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I have learned over the years that your initial response can define your crisis.
Last Monday, hours after Victoria Police confirmed it was investigating an alleged sexual assault following an incident at the hotel where the Sydney Swans were staying, the club’s CEO Matthew Pavlich stood in front of reporters and said he was “shocked and disappointed” that they had “found themselves in this situation”.
By Wednesday, the story wasn’t just about the original allegations. It was about that sentence and what it revealed about AFL culture and the club’s attitudes towards gendered violence.
The response hadn’t just failed to contain the crisis. It had intensified it.
Words matter
The problem wasn’t that Pavlich said something factually untrue. The police investigation was ongoing; it seems the club didn’t know exactly what had happened yet and there were obvious limits on what he could say publicly.
The problem was what the language used appeared to prioritise.
By using words that distanced players from the allegations, without acknowledging the women at the centre of them, he gave the impression that the club was most concerned with the players’ predicament.
The telltale signs of a second wave of backlash emerged swiftly. Criticism gathered pace, reaching beyond its original audience and attracting people with greater reach and authority. Former players and advocates weighed in and the narrative shifted from the shock of the allegations to the club’s handling of the story.
What may have been a holding statement designed to get on the front foot and buy time had instead given critics something concrete to screenshot and dissect.
The club was left explaining its response to the response (which Pavlich did not do until Wednesday, when prompted).
The absence of certainty
The reality is a crisis statement is going to be scrutinised. You can’t control that. But you can control whether it gives people reason to trust you.
That matters because in the early stages of a crisis the facts are usually incomplete. I often advise clients who don’t know exactly what happened, who is responsible or how the situation will unfold.
That uncertainty does not remove the organisation’s responsibility to communicate. It changes what the communication has to do.
The first response now has two jobs: to fill an information gap before others do and frame an organisation’s values and priorities. By relying on ‘no comment’, bare minimum facts and company or club-centric framing, you can avoid saying the wrong thing while also failing to say what matters.
The Swans could not determine what had happened or who was responsible. It could, however, have shown empathy and made clear that it took the allegations seriously, acknowledged the women at the centre of the allegations and made clear that violence against women was incompatible with the culture they expected to maintain.
None of that required prejudging the outcome of the investigation.
Before you press publish
The question, then, is not simply whether the crisis response is accurate. It is whether it fills the information gap without leaving the organisation’s position open to question.
I pressure test my clients’ statements using these three questions:
Is it true, clear and useful now?
You don’t need to answer every question. But you should tell people what is known, what is being done to establish what isn’t and when they can expect to hear from you next. You can communicate uncertainty without filling it with speculation.
Does it acknowledge the people that matter most?
Every crisis impacts people. If they are absent from the statement, ask why and what that shows the public. If they are included, ensure you acknowledge their experience with appropriate empathy and respect.
What will our people and the public hear when this is quoted without context?
Read the statement as if you haven’t written it. Which sentence becomes the screenshot? What happens if it’s tomorrow’s front page without the three paragraphs around it? Do any phrases minimise harm, sound defensive or shirk accountability?
The third question is where content marketers have a particularly useful role. While they don’t tend to own the crisis response, they are often closest to the audience the organisation is about to address. They know the difference between what you intend to say and what an audience is likely to hear. In a crisis, understanding that gap is invaluable.
Caroline Voaden is a crisis PR consultant founder of STORY and creator of the Backlash Curve
