faq-document-writer

FAQ Document Writer

What This Skill Does

Writes a journalist-facing FAQ document for a crisis or complex issue, anticipating the questions journalists are most likely to ask and providing approved, consistent answers that spokespeople and press officers can use verbatim or as a guide.

When To Use This Skill

• You have issued a crisis or holding statement and need supporting material for incoming media calls
• You are preparing spokespeople for a press conference or media round and want to standardise the answers
• The story is complex (regulatory, technical, or legal) and you need everyone speaking from the same document
• You need an internal Q&A that doubles as a public-facing document with minimal editing

What You Need To Provide

Required: A summary of the incident or issue (what happened, what is confirmed, what is under investigation); the organisation's name and sector; what the most likely journalist questions are, or a brief description of what the media have already asked; what is approved to say and what is not.

Optional: A holding statement or earlier press release for consistency reference; the target channel (internal use only / media-facing / public website); whether unanswerable questions should be flagged rather than answered; a list of specific questions to address; the spokesperson's name and title.

How the Assistant Approaches This

1. Reviews the facts provided and identifies the five to ten questions a journalist covering this story would ask first — ordered by likely urgency, not organisational convenience.
2. Writes each question in the direct, blunt register journalists use ("Did you know about this before it happened?" not "Can you describe your prior awareness of the issue?").
3. Writes answers that are factual, specific, and consistent with any prior public statements — not evasive, but also not beyond what has been confirmed.
4. Flags questions where the honest answer is "we don't know yet" or "we cannot comment on that" — gives language for these rather than leaving them blank or inventing an answer.
5. Groups questions thematically if there are more than six, to make the document navigable.