Monday Morning Media Minute

President-elect Obama is playing to the middle so far.  And it’s a good lesson for the rest of us.

In almost any situation calling for you to communicate with the public, a certain number of people will support you no matter what, a certain number will oppose you no matter what and the vast majority will be somewhere in the middle.

The folks in the middle are the ones you’re trying to reach because they’re the ones you need to convince.  All too often, people waste way too much time trying to convince the inconvincible or preaching to the already converted.

People who will support you no matter what need to hear from you enough to be able to argue your case for you.  So, don’t ignore them.  But don’t make them the focus of your communication efforts — unless you’re counting on them to be major advocates for your cause.  If you’re counting on strong advocacy from them, then step up the attention you pay to them.

Ignore the inconvincible.  They won’t support you.  So, don’t waste your time trying to change their minds.  One important caveat:  Sometimes opponents look like they’re inconvincible when, in fact, they can be persuaded to move to your side.  How can you tell?  Listen to your opponents.  If they’re asking for something you can agree to, then it’s worth exploring whether accommodating what they want will bring them over to your side.  The inconvincible will always find a new objection if you answer one of their demands.  If that happens, move on.

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 usually easier to come up with the right answers if you know in advance what the questions are.

Most reporters won’t give you a list of questions before an interview.  But you can – and should – come up with your own list as you prepare.

With a little thought, you should be able to figure out most of the questions you’ll be asked most of the time.  Much of the time, you’ll be able to figure out all of the questions you’ll be asked.  And then you can figure out what your answers are before you find yourself face-to-face with the reporter.

Last week, I heard a BBC radio story about “salary transparency” – the idea that all employees should know how much their fellow employees are paid.

There’s an obvious question for every interview on that topic:  How much money do you make?

That question came at the end of the story I heard.  And both of the spokespeople promoting salary transparency refused to say.

After a little hemming and hawing, the first one to respond said he’d have to check to find out what his company’s policy is before he could say.  He clearly hadn’t given any thought to the possibility this question would come up.

His colleague, who had the benefit of hearing his stumble, said other employees within her own company knew the answer but she wasn’t free to tell people outside the company.  Why not?  And I’m not sure I believe her since she wouldn’t give a more transparent response.

With those responses, these two spokespeople negated everything they’d said during the interview about salary transparency.  And it sounded like neither of them had anticipated the question.

That kind of stumble can negate the success of any interview.  Don’t let it happen to you.

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.

I stumbled across this item last week in the Los Angeles Times: “Leaders of the campaign against Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California, raised nearly $40 million and ran a careful, disciplined campaign with messages tested by focus groups and with only a few people authorized to speak to the media. They lost.”

The failure of the “professional” campaign has led more vocal opponents of the gay-marriage to take up the battle on their own with rowdier, noisier and more emotional efforts that include street demonstrations and other tactics reminiscent of the civil rights and antiwar campaigns of the 1960s and1970s.

Whether you think that’s a good idea or not will depend at least in part how you feel about Proposition 8 and other proposals like it.

Regardless of how you feel about this specific issue, it’s a good reminder for PR professionals that doing things by the book isn’t always enough to win – or enough to maintain a united front when you have supporters who feel strongly about your issue.

President-elect Obama will face a similar challenge when he takes office. Some Democrats in Congress already are talking about pushing their own proposals for things like health care without waiting to take their lead from the White House.

It’s a frequent problem for PR professionals. We work in a profession where the shortest distance between two points isn’t always a straight line.

I’m a strong proponent of having a clear message and sticking to it. But it’s important to give your supporters a chance to be involved — even if they aren’t on exactly the same page as you.

If you can’t keep everyone on the same page, control what you can. But be willing to let go of the need to control every message and every action by every supporter. There are many paths to building support for an idea or cause. The important thing is getting the result you want, not controlling the path people use to get there.

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.

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.

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.

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.

