Monday Morning Media Minute

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.

How does your story benefit me?  That’s always an important question.  It’s especially important if you’re trying to do something controversial.  A lot of things are controversial.

Colorado’s casinos are asking voters to let them raise their stakes to $100 a bet – a big jump from the current maximum of $5.

Colorado agreed nearly 20 years ago to let three old mining towns – Central City, Black Hawk and Cripple Creek – open small-stakes casinos.  Since then, a number of towns have tried to win approval for similar proposals.  They’ve all lost.

So, the casino owners knew they had a losing hand without a good reason for voters to let them raise their stakes.

Their answer?  A ballot proposal, known as Amendment 50, directing that a major portion of the additional taxes they’ll pay on their increased revenue go to the state’s community colleges.  In fact, the campaign for the proposal calls itself Coloradans for Community Colleges.

How effective is their tactic?  We’ll know for sure on November 4.  But I’ve already had two friends who don’t give a rip about gambling urge me to vote for the ballot proposal because it’ll help community colleges – something both of them care a lot about.

Any PR professional worth his or her salt knows about using third-party advocates to help tell your story.  But the backers of Amendment 50 have taken it a step further.  They’ve given people who would otherwise vote against their proposal a reason to vote for it.

The strategy’s a good one.  And one that doesn’t get used often enough.  Do you have a controversial idea you want to sell?  Figure out everyone who can impact the outcome.  Then give as many of them as possible a reason to support you by giving them a stake in you winning approval for your proposal.

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.

What do car leases and winemaking franchises have in common?

They’re featured on the front page of the business section of Sunday’s Denver Post.  And they’re good examples of trend stories — a great way to make news that often gets overlooked by people looking for ways to get attention for their story.

According to the Post, car leases are becoming harder to get and more expensive.  And it says winemaking franchises are a “fast-growing industry trend” that’s started to take hold in Colorado.

An editor once told me his newspaper loves trends and added, only half jokingly, “a trend is anything with at least three plot points.”  My experience is that most news organizations love trends.  They love them even more if you can help them tell their audience how to take advantage of it or avoid being hurt by it.

One nice thing about many trend stories is that you can use data your organization has that no one else can duplicate.

An example I often quote in workshops is State Farm, which gets huge news coverage every year with its list of the 10 most dangerous intersections in the United States.  They”re almost guaranteed coverage in every city with an intersection on the list.  And they localize the story even further by releasing lists of the 10 most dangerous intersections in individual states.  They’re also virtually guaranteed coverage in every city with an intersection on those lists — which translates into stories all over the country.  Information for the releases comes entirely from claims filed by the State Farm clients.

And someone from State Farm often gets quoted giving advice for how to avoid accidents.

What trends are there in your industry that you can turn into a story?

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.

Do you find the presidential polls as interesting as I do?

At the beginning of this year, Hillary Clinton was the odds-on favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination and John McCain was broke, his campaign on life support and most people — including me — thought he was done.

And just a few months ago Barack Obama looked like a shoo-in for the White House.  He may still get there, of course, but he’s not looking like a shoo-in right now.

I’m not going to offer any political predictions.  I’ll leave that to the pundits.

But I think the ever-changing dynamics of the political polls are a reminder of two important lessons for those of us who practice public relations.

Lesson 1:  Telling your story effectively is a marathon, not a sprint.  The news release you issued yesterday was a resounding success with coverage beyond your wildest dreams?  Congratulations.  But your job isn’t done.  Your audience won’t even begin hearing your message until you’ve said it so many times you’re sick of it.  So, if you’ve got a story to tell that you really want the rest of us to hear, you need to keep telling it.  The same is true for your setbacks.  They hurt.  But one setback — or even a series of them — won’t decide the final outcome unless you let it.

Lesson 2:  If you don’t tell your story, no one else will do it for you.  I’m constantly puzzled by how many companies either don’t tell their story at all or water it down to take all the sizzle out of it because they’re afraid “something” will go wrong.  Telling your story effectively will often mean you’ll get pushback from your opposition or your critics.  But they don’t even have to bother pushing back if you’re not pushing forward.  Successful candidates — and other successful communicators — start every day with the goal of controlling the message for that day.  Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don’t.  But you can’t succeed without trying.  And you can’t get anyone to hear your story if you don’t tell it over and over.

