The secrets to crisis PR that the crisis PR guys don’t know! Top media lawyer Jonathan Coad on the PRmoment podcast

Send us a text

This week on the PRmoment Podcast we’re talking to crisis PR lawyer Jonathan Coad, about his new book Reputation Matters. 

Jonathan is one of the UK’s top media lawyers, he’s spent 30 years working on both the PR side and the editorial sides of the fence. 

Reputation Matters gives a unique insight into how the media works with practical advice on how to deal with PR crises effectively. 

Jonathan is also the principal at Coad Law.

Before we start just to promo our stunning free webinar we’ve got coming up on The link between corporate reputation and business performance.

Thanks as ever to the PRmoment Podcast sponsors The PRCA.

Here’s a flavour of what Jonathan and PRmoment founder Ben Smith discuss:

1 min Jonathan talks us through what the book is all about and why he wrote it?

3 mins Why PR people need to have a better knowledge of media law and media regulation than most of them currently do

4 mins Why you can’t do crisis PR without an intricate knowledge of both the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editorial Code and OFCOM’s Broadcasting Code.

4.30 mins Why are these codes so often ignored by the press?

7 mins Is this a legal textbook or a PR textbook?

7.30 mins Jonathan claims that this book tells PR people how the media works

8.30 mins How can a lawyer, or a PR person, undermine the confidence of a journalist's source?

10 mins Is the reason Jonathan wrote the book because of his deep-seated anger with the UK press?

12 mins “When the press tell us something that is untrue, we all suffer.”

13 mins “The best way to deal with a media crisis is to stop it from happening” - how can you use the media’s regulations to do that?

13.30 mins Why writing a statement in response to a story is very often completely the wrong thing to do.

14 mins Why the golden hour of crisis response is actually the hour before publication, not the hour after publication.

15 mins Jonathan gives us his insight into who is likely to win the Rooney Vardy case. The key element is likely to be the cross-examination of Rebecca Vardy and whether she can convince the judge that her personal PR person leaked information to the press about Coleen Rooney without Rebecca Vardy’s knowledge.

17 mins Jonathan reflects on the Johnny Depp Amber Heard case and the differences between UK and US law.