Monday Morning Media Minute

By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com

Reporters talk to people and write stories about what they say.  What part of that isn’t clear?

You’d think a four-star general in charge of a war would get that — and understand the potential consequences of telling a reporter things that can get you fired.

So, what were Gen. McChrystal and his staff — including his PR adviser — thinking?  Apparently they weren’t.  Forget the insubordination.  The general and his PR adviser deserved to be fired for simple stupidity.

Interestingly enough, McChrystal and his staff aren’t alone.  People who should know better frequently tell reporters things they shouldn’t.

Some advice that’s too late for McChrystal but I hope useful to some of you:

• Never talk to a reporter without knowing what your objective is.  Getting Rolling Stone to do a profile of you — no matter how positive — isn’t a clear enough objective.  What do you want to happen as a result of the story the reporter writes?  That’s your objective.  If your objective is simply to feed your ego, you’re playing with fire.
• Always have a clear message and stick to it.  Your message should support your objective.  It should be clear enough and interesting enough that the reporter will get it, remember it and use it — and the rest of us will also get it and remember it.  That means you need to be able to say it 15 seconds or less.  Otherwise, it’s not clear enough yet.
• Media training, by someone who knows what they’re doing, is essential for anyone who talks to reporters.  Talking to reporters without media training is like skydiving without lessons.  You’ll get through it, but the outcome may not be pretty.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com

One of my grandfathers was a country doctor in the little town of Grady, Arkansas.  He occasionally received chickens or something else besides cash in return for his services.

That was because in his day country doctors didn’t turn away patients, whether they could pay or not.  And some folks were too proud to accept something for nothing.  So, if they didn’t have cash, they paid with whatever they had to offer — including chickens.

But that’s not why I noticed when U.S. Senate candidate Sue Lowden of Nevada suggested recently that patients could use chickens to pay for their medical care.  That story caught my attention because I knew as soon as I heard it she was about to receive a lot of media attention she didn’t want.

Lowden quickly became the butt of jokes from comedians and opposing politicians.  The chicken-joke story hit its peak, as far as I can tell, with a Las Vegas TV story that’s since found its way onto YouTube.

Lowden made at least three mistakes:

• Her first mention of paying doctors with chickens appears to have been off the cuff.  She went off message.  Always have a clear message before you talk to reporters and stick to it.
• Once the story blew up, she didn’t take steps to contain the damage.  Check out the link to the Las Vegas TV story.  Lowden still looks like a deer in the headlights several days after this story went south on her.
• She doesn’t appear to have a strategy for putting the story behind her.  Lowden’s not the first public figure and won’t be the last to say something she shouldn’t have in public.  Such gaffes can be hard to fix   Just ask British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who quickly apologized last week after calling a woman he talked to while campaigning a bigot.  Brown was in his car when he made the “bigot” comment and thought he was speaking in private.  Unfortunately for him, he was still wearing a TV microphone.  The comment may have ended his chances of staying in office — despite his hasty effort to undo the damage.  Lowden hasn’t really tried to contain the damage.  She needs media training.  And help with her messaging.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com

Truth in advertising.  I’ve always thought Domino’s pizzas tasted like cardboard.  But I never expected them to agree with me.

So, I was pleasantly surprised a couple weeks ago when I saw the Domino’s ad, you’ve probably seen it too, acknowledging what I already knew — their crust tastes like cardboard and their sauce tastes like ketchup.

Well, they were just repeating customer complaints.  But they also said they’ve fixed the problem.  And they’re hoping a lot of us will buy one of their pizzas to see if their new pizzas really are better than the ones they used to make.

It’s great advertising.  And it makes several points worth noting:

• Great storytelling starts by grabbing your audience’s attention.  They did that.  Looking for a way to get your audience’s attention?  Start by telling them something that surprises them.

• Conceding obvious weaknesses in your story can help you gain credibility for the messages you really care about.  This is a point I often make during media training.  Don’t try to defend every point — especially the ones you know are indefensible.  Acknowledging a mistake or two is a great way to gain credibility for the things you really care about.  Okay, your pizza tasting like cardboard isn’t a small point.  Unless, of course, enough of us believe it that it’s hurting your sales – and you can tell us with a straight face that you’ve fixed it.

