By Suleyman A. Ndanusa, PhD, OON
There was a time when a chief executive could go through the day without wondering whether a sentence uttered at breakfast might become tomorrow’s headline. A reporter called, the press office took a note, and somewhere between the evening news and the next morning’s paper, the organisation had time to gather its thoughts.
That time has gone.
Today, the story may begin with a customer taking a photograph, an employee posting a video or a passer by sending a voice note to a WhatsApp group. Before the organisation has agreed on the wording of its first statement, the public may already have seen three versions of what happened, two expert opinions and one fellow who has confidently explained the whole matter from his sitting room.
The fellow may even be right.
This is the new media environment. The microphone has left the lectern and is now in everybody’s hand. Newspapers, radio and television remain important, but they share the public square with online publishers, podcasters, influencers, campaigners, customers and employees. A story no longer waits politely for the newsroom to open.
Nigeria’s experience reflects this change. The Reuters Institute’s 2026 report describes a busy and fragmented media market, where established news organisations sit alongside digital outlets and social media creators. In its survey, many respondents reported sharing news through social media or messaging platforms. The same report found trust in news among its respondents remained relatively high, though its online sample was younger, more urban and more affluent than the country as a whole. The figures need that qualification, but the message is clear enough. News travels widely, and people still care whom they trust.
For a leader, this creates a temptation. One may try to manage the story, manage the journalist, manage the influencer and, if time permits, manage the comments. It is exhausting work. It is also the wrong starting point.
The first question should be, what happened?
A good communications team can help an organisation explain itself. It cannot make a poor service good by changing the adjectives. It cannot persuade a customer that a problem has been solved when the customer is still standing in the queue. And no press release, however handsomely dressed, can do the work of correcting a failure.
Reputation is built in the ordinary days. It grows when an organisation keeps its promises, listens to complaints and treats people fairly. Then, when something goes wrong, the public has some reason to believe that the institution will put it right. If the organisation has spent years ignoring people, one warm sentence beginning “We are deeply concerned” may not suddenly inspire confidence.
The media, too, is often misunderstood. Some leaders think a journalist’s job is to make the organisation look good. This is a touching belief, though rarely shared by the journalist. A reporter wants a story that matters, a fresh angle and, when the facts permit, a little conflict. “Everything went smoothly” is not usually the sentence that keeps an editor awake at night.
That does not mean leaders should avoid journalists. The opposite is true. A chief executive should know a few reporters well, understand their work and be available when they need a clear answer. Trust grows through honest contact over time. It cannot be manufactured in the middle of a crisis, like a cup of tea made for a visitor who has already announced that he is leaving.
But knowing journalists is not the same as expecting them to become friends of the organisation. Nor should access be offered on the understanding that difficult questions will be left at the door. If a leader speaks only where the questions are comfortable, the public may reasonably wonder what is being avoided.
And journalists are no longer the only people shaping public conversation. A thoughtful online creator may explain a complicated issue more clearly than a formal statement. A customer with a phone may expose a problem that several internal reports have failed to surface. A social media personality may command an audience larger than the circulation of a newspaper. Some creators do careful work; some do not. A large following is not a professional qualification, though it may be a very effective megaphone.
Leaders should learn how these voices work and engage with them honestly. But there is no need to pretend that every influencer is a journalist or every podcast is an interview with the BBC. Know who is speaking, who is listening and whether any arrangement is being paid for. The public is usually less offended by a disclosed partnership than by discovering one later.
The real test comes when something goes wrong. In those first anxious hours, people do not need a paragraph that sounds as though it has been approved by six committees. They want to know What happened? Are people safe? What are you doing? When will you tell us more?
A leader may not have every answer immediately. That is understandable. What is harder to forgive is pretending to know what has not yet been established. There is no disgrace in saying, “We do not know yet. We are checking, and we will update you at this time.” There can be considerable disgrace in confidently giving the wrong answer and then discovering that the internet has kept a copy.
The first statement should therefore be simple: say what is known, explain what is being done and promise the next update at a specific time. If people have been hurt, their welfare comes before the organisation’s image. If an error has occurred, acknowledge it. If the facts change, say so. The public is not expecting perfection; it is looking for evidence that the organisation is facing the matter honestly.
Leaders should also be careful with grand promises. “This will never happen again” sounds reassuring, but it is a dangerous sentence to say before anyone knows why it happened. Better to promise a proper investigation, clear corrective measures and regular updates on progress. A promise that can be checked is more valuable than one that sounds impressive.
The board has a role here, too. It should not be writing every statement or deciding which reporter gets a call back. That is management’s work. But directors should ask whether the organisation is ready: Who leads the response? How quickly do the facts reach the right people? Are employees and affected customers being told what they need to know? Does the board hear promptly when an incident is serious?
These questions belong in the boardroom because a public crisis may reveal a private failure, warnings ignored, responsibilities unclear or a culture in which no one wanted to be the bearer of bad news. If the chief executive first hears about a serious problem from a journalist, the press office may not be the first place to look.
There is another new complication, artificial intelligence. It can help translate a message, monitor online discussion and make information easier to understand. It can also create a convincing voice, photograph or video of something that never happened. The sensible response is neither to believe everything nor to dismiss everything as fake. Check the source. Keep the original material. Give people the evidence. And make sure a real person is answerable for what the organisation publishes.
As the Reuters Institute observed in its 2025 report, many people are worried about telling true information from false information online, and public scepticism about AI-generated news remains significant. That should remind organisations of an old fashioned advantage: when the world is full of doubtful claims, accuracy becomes more valuable, not less.
The best media strategy, then, is not a clever plan to make every story favourable. It is to build an organisation that can speak plainly when the story is difficult. The leader’s job is not to control every microphone. It is to ensure that the institution has something honest to say when the microphones turn towards it.
When the cameras are gone and the online conversation has moved on to the next controversy, what remains is the organisation’s conduct. Did it listen? Did it protect the people affected? Did it correct the failure? Did it keep its word?
A leader cannot own the story. But a leader is responsible for the reality from which the story comes. And no communications team, however gifted, can edit that reality forever.
Suleyman A. Ndanusa, PhD, OON, is an economist, lawyer, strategic studies scholar, and public policy thinker and practitioner with extensive experience in financial markets, regulation, governance, national Security and development
