To produce your documents, you need to know:

• the point in the crisis in which you are responding (remember that we’re positioning ourselves as members of the affected organization during the crisis as it unfolds)
• what you are actually addressing (a mistake, a cover-up, a wrongful PR snafu, etc.)
• what the context is
• history of issues
• cultural implications
• similarity to similar things
• the central theme the materials will advance