PR fleeing

What would you do if you were faced with this situation? You’re the PR for British Airways. There’s a press briefing about the chaos at Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 in which the director of operations refuses to take questions. Subsequently you are faced with a barrage of journalists after some answers. If you opted for “run away” you chose the same option as Richard Goodfellow, the PR for BA, who recently shut the door on the many journalists on his case. PR guru Max Clifford’s advice (in a nutshell) was: never run away, use common sense and keep journalists on side as you’ll need them in the future. What would he have said? “It’s difficult to help you. We haven’t got any answers, we haven’t a clue what is going on. We have to make sure we take care of everyone. We have a worldwide reputation, we will get it right.” He’s not called a guru for nothing!