Ignoring the noise: the quiet discipline of crisis PR

If you want a career that feels socially comfortable, crisis PR is not it.

Not because the work is dramatic or theatrical, but because so much of it involves sitting quietly with information you cannot share, while people around you speak with absolute certainty about things they do not understand.

One minute you are on a call with someone whose entire world is collapsing in real time. Careers unravelling, relationships fracturing, reputations becoming fragile under public scrutiny. The next, you are at a dinner table listening to people confidently dissect that same situation, enjoying it, almost relishing the judgement of a stranger they will never meet. You are expected to nod, eat your pasta, and behave like a normal person.

The reality is not glamorous

There is a strange misconception that crisis PR is glamorous or powerful, largely because people hear “famous names” and fill in the rest themselves. In reality, it rarely looks like anything people imagine.

Yes, I work with public figures, but the version of them I see is not red carpets or premieres. I have had very big names sat in my living room, or at their own homes, or somewhere deliberately private, in joggers and a hoodie, no makeup on, eyes swollen from stress, barely able to make a hot drink because they are so overwhelmed. Sometimes they have not eaten properly in days. Sometimes they are physically okay but mentally unravelled. Sometimes neither feels stable.

From a professional perspective, you are thinking about strategy, risk, and next steps. From a human perspective, you are also quietly assessing whether this is a bad moment or something deeper. Whether they need additional support. Whether someone else should be involved. You hold that tension constantly, between fixing the problem in front of you and recognising where your responsibility ends.

Naturally, I am a very empathetic person. As much as I do not particularly like to admit it, it is probably both my strength and my weakness in this job. I have lost more than a few nights of sleep lying awake after heavy conversations with clients, replaying what I have seen, overthinking what I could do differently, trying to work out how to make it better because I am genuinely upset by what they are going through.

I am also aware that other people in this industry are better at putting a wall up. They compartmentalise. They finish the call and move on with their evening. And sometimes I am deeply jealous of that, because it would make parts of this job easier.

But I also think something is lost there.

This work is not just about execution, it is about care. And care is what pushes you to go the extra mile when someone is at their lowest. It is what makes you double-check something late at night, or take one more call, or think harder about how a decision will land on someone who is already barely holding it together. That level of investment is exhausting, but it is also why clients trust you when things are at their worst.

This is why the job is socially awkward

Because after carrying all of that, you might find yourself later that evening at a dinner table listening to people casually tearing the same person apart for entertainment.

You are expected to nod, eat your pasta, and behave like a normal person.

Part of why this is manageable for me is that I have never cared about celebrity culture in the first place. I do not follow gossip accounts, I am not interested in speculation for its own sake, and I have never found famous people particularly compelling simply because they are famous. What interests me is behaviour, incentives, systems, and what actually happens behind closed doors.

Thankfully, I have built a circle of friends who feel broadly the same way, which makes everyday life easier. Conversations tend to stay grounded. That said, there are still social situations where people enjoy gossiping about public figures with confidence and enthusiasm. While it is not something I naturally engage in, I have learned not to resist it.

Listening to how people speak about public figures in casual settings is revealing. It shows how narratives land once they have escaped media framing and entered everyday conversation. It is unfiltered public perception, stripped of disclaimers and caveats. More often than not, the person being discussed happens to be my client.

That is where the awkwardness sits. Correcting people would make me unbearable and would immediately raise questions I have no intention of answering. Nobody wants to be the person who introduces context and legal nuance into a conversation meant to be light, and nobody wants to hear “you do not know the full story” when they are enjoying a bit of gossip over dinner.

So I sit there, listen, and take note.

Those moments are uncomfortable, but they are also instructive. They show which parts of a story have stuck, which assumptions people are making, and how language shifts once something becomes socially acceptable to repeat. From a crisis PR perspective, that information is invaluable. It tells you not what was written, not what trended on X, but what people actually believe.

If you want to work in crisis PR, you have to be level-headed

By definition, you are not going to be working with people who are universally adored. The people who are loved, protected, and celebrated are not the ones calling a crisis PR consultant. They do not need one. The job exists because something has gone wrong, or is being perceived as having gone wrong.

If you want to work in crisis PR, you have to accept that your clients will often be unpopular, misunderstood, or actively disliked at the point you meet them. Give it a year and some of the currently adored figures may well be in the same position anyway, because anything goes these days.

