Right of Reply

Whenever you are writing a story that contains a criticism of a person or an organisation, you should give them a "right of reply". This means you should put to them any allegations or criticisms you intend to write and give them the chance to respond.

As well as being an important part of making sure your coverage is fair and accurate, it can also help you legally if you ever end up relying on a common law defence in a libel action.

Giving Plenty of Time

Particularly when putting an allegation to a large organisation, it is not realistic to expect them to give a proper response in an hour or so.

There will always be times when this is not possible, but generally you should always give people as long as you can to give their side of the story.

Not only is giving them plenty of time likely to get a more meaningful response, but it helps you to build good relationships with press officers as they resent journalists who wait until deadline morning before calling them.

You can also sometimes include the length of time you gave them to respond in the article to emphasise how evasive they are being. An example of this is the Evening Standard's story about the role of mayoral adviser Lee Jasper in how Greater London Authority (GLA) money was spent. Reporter Andrew Gilligan gave the GLA almost a week to respond to questions. By mentioning this he gives readers the chance to make up their own minds about the fact that the GLA had not responded.

How to Use Right of Reply

Nick Davies argues in Flat Earth News that giving a right of reply as a matter of course can mean giving editorial space to people who are lying and because of this you should not always give space for the other side of the story.

Most people, however, think that always giving a right of reply to opposing views is an important part of making an article balanced.

But what often happens is that a reporter will write a story, send it to the sub-editor and ask them to leave space for two paragraphs at the end of the story for the right of reply to be slotted in. With the pressure of deadlines this is something that can be difficult to avoid, but it is not good practice.

People will often only read the first few paragraphs of a story. This means that if the intro of a story includes a serious allegation against a person, many readers will not reach the end of the story to read the person's denial. With serious allegations, it is usually much better to include the response in the first few paragraphs so even a casual reader will get to hear both sides of the story.

Also, unthinkingly putting the response at the end of the story can mean you miss out on something of news value. When an organisation sends a quote in response to a negative story, it can sometimes contain a clue that reveals more about the story. You should look for the difference between the question you have asked a press officer and the question they have answered. This will often be the key to the story and you should always be prepared to go back to someone and ask them follow-up questions.

Equally, you should also be prepared to drop a negative story if the response shows that what you thought was unreasonable behaviour was not actually unreasonable at all. This can be more difficult than it sounds, especially if this will mean leaving a big hole on the page and you do not have any other stories to fill it with.

But by writing a story criticising a person or an organisation, you are implicitly making a professional judgement that there is a legitimate case to answer. Too many bad journalists think giving an organisation a right of reply allows them to print any old rubbish as long as the organisation's denial is included to balance it up. Not only is this unfair, but it is also bad journalism.

Helping Stories Stand Up

As a journalist, you will sometimes hear rumours that sound like they are probably true but that you are unable to find evidence for.

When you get to the stage where there are no avenues left open and you are about to drop the story, you can try using right of reply as a bluff to get the subject of the rumour to stand it up for you.

This means that you phone the person or organisation and say you are running the story anyway but that you are giving them a right of reply. While sometimes they will say "no comment" and you will not be able to run the story, sometimes they will admit the rumour is true or admit that enough of the rumour is true (such as denying any wrongdoing but admitting there is an investigation into an allegation.

This is a duplicitous approach but can be an effective way of standing up stories.  If you use this tactic then do so sparingly.

Problems With Giving Right of Reply

One of the problems with giving a right of reply is that once they know about the story, they can try to take out an injunction against you publishing it. This will usually be on the grounds of breach of confidence but there are other grounds as well.

While this can happen, in the real world it does not happen very often because taking this sort of court action can be expensive. Unless you have a particular reason to think an injunction is likely, the best advice is to let them know about the story as early as possible and hope for the best.

Also, press officers who are given a right of reply can leak the story to another newspaper. The idea is that by giving it to a journalist they think is less likely to be critical, the press office can limit the story's negative impact.

However, this is more likely to happen with the nationals than in the regional and local press. Again, unless you have reason to think a press office is likely to do this, you should give them as long as possible to respond.

Dealing With "No Comment"

Generally, people who say "no comment" are not used to dealing with the media but have heard someone say it on TV and think it makes them sound like someone who is media savvy. It doesn't, and in fact one of the golden rules of PR is never to say it.

If someone tries it, the best thing to do is to maintain a friendly tone and say: "Oh really, why aren't you commenting?" Often, they will start telling you why the story is unfair and how they have actually done nothing wrong and suddenly you have got your quote.

If they persist, mention how many people interpret not commenting as an admission of guilt. And if this does not work, then let them not comment.  As long as you have put all the allegations to them, you can say you've given them a right of reply and their decision not to respond could damage their chances in any libel action against you.