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.

By now, most of us know who Michael Phelps is.  But what about Jason Lezak, Peter Vanderkaay and Ryan Lochte?

Among them, Lezak, Vanderkaay and Lochte won five gold and four bronze medals at the Beijing Olympics.  But most of us wouldn’t recognize their names.

Lezak’s come-from-behind anchor leg in the men’s 400-meter freestyle relay “saved” one of the eight gold medals Phelps took home from China.  Lochte won individual gold and bronze medals in races that were just 27 minutes apart.

And who can forget Phelps’ amazing finish in the 100-meter butterfly where he beat out Serbia’s Milorad Cavic by one one-hundredth of a second – less time that it took me to type any single character in this Media Minute.

Cavic appeared to have the race won.  But he eased into the finish while Phelps made one last lunge to win.  Seven golds and one silver, impressive as that would have been, isn’t the same as eight golds.  Cavic will always be known, to the degree he’s known at all, as the swimmer who almost beat Phelps.

What’s my point?

Just over 300 gold medals were awarded during the 16 days of the Beijing Olympics.  Some reporters received that many story pitches over those same 16 days.

Most Olympic athletes go home without a gold medal — or any medal at all.  Most news releases end up in the junk pile of the Recycle Bins of newsroom computers.

Getting your story told is the equivalent of winning a gold medal — or at least a bronze.  Getting it widely noticed takes the equivalent of Michael Phelps’ eight golds.

Phelps won his eight gold medals in part because he’s a phenomenal athlete.  You need a good story to get the media to tell yours.

But Phelps also won at least two of his gold medals — the butterfly race against Cavic and the relay Lezak came from behind to win — because Phelps and his teammates wanted to win just a little bit more than their competitors.  Reporters pass up a lot of good stories for other stories that are just a little bit better — or the person pitching them tried just a little harder.

I see a lot of news releases that someone decided were “good enough” to send to the media.  But good enough isn’t always good enough if you want your story to be heard, understood and remembered.

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

Are you passing up opportunities to tell your story because you’re afraid the positive story you want to tell will turn negative?

Any story, no matter how positive, can go into the ditch. So, it’s important to consider the potential negative consequences before pitching a story to the media. But don’t be so afraid of the negatives that you don’t tell your story — because if you don’t tell your story no one else will.

There are times when the risks of ending up with a negative story are high enough to skip the pitch.  But my experience is that clients often talk themselves out of telling their story because of what I call the what-if-the-sun-rises-in-the-west syndrome.  They talk themselves out of telling their story by “what iffing” it to death.  In fact, sometimes it seems like the more potential a story has for making a big impact the more likely it is that someone will argue against telling it.

And the “negatives” can be self-fulfilling.  We once succeeded after several weeks of hard work in selling a reporter on writing a major story that got excellent placement, with a headline and lead that were perfect.  As I was enjoying the article, my phone rang.  It was our client, upset because there was a minor factual error deep into the story — something that didn’t really matter.  He wanted me to call the reporter and demand a correction.  He was so focused on the factual mistake that he totally lost sight of the fact that the story was a huge plus.  All he could see was the mistake that no one but us would even notice.

With that experience (and others like it) in mind, I’d love to know whether the leaders of China feel good about the news coverage of the current Olympics.  They should.  But I’m willing to bet that somewhere in Beijing at least a few Chinese leaders are fretting about the negative publicity that’s gone along with all the good.  And, if I’m right, they have no idea just how positive the Olympics coverage has been.

Nobody will tell your story if you don’t.  More often than not, you can’t tell it without taking a few hits with it.  The question is:  Do the positives outweigh the negatives.  If so, that’s a win.

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.

John Edwards blew it.  I’m not offering a moral opinion about his affair.  I’ll leave that for others.  But purely as a study in crisis communications, he made some classic mistakes — repeated all too often by people who find themselves in situations they’d rather not own up to.

