Monday Morning Media Minute

Some stories just keep on giving if you’re a reporter.  And it’s usually a crisis — a situation where the participants would like to shut down news coverage — that produces the best fodder for ongoing coverage.

The Blagojevich political train wreck is a great example.  In this case there are at least four common mistakes being made by four different participants in this saga.  They are:

• Build a fortress.  Gov. Blagojevich has adopted this strategy.  He’s basically gone into hiding since his arrest and release on bail.  Of all the participants, he’s the one with the biggest problem.  He may also be the only one who’s adopted the right strategy for dealing with the media.  If Blagojevich has any hope of salvaging his political career, the fortress strategy is a disaster.  But if all he’s trying to do is protect his legal position, it’s the only option open to him.  The fortress strategy is often adopted by people/companies who are guilty of major wrongdoing.  It’s also used by people/companies who simply don’t walk to talk about difficult or embarrassing situations.  If you build a fortress, know why you’re doing it.  And understand it comes at a high price to your credibility – regardless of why you’re doing it.

• Overselling your innocence.  Some people/companies have a really hard time admitting mistakes — even when they’ve messed up big time.  Jesse Jackson Jr. appears to be one of those people.  Instead of simply explaining what happened (or didn’t happen) in his role as Candidate Number 5, Jackson’s pressing way too hard to campaign for a job he almost certainly won’t get — and damaging his reputation in the process.  A rule that’s almost always true during a crisis:  Skip the sales pitch.  Just state the truth as clearly as you know how and leave the value judgments to the rest of us.

• Hide ‘n Hope.  Barack Obama has fallen into this trap, at least for now.  By failing to explain quickly and fully just who from his staff talked to Blagojevich and what was said Obama’s kept speculation about potential problems alive in the media.  He’s promising to lay it all out this week.  But, if there’s anything in what he has to say that’s problematic, then taking as long as he has to say it will make it look like he was trying to cover it up.  This is one of the most common mistakes people make when it comes to dealing with a crisis that’s being covered by the media.  Get all the facts out as fast as you can — especially the facts you don’t want to talk about.  Delaying bad news just keeps the story alive and makes the bad news even worse once it comes out.

• Caught with your message down.  Like his boss, Rahm Emanuel has kept quiet on the Blagojevich mess.  No surprise there.  He’s not going to get out ahead of his boss on an issue like this one.  But he seemed genuinely unprepared for a reporter who pressed for a comment at an event at his kids’ school:  “I’m not going to say a word to you.  I’m going to do this with my children.  Don’t do that.  I’m a father.  I have two kids.  I’m not going to do it.”  Given the stance of the Obama camp, Emanuel had no real choice about refusing to answer this reporter’s questions.  But he needed to be prepared and offer his no comment more elegantly than he did.  If you’re not going to answer reporters’ questions, say so.  Give a reason if you can.  But don’t be defensive.  And don’t make excuses.

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

This is the final Monday Morning Media Minute of 2008.  As is my custom, there won’t be an MMMM for the last two weeks of the year.  Merry Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) and Happy New Year.  I’ll check in with you in January.

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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.

I like a good food fight.  So, I’ve been enjoying the potshots the Republicans have been taking at one another since the election.  Actually, it started before the election.

Entertainment aside, the pre- and post-election fighting within the sometimes-competing McCain and Palin campaigns stands in stark contrast to the message discipline shown by the Obama campaign.

Part of the difference can be explained by the difference between a winning team and a losing one.  It’s a lot easier to stay disciplined when you’re winning.  But staying disciplined also helps you win.

I’ll leave it to folks smarter than me to figure out why Obama won and McCain lost.  But a few thoughts about the importance of having a clear message and sticking to it.

Know what you want to say and why you want to say it. You can’t develop effective messages until you know what you want to achieve (your objective) and who your audience is (who you’re trying to influence).  It’s important to take time before you go public to figure these out.  I’m constantly surprised at how often people start talking to reporters and the rest of us before they have a clear message — or even a clear objective.

Once you have your message, stick to it. That sounds easy enough, but it isn’t always as easy as it sounds:

• Some spokespeople have an aversion to repeating themselves.  That’s a mistake.  Most of your audience won’t get your message until they’ve heard it several times.  So repeat yourself.

• Everyone has their favorite way of telling your story.  Even when an organization takes time to develop messages there almost always are at least a few people who think they have a better version.  Maybe they do.  If so, adopt their version.  Otherwise, insist they follow the same script as everyone else.

• People have personal agendas.  Just because someone claims to be speaking on your behalf doesn’t mean they don’t have their own personal agenda.  If they’re putting their personal agenda ahead of yours, they aren’t really loyal followers.  If they’re on your payroll and you have the power to do so either fire them or put them in jobs where they are no longer acting as spokespeople.

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.

Joe the Plumber and Colin the General both made political splashes during the past week.

When all’s said and done, the general’s a better spokesperson for his candidate than the plumber because his message is more consistent with the messages of his candidate.

