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Having helped run a furry convention, there are times you need to talk to members of the media. Otherwise, you have zero input in the narrative.

If you make the response boring or used a canned legalish message, it doesn’t allow them to say you didn’t talk to them.

A better rule is: don’t let anyone untrained talk to journalists.

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The narrative already gets decided ahead of time and often there is nothing you can do to change it. In my opinion it's better to accelerate the distrust of journalists.

The general idea of the narrative might be set, but many times I see a company’s response in the story.

You usually have some influence. Enough people are smart enough to read between the lines to make it worth trying.

Perfect example: I had to fire someone from staff rather promptly. The reasons were serious even that not responding to questions in timely manner would have been a fatal error for the convention.

Unfortunately, there are times you can’t opt out of the game because opting out is a response. Silence will be misconstrued as support.

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