issue from outside the organisation. Put aside the approved talking points and the history of previous responses. Identify the strongest evidence against the organisation's position, not merely the easiest allegations to rebut. Ask what an independent observer would conclude from the facts available.

Then take that assessment to the people who can change the underlying practice. Communications advisers should not be expected to fix operational failures, but they have a responsibility to recognise when those failures threaten trust and to say so plainly.

That can be uncomfortable advice, especially when management believes an issue has already been dealt with. But the value of experienced counsel lies partly in challenging that belief before circumstances force the organisation to reconsider it in public.

This also requires a willingness to acknowledge that an organisation may have made genuine progress without having adequately addressed the underlying problem.

The fact that improvements have been made does not mean the responsibility has been discharged.

Before the crisis arrives

The event that appears to create a crisis is often only its point of ignition. A television investigation, leaked document, whistleblower, or court case may bring an issue into public view, but the underlying circumstances can have existed for years.

By then, the opportunity to address the problem on the organisation's own terms may have passed. Decisions that could once have been made thoughtfully and systematically may instead be taken under intense scrutiny, with less time, less trust, and fewer options.

The lesson from the racing controversy is not that every persistent criticism will become a crisis. It is that familiarity can replace judgement. Organisations can become so accustomed to managing an issue that they stop asking whether their response remains adequate.

There is a simple test worth applying to any longstanding controversy.

If everything currently known about the issue were independently verified and presented convincingly to the public tomorrow, would the organisation still be comfortable defending its position?

If the answer is no, then what needs to change before somebody else joins the dots?

The crisis may already be hiding in plain sight.

Douglas Wright is Chief Executive Officer of Wrights, providing strategic counsel to boards and executives navigating complex reputational, stakeholder, governance and public policy challenges.

With more than four decades experience, he has advised leading corporations, industry bodies, government agencies and not-for-profit organisations across Australia and internationally. Prior to establishing Wrights, he founded and led Ogilvy PR Australia.

Douglas is Deputy Chair and a Fellow of Communication and Public Relations Australia (CPRA), a Chartered Public Relations Practitioner (UK), a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Certified Practising Marketer.

He combines commercial judgement, strategic insight and an ability to shape outcomes in complex environments.

Read more from our columnists in The Earned View