• No matter how strong your story, the proof is in the . . . pizza.  Domino’s “cardboard” ad works as an ad because it got our attention.  But the real proof of whether it worked will be decided by whether enough people who give them another try agree they’re now making good pizzas.  I think the verdict is still out on that one.

I also heard from several of you last week who said Toyota is mishandling their big recall.  I don’t agree.  I think the verdict is still out on that one, too.

Crisis Communications 101:  Acknowledge the problem, fix it, and make a credible promise to assure us it won’t happen again.

Toyota has stepped up to the problem.  And they say they’ll begin fixing it this week.  If they do, and if they live up to their promise of restoring our confidence in the quality of their cars, then they will have done a good job.

But they’re in the same boat as Domino’s.  What they say will be less important than what they do.  If they’ve really begun cutting corners that affect quality as some analysts have suggested, and if that shows up in more problems with their cars, then Toyota’s reputation will suffer.  Ditto, if they screw up the repairs to the cars they’ve recalled.

But if the accelerator problem proves to be an aberration and if they fix the problem, they’ll ultimately come out of their current crisis just fine.  In fact, if they do a great job of fixing the accelerator problem, this incident could actually help their reputation. But the jury’s still out on that.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com

Even Secret Service protection can’t keep a president from opening the wrong door and getting into trouble.  And President Obama has the political scars to prove it.

I like to think of media interviews as happening in a big room with a lot of doors.  Your job is to open the one door that leads to the story you want to tell that day.  Reporters will try to get you to open as many other doors as possible in hopes there’s a more interesting story behind one of them than the one you want to tell.

Obama made the classic mistake of opening a door he shouldn’t have at the end of last week’s White House news conference when he answered a question about Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s run-in with the Cambridge police.

Whether you agree or disagree with what Obama said, he made a mistake when he answered the question.  Why?  Because the whole point of the news conference was to build support for healthcare reform.  But the news coverage of the flap caused by Obama’s comment on the Gates incident overshadowed the coverage of what he had to say about healthcare.  The Gates incident’s still drawing coverage.  But all the stuff Obama said at the news conference about healthcare?  Nada.

Let’s go back to our room with the doors for a moment.  Some of the doors may have skeletons behind them – things you never want to talk about.  And there may be stories behind some of them you’d love to talk about another time.  But don’t talk about them today if they’ll distract from the story you want to tell today.  For that reason alone, Obama should have avoided the Gates incident at his news conference.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com

This week’s confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor are as strong an example as you’ll ever find for the importance of media training.

With 60 Democrats in the Senate there are only three things that could derail her nomination to the Supreme Court at this point – a sudden health crisis, a surprise none of us know about yet or a serious gaffe when it comes to answering questions during the hearings.

With the stakes so high and the atmosphere so heated, Supreme Court nominees now go through extensive practice sessions to get ready for their run through the nomination-hearing gauntlet.  If Sotomayor learned to stay on message – which in this case means ducking most of the really difficult questions – she’ll soon be a Supreme Court justice.  If she gets off message, things could become interesting.

Most of us will never face the kind of sustained, nationally televised grilling she’s about to go through.  But anyone who’s been in front of a hostile reporter or group of reporters during a crisis knows just how unnerving it can be if you’re not prepared.

A single comment can lead to negative headlines.  So, anyone who talks to reporters on behalf of your organization should have professional media training.  It’s the single most effective thing you can do to improve the success of your interactions with the media.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

With this morning’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, we’re at the beginning of what should prove to be a laboratory in message discipline by both supporters and opponents of her choice.

Republican opponents will point to a comment made during a panel discussion at Duke University Law School several years ago about federal appeals courts being “where policy is made” as evidence that she’s a “judicial activist.”  We’ll see the YouTube video of that comment a lot over the summer.  And opponents will try to slow down approval of her confirmation in hopes the delay will give them time to find enough ammunition to kill it.

Democrats supporting the nomination will point to her original appointment to the federal bench by a Republican president (George H.W. Bush), her record as a highly regarded judge and her life’s story as someone who rose above humble beginnings.  And they’ll push for quick confirmation so she’ll be on the court for the opening of its new term in October.

Those are a few of the themes that will emerge during the fight over Sotomayor’s confirmation.  Barring surprises, we’ll know all of the messages from both sides before the end of the week.  Then we can keep score on which side has the stronger messages and how well both sides do in sticking to their messages

As long as Sotomayor stays on message, she shouldn’t have any trouble being confirmed unless there’s an unpleasant surprise along the way.  If she gets off message – ad libs are her enemy until she’s confirmed – her confirmation will become a lot messier.