Just because of who he is, Powell’s endorsement supports Obama on key themes of the campaign — that he’s ready to be commander-in-chief and that he isn’t a terrorist or a pal of terrorists.  Joe the Plumber’s credentials supporting the idea that McCain’s tax plan helps small businesses and Obama’s doesn’t is a little more suspect because Joe the Plumber’s identity is more suspect.

And every reason Powell gave for endorsing Obama reinforced one of Obama’s campaign messages.  Joe the Plumber wasn’t as clearly on message for McCain.

Politics aside, the general and the plumber are good examples of the strengths and weaknesses of third-party advocates.

The benefits of using third-party advocates is well known to PR professionals.  But they can be hard to keep on message — your message, at least — because they have own messages, their own identity and their own strengths and weaknesses.

So, use third-party advocates when you can.  But make sure they’ll support your message, not interfere with it.

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.

Rosanne Gain of Colorado Springs sent me a link to a blog entry last week encouraging speakers not to emulate Barack Obama.  Not because he’s a bad speaker.  But because he’s good enough to get away with things the rest of us shouldn’t do.

“If Barack Obama is indeed elected President, he will turn out to be one of the most articulate Presidents ever,” says Blogger Jon Greer.

But, Greer notes: “Since he’s so articulate, he can get away with things other speakers can’t and shouldn’t try.”

That’s good advice when it comes to working with reporters, too.  Some people are better at pitching stories and doing interviews than others.  If you have a choice, pick the person who will do the best job of telling your story.  Sometimes that’s the CEO or the executive in charge of whatever your story is about.  But not always.

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.

Senator Obama’s a brilliant orator. But he could use some media training.

I’m one of those who think the questions that dominated the first 45 minutes of last week’s debate between Obama and Hillary Clinton were silly and trivial. But, given the tenor of the coverage of the Democratic primary the last few weeks, they shouldn’t have come as any great surprise. And there wasn’t a single question on the list, silly as it was, that he shouldn’t have been able use as a bridge to talk about the things he wanted to talk about.

Obama made the mistake too many articulate professionals and executives make. They assume they can “wing” it when talking to reporters because they’re able to do that so much of the time.

Don’t make the same mistake – or allow anyone who talks to reporters on behalf of your organization to make it.

You can’t wait for reporters to ask the “right” questions to begin delivering your message. If you do, you may never get to your message.

That’s why I encourage everyone who talks to reporters to get media training – and regular refresher courses. Unless you talk to reporters often enough to keep your interviewing skills well honed, being media trained once isn’t enough.

Remember: The reporter’s in charge of the questions that get asked and the story that gets written. You’re in charge of your answers.

Obama was unhappy because he didn’t like the questions that were asked. But he wasn’t in charge of the questions. He was in charge of his answers. And he didn’t do a very good job of taking charge of his answers to deliver his message.

Don’t make the same mistake when you’re talking to reporters. Take the time to figure out what questions you’re likely to be asked, what your message is for the interview and how you’ll deliver it – even if the reporter doesn’t ask the “right” questions.

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.

Some years ago a very successful and seasoned product publicist regaled me one afternoon with stories about some of the biggest successes — and a couple notable disasters — of his long career.

His point: He had made many good products more successful by raising their visibility with the media and the buying public.

But raising the visibility for products that flopped made the failures all the more painful because everyone was watching. There’s nothing worse than falling flat on center stage with a sellout audience.

Hillary Clinton has gotten two lessons along these lines in the past few weeks.

Her 3 a.m. ad was remarkable for breaking through the clutter of the campaign rhetoric. It got noticed in a big way. Even so, I think it probably hurt her at least as much as it helped.

Barack Obama responded quickly with his own version of the ad, which appeared to be as successful as hers. And cartoonists and comedians had a field day with Hillary’s ad – a lot of them recalling the sexual escapades of her husband.

In the end, I’m not sure America’s answer to who we would want to answer that call at 3 a.m. was as heavily weighted in Hillary’s favor as she had hoped.

And her relentless effort to position herself as the candidate with “experience” — the point of the 3 a.m. ad — backfired in a big way more recently when it became clear she’s been lying in describing how she came under fire in Bosnia. Because of network videotape footage showing just how far her version was from what happened, the Bosnia story always had the potential to blow up in Hillary’s face.

But in the wake of the 3 a.m. ad and Hillary’s strong reliance on experience as a key message, the Bosnia story got more visibility than it might have otherwise. And it did more damage.

The moral of the story? We all want to promote our stories. But it’s important to know when you have a story that will help you and when you have one that may do you harm. If the latter is true, you may want to think twice before telling your story. Sometimes silence is a valuable tool for public relations professionals and our clients.

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.

It’s good to have friends who can help tell your story and support your case.

Eliot Spitzer learned that lesson the hard way: He didn’t have any when he needed them.

Would Spitzer have kept his job if he had more political friends? Hard to say. But he would have had a better chance of surviving or, at least, leaving office with more of his dignity intact – and a better chance of making a comeback someday.

