What is crisis communication?

Crisis communication is how an organisation says what it knows, to the people affected, while a damaging situation is still developing. In practice most of the difficulty is coordination rather than writing: establishing what is actually known, deciding who speaks, and getting an accurate statement approved and out before the story is written without you.

What is a holding statement?

A holding statement is a short, factual acknowledgement issued before the full picture is known. It confirms what has happened, expresses appropriate concern, states what is being done, and says when more will follow. Its purpose is to establish presence without committing to facts or liability that may not survive an investigation.

How quickly should an organisation respond to a crisis?

Faster than the story is written, which in practice means within the first hour for anything already public. The response does not have to be complete. Silence is read as either ignorance or concealment, and the frame set in the first cycle is expensive to change afterwards.

How does Intorian help during a crisis?

Monitoring surfaces the issue, the playbook sets the sequence, the statement is drafted in the organisation's own voice, and adversarial, defamation and broadcast-compliance analysis tests the draft for the attack lines and legal exposure it contains — before it is published rather than after.

The first hour
decides the rest.

Q: What belongs in a crisis communication plan?

The parts used under pressure: who decides, who speaks, reachable contact details, pre-cleared holding statement templates, and the escalation threshold. Long plans describing the organisation's commitment to transparency are not consulted during an actual incident.

By the time the full picture is clear, the frame is already set. A war room for the hours when that is still being decided.

Detect · Decide · Deploy · Defend

The real problem

A crisis is a coordination failure long before it is a writing one.

Almost nobody fails because they could not write the sentence. They fail because at 16:40 nobody had agreed what was actually known, three people were drafting separately, legal had not seen it, and the deadline passed while everyone was being careful. The blank page is the easy part.

Known

what can actually be said, separated from what is merely assumed

Agreed

one line, one spokesperson, one approval — not three drafts

Cleared

tested for the attack line and the legal exposure before it ships

The sequence

Detect. Decide. Deploy.

The same three moves every time, so the sequence is not being invented while the phone rings. What changes between incidents is the content, never the process.

01

Detect

Scheduled monitoring surfaces it, and it becomes a tracked issue with an owner — not a rumour in a group chat.

02

Decide

The playbook sets the sequence and the holding line — one draft in your own voice, not four competing ones.

03

Deploy

Tested for attack lines, defamation risk and regulatory exposure, approved, and out before the cycle closes.

The first hour

Four things, in this order.

Almost every organisation gets these in the wrong sequence, and drafts before it has established what it is allowed to say. The order is the discipline.

01

Establish what is known

Separate confirmed fact from assumption, in writing. Most damaging early statements are built on something everyone believed and nobody had checked.

02

Hold the ground

A short factual acknowledgement, out fast. It buys the hours you need without committing to facts an investigation may not support.

03

Name the spokesperson

One voice, briefed and rehearsed. Two spokespeople with slightly different timelines is a second story.

04

Test before you publish

Adversarial, defamation and regulatory analysis on the draft — the objections a critic, a lawyer and a regulator would each raise.

Before you publish

The draft, and its exposure.

A holding statement is easy to write and easy to get wrong. The value is not the draft — it is knowing, in the same minute, which sentence a lawyer would object to and which one a critic will quote back at you.

Holding statement · draftT+38 min

We are aware of an incident at our Eastfield facility this afternoon. Emergency services are on site and our immediate priority is the safety of everyone there.

Two employees have been taken to hospital. Their families have been informed and we are supporting them directly.

The cause is not yet established. A full investigation is under way and we will share what we find. We expect to provide a further update by 09:00 tomorrow.

Pre-publication analysis2 flags

Factual exposurelow

Admission riskmedium

Attack surfacemedium

"Our immediate priority is the safety of everyone there" will be quoted back against any prior safety finding on this site — check the record before this goes out. Committing to 09:00 is good discipline, but only if you can meet it; a missed self-imposed deadline becomes the second story.

Illustrative extract · not a real incident

When it does not end

Most crises do not end. They get regulated.

The week after the incident is when the complaint is lodged, the coverage is disputed and a regulator writes. Whichever regime you sit under, those clocks start running without telling you — and they are measured from publication, not from the day you noticed.

01

Monitoring & Issue Tracking

Scheduled sweeps across news and social, with anything live held as a tracked issue by status, priority and owner.

02

Playbooks & Simulation

Run the scenario before it runs you — the sequence, the holding line, and who says what, decided while nobody is panicking.

03

Adversarial & Defamation Analysis

The attack line a critic would use and the legal exposure in a draft, surfaced while there is still time to change the sentence.

04

Press & Broadcast Regulation

Measure coverage against the applicable press and broadcasting codes — grounds for a complaint, or your defence against one. Worked in depth for the South African Press Code and BCCSA.

The aftermath, written down.

Practical guides on the first hour, the plan people actually open, the simulation worth running — plus two worked in detail on the South African regulators, for readers who need them.

8 min The first 60 minutes: holding statements that don't create liability What belongs in one, what does not, and the four phrases that cost you later. 8 min What belongs in a crisis communication plan The parts anyone actually opens under pressure — and the pages nobody reads. 7 min Running a crisis simulation your team won't sleepwalk through How to build the injects, and the four failure modes worth designing for. 9 min Press Code complaints in South Africa The 30-day window, what the Ombud weighs, and why roughly nine in ten fail. 9 min BCCSA complaints: what triggers one and how to answer Two codes, different clause numbers, and 30 business days.

All guides →

Speed without dilution

Before you need it.

The useful time to see this is a quiet week. Tell us the scenario that worries you most and we will run it against your own organisation.

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Thank you — we'll be in touch within one business day.

The first hourdecides the rest.