QUESTIONS YOU MAY FACE FROM JOURNALISTS ABOUT YOUR ORGANISATIONS’S RESPONSE TO THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

To help you in your communication preparations, we hope you will find helpful the list of questions below that our team of journalists are typically putting to businesses and organisations they are interviewing at this time. Our journalist training team is available for Skype/ telephone training to help you and your spokesperson prepare and communicate engaging and compelling answers for them.

 

Do you have faith in the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis?

 

Do you think the government’s business support measures go far enough?

 

What do you think of other European/ Scottish government’s different approaches (as relevant to the geographical spread of the organisation)?

 

What would you like the government to do nationally?

 

How would you like the government to support your own business?

 

Would you support a national lockdown?

 

How is it affecting business? How much has footfall / sales dropped? Are clients cancelling / suspending contracts?

 

We hear lots of businesses are fearful of going bust, is that a worry for you?

 

Do you have enough cash reserves to stay afloat? For how long? When will you breach your banking covenants?

 

How much stock do you have? When will production stop? What supply chain difficulties are you having?

 

What are customers/ clients telling you about the situation?

 

What would be the tipping point for you as a business in trying to manage this situation?

 

Will this change how you do business in the short term and the long term?

 

Did you have a pandemic crisis plan? Why not after SARS, H1N1 etc? How has it been useful in this situation?

 

What are your plans to keep workers safe?

 

Were your measures ahead or behind others in your sector?

 

What are you learning from this?

 

Why are your production lines/ offices still open? Isn’t it that you’re putting profit before people?

 

You’ve made office staff work from home because you say you care about their welfare. If production lines are still open, why are your office workers more important to you than production staff?

 

How many people in the business are ill? Any deaths? Any serious cases at director or board level?

 

What support are you offering employees?

 

Are you just offering the minimum sick pay or are you being more generous?

 

Are you paying staff who are self-isolating even though they’ve not tested positive?

 

What about people on contracts or casual labour – how are you supporting them? Are you treating them differently? Why?

 

Are we all in this together? Will you be paying out any director bonuses due to be paid? Will employee wage cuts be matched by the same for directors?

 

Do you have faith in our inexperienced Chancellor?

 

If there is a recession, do you think it will be deep yet short or a long, downward plunge?

 

The government is making extraordinary spending commitments which will leave the country with massive debts for decades to come. What impact do you think that will have on businesses?

 

Do you think the government should step back from it red line 31st December Brexit deal deadline?

 

What advice or plea would you have for the new Governor of the Bank of England?

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