The lesson for the rest of us? Make friends, even when you’re in a strong position. If you make friends when you don’t need them, they’re more likely to help you when you do. And failing to make friends because you don’t think you need them means the smallest stumble can be fatal.

One good thing about having friends is that, often, they can tell your story or advocate your case in ways you can’t. But pay attention to what they’re saying on your behalf.

Several of the presidential candidates have learned that lesson during the campaign. Nearly all of them have experienced friends or spouses saying things that hurt or embarrassed them.

Last week’s incident with Geraldine Ferraro saying Barack Obama “would not have made it this far if he was a white man” is particularly intriguing. It’s either a good example of using a third-party to deliver a message you can’t deliver on your own or a case of a friend doing damage by speaking out of turn.

Was Ferraro acting with the approval or even at the suggestion of the Clinton campaign to say out loud what many blue collar white voters in Pennsylvania feel? Was the Clinton campaign using her to play a race card Hillary couldn’t do on her own?

Or did Ferraro step out of line and inadvertently embarrass her candidate? If so, she certainly wasn’t in any hurry to stop the damage. She kept the story alive at least one day longer than it would have lasted on its own by continuing to defend her comment during repeated TV appearances even after Clinton had “repudiated” it and Ferraro had resigned from Clinton’s Finance Committee.

Either Clinton was making use of Ferraro in a very calculated and cynical way to play a race card she couldn’t do on her own or Ferraro was freelancing in a way that was simply out of bounds for a third-party advocate. Either way, what she did is a good example of the power and limits of using third-party advocates. If they stay on message, they can be very useful; if they get off message, they can do a lot of damage.

Make as many friends as you can. Use them, when appropriate, to help tell your story. But pay attention to what they say.

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.

Control your message. Easy to say, but sometimes hard to do.

Barack Obama lost control of his message before Ohio and Texas, and it cost him.

Two prime examples: The Canada-NAFTA miscue and the Hillary is a monster quote.

There’s some evidence the NAFTA issue came from leaks instigated by Obama’s opponents. His big mistake was not responding effectively.

The “monster” quote came from Samantha Power, a senior advisor to Obama who got off message, which damaged Obama’s campaign and forced her to quit her job. It goes to the heart of the point I want to make this week – some fundamentals of maintaining control of your message:

• Know what your message is. You can’t control your message if you don’t know what it is. A surprisingly large number of people talk to reporters with nothing more specific in mind than getting a “positive” story or avoiding a “negative” one. That’s not good enough.

• Make sure everyone who talks to reporters on your behalf also knows what your message is – and that all of them stick to the same message.

• Limit the number of people who talk to reporters, if possible. It will reduce the chances for contradictions that will make you look dishonest or hypocritical.

• Have a coordinator responsible for knowing who is talking to reporters on your behalf and for sitting in on as many interviews as possible. If you don’t have someone within your organization who has participated in every interview a reporter does with people in your organization for a given story, then the reporter knows more about your message than you do. And you won’t have any way to clear up misstatements or contradictions before they end up in a story and do you harm.

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.

Bill and Hillary Clinton appear to have made a major miscalculation last week. They oversold their “feud” with Barack Obama. And they did it in a way that didn’t play well with their audience.

That’s my take on the lopsided results for Saturday’s vote in South Carolina. Will it hurt Hillary’s campaign beyond South Carolina? I have no idea.

Here’s the bottom line for you and me. We all want to sell our stories. But “overselling” them is a mistake that can actually do you harm.

Push too hard on a story that doesn’t interest reporters and they’ll see you as a nuisance. Push too hard on a story that doesn’t interest reporters and that they don’t believe is true and they’ll see you as dishonest. And that means you’ll lose their trust.

The Clintons oversold a story that made them look dishonest. Don’t replicate their mistake.

That’s my two cents’ worth. What’s yours? — Jerry Brown

There’s an old rule in journalism:  Don’t get ahead of the story.

Reporters and pundits covering the New Hampshire primary last week forgot that rule in spades with stories before and during Tuesday’s voting giving Barack Obama a double-digit victory and suggesting Hillary Clinton’s campaign was in trouble – or done.

One problem for the pundits:  The voters didn’t do what they were “supposed” to.

Blame it on the pollsters, if you want.  Many of the pundits who got ahead of the story will do just that.  And the pollsters clearly got it wrong.

But poll results notwithstanding, the journalists got it wrong, too.  They got ahead of the story by assuming the polls were the final word on what would happen.  They weren’t.

You can’t keep reporters from getting ahead of the story when they’re covering you.  But you can avoid getting ahead of the story yourself.  No matter how sure you are of what’s going to happen, making predictions is risky business.  If you get it wrong on a story that’s generating news, reporters will remind you and everyone else of your mistake.

And when reporters get ahead of the story?  They’ll look for someone else to blame.  If they got ahead of the story by following your lead, guess who that’ll be.

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