Session 5: One Apology, Two Audiences

Draft a private and a public version of the same apology and identify exactly what has to change between them

Weight: 1%

Before the session, find a real public apology statement — a company statement, a public figure’s post, a press release — long enough to have more than two or three sentences.

In the session, go through it line by line. For each line, decide who it is actually built to serve: the harmed party specifically, observers who weren’t harmed, or genuinely both. Point at what makes the call — a vague phrase that protects the harmed party’s privacy at the cost of observers’ need to judge is a different diagnosis from a vague phrase that protects no one but the speaker. Mark at least one line that clearly serves observers at the harmed party’s expense, or the reverse.

Then rewrite the statement to prioritise the harmed party over observers: name the act specifically, address what they in particular need acknowledged, and stop optimising for how the statement reads to strangers. When you’re done, say explicitly what the rewrite gives up — what an observer would no longer be able to judge or be reassured about, compared to the original.

If a line genuinely seems to serve the harmed party and observers equally well, don’t split the difference by calling it “both” without evidence. Check whether it happens to satisfy both by coincidence — a specific, named act that both the harmed party and observers needed to hear — or whether it’s actually vague enough that each audience is reading into it what they need, which is a different finding and worth naming as such.

Afterwards, trade rewrites with another pair. Check each other’s cost list: did the rewrite actually sacrifice public accountability, or does it turn out the original wasn’t serving observers as well as it first appeared either?

Check your understanding