Corporate Crisis Management — Ep 5: Delivering a High-Stakes Public Apology | English C1-C2
Shadow this lesson: play a line, pause, and repeat it out loud — matching speed and intonation.
Conversation Script
PR Director
We can't afford another line that sounds like it was written by a lawyer dodging blame.
CEO
Fair enough, but I'm not about to grovel on camera for something engineering caused.
PR Director
Whether engineering caused it or not, the public will remember your face, not the org chart.
CEO
Ouch. Point taken, though I still think we're overcorrecting.
PR Director
Overcorrecting? Half the internet is already calling this a cover-up.
CEO
Wait, seriously? I thought we'd contained the story by now.
PR Director
Contained it? It's trending, and every hour of silence makes us look shiftier.
CEO
Alright, alright, let's draft something that actually acknowledges the harm without sounding rehearsed.
PR Director
Good, because a canned statement will get dissected line by line within minutes.
CEO
Fine, strip out the corporate jargon and let me sound like an actual human being.
PR Director
Exactly, and maybe skip the phrase 'we take full responsibility' unless you mean it.
CEO
I do mean it, though admittedly it took three lawyers to convince me to say so.
PR Director
That's oddly reassuring, honestly, given how this week has gone.
CEO
Let's just hope sincerity reads better on camera than it does on paper.