With politics and the financial mess getting wall-to-wall coverage, it seems like there isn’t much other news these days.

And that means it’s time to lay low for a while if you have a story that will get drowned out by them.

That doesn’t mean you can’t tell any other story, of course.  But it does mean you may be better off putting some stories on the shelf for a while — until there’s less competition.

The political news will die down after the election.  The financial mess?  That may take a little longer.

In the meantime, you may want to consider holding on to stories that can wait to be pitched.

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.

Remember Sarah Palin?  The one running for vice president.

After delivering an acceptance speech that turned her into something of a political rock star, Palin’s largely disappeared from public and media view.  And the few interviews she’s done have been – to put it kindly – less than rousing successes.

From outside, it looks like the McCain campaign has put their VP candidate under wraps because they’re afraid she’s not ready to handle questions from the media.  Understandable at first since she hasn’t been on the national political stage before.  But at some point it becomes an issue.

I’ll leave it to you to make up your own mind about Palin and whether she should be talking more often to reporters.

But the media fortress that’s been built around her reminds me of a problem I see too often within companies and agencies who see themselves as besieged by a hostile media.  They simply quit talking to reporters except when they feel they have no choice.  And they go into the few interviews they do with a chip on their shoulder, assuming the reporter’s only there to do them harm.

The problem with this kind fortress mentality is that it fosters the kind of negative coverage it’s designed to protect against.

Some reporters do practice gotcha journalism.  Most don’t.  But reporters are human.  And, like all of us, they draw conclusions about the people they come in touch with based on how those people react around them.

Most of us assume that people who are constantly on the defensive have something to hide.  Reporters do, too.  And they’ll reflect that in the stories they write.  Most of us assume that people who defend the indefensible or say things that are misleading or untrue are untrustworthy.  Reporters do, too.  And they’ll reflect that in the stories they write.  And that’s the very behavior that seems to go with a fortress mentality when it comes to dealing with the media.

You don’t have to answer every question a reporter asks – or even agree to every interview.  But if you’re too evasive at some point it becomes an issue.  And if you have a chip on your shoulder every time you do an interview because you assume the reporter’s only out to “get” you, you’re not going to like most of the stories written about you.

Talking to reporters is different than talking to your neighbor.  You need to understand how to tell your story effectively and stay on message.  That’s one reason why good media training is so important.

But if you know the rules of engagement, have a solid story to tell and tell it clearly you’ll do just fine most of the time.  Or at least that’s been my experience.

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.

How important is media training?  How important is your job to you?

Don’t take my word for it.  Ask Carly Fiorina.  She was unceremoniously dumped last week as a spokesperson for John McCain after she told a radio interviewer Sarah Palin isn’t qualified to run a major corporation and later clarified her statement to say McCain isn’t, either.

Apparently realizing her mistake, Fiorina quickly added that Barack Obama and Joe Biden aren’t up to the job, either.  But too late.  The damage was already done.

A few folks suggested Fiorina obviously wasn’t qualified to run a major corporation, either.  She was fired as CEO of HP several years ago before being hired — and subsequently fired — as a spokesperson for McCain.

I committed journalism for 20 years before changing places 25 years ago to spend part of my time answering questions from reporters.  I assume I’m putting my job on the line every time I do.

Screwing up a single interview probably won’t cost you your job — unless you stumble as badly as Fiorina did.  But one bad interview — or even one inadvertent comment overheard by a reporter you didn’t know was around — can hurt your career.

And most of the time it isn’t lying or factual mistakes that get people into trouble.  The damage comes from getting off message.  More often than not people get into trouble for saying something that’s “true” but embarrassing.

Does that mean you should lie to reporters?  No.  But it’s important to stay on message.  And it’s important to recognize when a reporter has asked you a no-win question and to know how to respond without falling into the trap of saying something you shouldn’t.

Good media training — and regular refreshers — will help you keep on message.  How important is that?  How important is your job to you?

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.