Communicators: Counselors in the Court of Public Opinion

Throughout the course of my career, I have had that all-too familiar experience that many communicators have had: being told by a legal or regulatory department what to say and what not to say. I've been lucky in that these experiences have been mercifully few, as I've had employers who have understood the strategic value communications bring to shaping message and content. But the point remains: the perspective on what to say to maximize your chances for a legal win in court or minimize your regulatory risk is frequently at odds with the perspective of what the right thing is to say when you take the expectations and perspectives of your audiences into consideration. 

Perhaps up to ten years ago - and still today if you are operating in more conservative or less publicly-facing environments, communicator ultimately had to transcribe what was deemed legally acceptable text - for instance, in the case of a product buyback of court case. There's still a lot going for this, e.g. not commenting on ongoing legal battles. Particularly when they are not front and center of a company's story, keeping a low profile, having very bland commentary makes for a less interesting story and will keep that legal issue where it belongs- in the courts or with an administration procedure - and not in the papers and blogs and on social media.

Image credits: Mika Baumeister, unsplash.com

That being said, companies are discovering that more and more it is not only whether you can settle a legal argument or prove to a regulator that you have stuck to the rules, but that public opinion has become its own court, in which winning the legal argument is often not sufficient enough. In public opinion, it matters whether you have conducted according to moral and ethical norms, not only whether you followed the letter of the law. This is usually the key point of contention when communications professionals and legal professionals are hashing out press releases or Q&As. Today's highly digitalized public sphere is particularly sensitive to your tone of voice and references to moral categories - something being right, something being wrong. This does not mean that a company's communication need always follow what the Twittersphere (or Twitterspheres, as there are so many opinion silos by now) might expect from them. The moral and ethical compass that you refer to can be your company's - if you have strong values and people expect you to live by them, many will respect you, even if they don't love you.

But the point of the matter is that without counsel this court of public opinion is difficult to navigate. This is what the role of the communicator is - to help their colleagues - be they legal advisers or managers - to understand the dynamics of this court and how to win its favor or at least avoid its wrath.