To help her stay on message, Sotomayor will be offered the judicial equivalent of intense media training.  The Justice Department and the White House will put her through many hours of mock hearings to prepare her for the questions she’s likely to get once the Senate Judiciary Committee begins its hearings on her nomination.  She’ll do well to pay attention during those sessions.

What’s the point for the rest of us?  Knowing what your messages are and sticking to them are extremely important.  Anyone who speaks out on a serious issue without knowing what they want to say and why is asking for trouble.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

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The Monday Morning Media Minute is now available as an eBook.  My new eStore features five eBooks based on the Media Minute.  To check them out, visit my eStore and buy early and often.  The eBooks come as PDF files.  You don’t need special eBook software to read them.

Nancy Pelosi has made three classic mistakes in telling what she knew about waterboarding and when she knew it as a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

• She didn’t tell the whole story.  Crisis Communications 101:  When you’re in a crisis communication situation, tell the whole story at the beginning.  If you don’t, all those ugly facts you want to hide are fodder for keeping a bad story alive.  And each new forced disclosure will hurt your credibility.  Pelosi has been telling her story in stages.  And the news conference she called last week in an apparent effort to put the story to rest didn’t work because her words were so carefully parsed that she still doesn’t appear to have told all she knows.  This is a politically charged story.  So, Pelosi’s political opponents will do all they can to keep the story alive.  She’s helping them do that.

• She’s relying on the “rules” to excuse her own behavior.  In a crisis situation, saying you met regulatory or legal requirements is a useless defense (except in court).  If your actions contributed to the problem, the rest of us don’t care whether you met whatever legal or regulatory rules applied.  We don’t trust the rules to protect us.  In Pelosi’s case, she uses this defense to explain why she didn’t complain about waterboarding of prisoners even after a member of her staff told her the CIA had told him they were doing it.

• She picked a fight while trying to shut down the story.  Pelosi accused the CIA of routinely lying to members of Congress.  That kind of accusation wasn’t going to go unanswered.  Not a good strategy when you want a story to go away.

None of us like to own up to mistakes or misdeeds.  That’s why so many companies make the same classic mistakes Pelosi has made with her current predicament.

It’s not easy to come clean when you’ve screwed up and the world is watching.  But, if you want the story to go away quickly, it’s the only chance you have at making that happen.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

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The Monday Morning Media Minute is now available as an eBook.  My new eStore features five eBooks based on the Media Minute.  To check them out, visit my eStore and buy early and often.  The eBooks come as PDF files.  You don’t need special eBook software to read them.

Are Tiger Woods muscles too big?   The answer, at least for the media, may depend on how many tournaments he wins over the next few months.

The story line before yesterday’s final round of the Players Championship golf tournament was perfect for TV ratings – Tiger in the final pairing five strokes behind a leader who was an unknown.

The script for the day:  Intimidated by being in the final pairing with Tiger, leader Alex Cejka chokes and superhuman Tiger roars back from five strokes behind to win yet another tournament with a stunning final round.  The rest of the field?  Irrelevant.

Cejka lived down to his part of the script, but Tiger didn’t live up to his.  He played miserably (for him) and finished in eighth place – seven strokes behind a player who started the day tied with him in second place.

At one point, after yet another in a series of tee shots by Tiger that missed the fairway, one of the TV commentators suggested one reason for his poor play might be that his biceps have gotten too big because of the weight lifting he does.  Playing good golf isn’t about how many pounds you can bench press, the commentator suggested.

I have no idea whether Tiger’s muscles are too big.  And I’m certainly not ready to write him off as being in a slump.  But he’s fallen short of winning several times recently when he appeared poised to win in legendary Tiger style by intimidating the rest of the field on a pressure-packed Sunday afternoon.

It won’t take too many more of those before we’ll start seeing stories about “what’s wrong with Tiger.”  And if other reporters pick up on the bicep theory, we’ll be reading stories about Tiger’s oversized muscles.

What’s my point?  No matter how well things seem to be going for you today, there will be a time when they’ll take a turn for the worse.  If they take a turn for a worse in a way that the media notices and cares about, you’ll be reading about your troubles.

