Ask a large organisation who its media spokespeople are and you will often get a perfectly respectable spreadsheet.
Ask who could speak confidently about a very specific breaking story by 1pm, and the answer becomes less straightforward. The same familiar names tend to appear first. Not necessarily because they are the best match, but because everybody remembers them. That is the difference between maintaining a spokesperson list and building a useful spokesperson network.
Go deeper than job titles
A useful network reflects the way expertise actually works. A researcher listed under “climate science” may specialise in extreme heat, carbon capture or climate modelling. Someone described broadly as an AI expert may work specifically on robotics, safety or regulation. Those distinctions are important as soon as a real journalist question arrives with a deadline.
The communications team also needs to know things that rarely appear in an organisational directory. Who is particularly good on broadcast? Who enjoys rapid-response commentary? Who needs more preparation? Who can usually make themselves available quickly? Who has already built useful relationships with journalists covering the subject?
That is the kind of operational knowledge that turns a directory into a working network.
Do not rely on the usual voices
Most organisations have a small group of dependable spokespeople who receive a disproportionate share of media activity. There are good reasons for this. They are responsive, experienced and trusted. But relying on them too heavily can hide excellent expertise elsewhere. A more deliberate network helps teams identify emerging voices and give them appropriate opportunities to develop. It also gives the team more options when the usual expert is travelling, unavailable or not the best fit for a particular story.
There is no need to turn every specialist into a spokesperson. The aim is to know which options are available when an opportunity arises.
Keep learning from activity
A spokesperson network should become more useful each time it is used. If an expert handles a difficult broadcast interview particularly well, that is worth recording. If someone else proves excellent at long-form technical briefing but less comfortable with rapid comment, that is useful too.
Over time, those observations build a richer picture than any static list can provide. A practical test is whether, when a strong media opportunity appears, the communications team can quickly identify several credible people and understand the strengths of each.