You will work closely with people whose beliefs, politics, lifestyles, or opinions differ from your own. Sometimes those differences will be mild. Sometimes they will be uncomfortable. Your job is not to agree with them, and it is not to endorse them. Your job is to remain clear-headed, professional, and focused on facts, risk, and consequence.

If you are tunnel-visioned, or deeply self-conscious about what your friends might think of you for working with certain people, this career will not work. One of the most important questions you can ask yourself before entering this field is simple. If it became public that you were working with this person, would it genuinely damage your social life? And if the answer is yes, could you tolerate that?

I know for a fact that there are names I have worked with that, if leaked at the time, would have caused some people in my life to quietly distance themselves from me. I understand that. People are allowed their boundaries and values. What matters is whether you have a strong enough foundation around you to withstand that discomfort.

It is not only controversial clients, and that distinction matters

It is also important to say that crisis PR is not just about working with controversial people.

Some of the people I work with are the kindest, most gentle, quietly decent humans you could meet. People who have been falsely accused, misrepresented, or caught in narratives that bear little resemblance to reality. Watching someone like that go through public scrutiny is genuinely heartbreaking, and those cases stay with you.

Those are the moments where the work feels most human. Sitting across from someone who is frightened, ashamed, and confused by what is happening to them, knowing they do not deserve it, carries a real weight of responsibility. I will go to extraordinary lengths to protect clients in that position, because their situations are personal, destabilising, and deeply unfair.

At the other end of the spectrum, I also work with people who are not in crisis at all, but are terrified of becoming so. A significant part of my work is preventative. Reviewing language, stress-testing decisions, PR training, and quietly stopping problems before they ever surface. Many potential crises die at this stage because someone paused.

If you are doing this job properly, you will work with controversial people at times. That is unavoidable. But the work itself is far broader than that, and far more rooted in trust, discretion, and judgement than people assume.

Most crisis work happens long before the public sees anything

A large part of my work never becomes public at all.

I work with politicians, film directors, actors, artists, sports figures, YouTubers, and others who live with varying levels of exposure. Many are not dealing with an active scandal, but with private threats that never make it online. Journalists applying pressure. Former partners threatening to go public. Obsessed fans. Rivals. Content creators hinting at takedowns.

These moments are rarely dramatic in the way people imagine. They are slow, stressful, and destabilising. Much of my role is assessment. What is real. What is noise. What has evidence. What needs to be handled carefully and quietly.

This is also where understanding search behaviour, AI summaries, GEO, SEO, and algorithmic amplification becomes critical. Once something surfaces publicly, it does not just spread socially, it hardens structurally. A single article can shape perception for years. An AI summary can quietly cement a narrative before anyone realises it has happened.

The goal is often not reaction, but prevention. Slowing things down. Introducing proportion. Making sure decisions are made based on reality rather than fear or pressure.

You are not endorsing someone by working with them

There is a persistent misconception that working in crisis PR means backing someone ideologically or morally. That by helping them, you support what they believe or what they have been accused of.

That is simply not how this work functions.

Crisis PR is not about alignment. It is about fairness, process, evidence, and proportion. It is about ensuring that decisions are not made purely on volume, outrage, or timing.

I am very much in the middle when it comes to politics and opinion. I tend to see smart points and terrible points on both sides of most arguments. That instinct has only been sharpened by the range of people I work with. I have learned things from people I strongly disagree with. Not because I endorse how they express themselves, often I do not, but because when you strip rhetoric away and actually listen, some arguments have substance.

If you are incapable of even considering that someone who disagrees with you may have a valid point, this is not the career for you. You will be working with people you do not agree with. That is not optional.

Helping someone navigate a crisis does not mean excusing them. It means ensuring that their situation is judged on facts rather than hysteria. We accept this principle everywhere else. Free speech exists. Due process exists. Even people accused of the most serious crimes are entitled to a fair trial. We do not decide guilt based on headlines.

I struggle to see why the internet should operate by a different standard.

The part nobody likes hearing

Sometimes, ignoring the noise is the job.

Not because the noise is meaningless, but because it is often reaction rather than reality. Performance rather than fact. Momentum rather than truth.

Your role in crisis PR is to remain grounded while everyone else spirals, to hold reality steady while narratives warp, and to make decisions based on consequence rather than applause.

If that does not bother you, you might be suited to this work. If it does, that is fine too. Most people would hate it.

I just happen to find it quietly, awkwardly, and unavoidably right for me.