The moral of the story?  Don’t become complacent just because you’re riding high today.  And, if things take a turn for the worse, be prepared to keep telling your story to bring it back into positive territory.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

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The Monday Morning Media Minute is now available as an eBook.  My new eStore features five eBooks based on the Media Minute.  To check them out, visit my eStore and buy early and often.  The eBooks come as PDF files.  You don’t need special eBook software to read them.

Six words you never want to have to say if you’re in charge of media relations for your company:  “What s/he meant to say was . . .”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs got to use them last week after Vice President Joe Biden said in response to a question about the swine-flu outbreak:  “I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now . . . in a confined aircraft, where one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft.”

What Biden meant to say, according to Gibbs, was that you should limit your travel if you’re feeling sick and have flu-like symptoms.

Biden said exactly what he meant.  He was just off message.  And Gibbs’ explanation was met with laughter from White House reporters.  Biden’s famous for being off message.

If you’ve ever been responsible for media relations, you’ve probably had to deal at least once with an executive or someone else who was off message.  And, like Gibbs, you probably were the one left to clean up the mess.

I’ll leave it to the White House to deal with the vice president.  But here’s my advice if you’re responsible for your company’s media relations:

• Make sure, if you can, that anyone – including your CEO – who talks to the media on behalf of your company gets media training, preferably from someone with experience in both public relations and journalism.  You want a media trainer who will teach your spokespeople how to prepare effectively for interviews and stay on message.

• Don’t damage your reputation and credibility (and your company’s) by providing an unbelievable and/or clearly dishonest explanation of whatever got said in the first place.  This is the most common mistake companies make when it comes to cleaning up the mess created by someone who was off message.  If you need to respond, make sure the response is true and believable.

• If you can, avoid using any executive who is unwilling or unable to stay on message as a spokesperson for your company.  You’ll be doing yourself and your company a favor.  And, if you can, don’t feel compelled to defend comments by someone who, like Joe Biden, is frequently off message.  The quickest way to get someone like that to shut up or stick to your company’s message is to let them be embarrassed by making clear to reporters that they were speaking on their own – not for the company – if they screw up.

• If your company doesn’t already have a policy clearly stating that only officially designated spokespeople can talk to reporters then do everything you can to get such a policy approved by the people who run your company.

• If possible, have someone from your media relations staff sit in on all media interviews.  They can often limit or prevent the damage by bringing an interview that gets off message back on message.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

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The Monday Morning Media Minute is now available as an eBook.  My new eStore features five eBooks based on the Media Minute.  To check them out, visit my eStore and buy early and often.  The eBooks come as PDF files.  You don’t need special eBook software to read them.

Consider the difference in these two statements:

“Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.”

“Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests our next president . . . and Barack Obama is the candidate who has the brains and judgment to meet that test.”

If you were paying attention to the presidential race even a little bit last week, you recognize the first version as coming from Joe Biden.  It was a mistake because it supported one of the key messages of John McCain — that Obama doesn’t have the experience to be President of the United States.

With a very small change in wording, along the lines of the second version, Biden could have stayed on message and out of trouble.

Two points.

Point Number 1: Anyone who talks to or within earshot of reporters regularly should know immediately that Biden’s statement was a problem.  Anyone who doesn’t understand how to avoid this kind of mistake shouldn’t be speaking on behalf of your organization in any setting that could lead to news coverage.  If you have an executive or spokesperson person prone to gaffes like this one, get them media trained.  And make sure they understand the difference between the two statements that appear above:  The first one points to your guy as having a problem and the second points to your guy as the one who can stand up to the inevitable challenges ahead.  There’s a big difference.

Point Number 2: If you have an executive or spokesperson who continues to make gaffes like this one even after being media trained, try to find a way to keep that person from talking to reporters – even if it’s your CEO.  Joe Biden’s a U.S. senator and a candidate for vice president.  He’s going to say things that are quoted by reporters.  But he’s famous for this kind of mistake.  If they could, Obama’s media handlers would never let Biden talk in public without a script.  If your CEO repeatedly makes this kind of mistake and isn’t trainable, you may have to live with it.  But look for strategies to have someone else talk to reporters instead, if you can.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

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The Monday Morning Media Minute is now available as an eBook.  My eStore features five eBooks based on the Media Minute.  To check them out, visit my eStore and buy early and often.  The eBooks come as PDF files.  You don’t need special eBook software to read them.