It’s smart not to enter into a public spat. You are unlikely to come out looking good.
Bret Stephens shows (link)even experienced journalists can go off the reserve.
You or your clients are going to get goaded. When it happens, the best thing to do is nothing.
Don’t enter a public spat. It looks to the outside observer that you are having a public melt down. The chances that you come across as unhinged or away with the fairies.
It’s best to sit it out. Don’t comment. If you need to, sleep on it, and return to it 48 hours later.
If you can’t resist your inner urges to respond, make sure you have someone on staff who can block you for a healthy amount of time.
The same goes for letters to officials and politicians. Too many letters come across as the sub-vocialising of depressed neurtics. If you see a green ink letter spike it. It will do you more harm than the cheap pyscho-therapy it gives the writer.