Mistake 1:  Having the affair. This kind of crisis always begins with someone doing something they shouldn’t have.  Interestingly enough, when things are all said and done, the original mistake often isn’t the thing that does the most long-term damage.  Most of us understand how easy it is to fall short of perfect.  It’s the lies that follow that make it so hard to forgive the original mistake.  Edwards’ unsuccessful attempt to cover up his original mistake has hurt him at least as much as the affair — and the story isn’t over yet.

Mistake 2:  Letting the problem linger. The National Enquirer has been pursuing this story for months and Edwards kept it alive by continually denying the truth of what happened.  To make matters worse, he gave the story new legs when the Enquirer caught him meeting with Reille Hunter a couple weeks ago at a hotel in the middle of the night along with the child the Enquirer claims he fathered.

Edwards finally owned up to the affair on Friday — but only after months of denials and two weeks of silence after being cornered by the Enquirer at the hotel where he met Hunter.  The two weeks of silence in the face of an apparent smoking gun that was well known to the media and others did huge damage to Edwards’ credibility.

Mistake 3:  Leaving loose ends. Edwards took a stab at coming clean on Friday.  But he left at least two big loose ends that promise to keep the story alive awhile longer:

• He offered to take a paternity test to prove Hunter’s child isn’t his, but the test hasn’t taken place and the mother says there won’t be one.  That will keep the story alive awhile longer and, without a paternity test, there will always be lingering doubts.  Out of Edwards’ control?  Perhaps.  But he’s had several months to work on this issue.

• Hunter reportedly has received payments for some period of time, up to $15,000 a month according to one report that claims the payments were hush money to keep her quiet.  Edwards says he didn’t make any payments to Hunter and that any payments that were made were without his knowledge.  If she was paid, who made the payments and why promises to keep the story alive.  If any laws were broken, the story could become decidedly worse.

In summary, Edwards made a classic mistake that made the story more damaging:  He waited too long to own up to the problem.  And he made another classic mistake that could mean there’s more damage to be done:  He left loose ends that will encourage reporters to keep digging.

It’s Crisis Communications 101 — Come clean as quickly as you can and get all bad news out at once; don’t leave anything untold that will keep the story alive for another round of new revelations.

Is there more to be revealed?  Only time will tell.  But Edwards has increased the damage to his career and reputation by flunking Crisis Communications 101.

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.

Last week I listed eight common interview mistakes.  Here are eight things you can do to make your interviews more successful:

1. Have a clear objective: Know what you want to happen as a result of talking to this reporter.  A “positive” story isn’t specific enough.  Why are you talking to this reporter?
2. Have a clear message: Be able to repeat it in 15 seconds or less.  Not because of soundbites (most of them are shorter than that), but because if you can’t say your message in 15 seconds or less you haven’t made it simple enough and clear enough for the rest of us to hear it, understand it and remember it.
3. Talk to your audience: Everybody’s favorite subject is me.  Know what you want to accomplish, but talk about it in terms your audience will care about.  I’m less interested in a story about you than I am in a story that’s useful to me.
4. Be responsive: Answer the reporter’s questions unless there’s a good reason why you can’t — the answer’s confidential or you don’t know the answer, for example.
5. Be honest: Real honesty involves some transparency.  Saying things that are literally true, but misleading, isn’t being honest.  You probably don’t want to share your deepest, darkest secrets with reporters.  But sometimes conceding a small, obvious flaw buys you more credibility for the points you really care about.
6. Be yourself: What you say is important.  How you say it is, too.  You don’t have to be “polished” or a great orator as long as you’re believable and likable.  For most people that means being yourself.
7. Get to the point: Deliver your punch line first, then add the supporting details.  Building to a conclusion usually isn’t a good idea when talking to reporters.  Start with your message and then tell me why.
8. Stick to the point: Be responsive to the reporter’s questions.  But come back to your message every chance you get.

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.

Interviews are the most important tool for telling your story to the media.  And the most dangerous.  For the past few weeks, I’ve been discussing some of the most common mistakes people make during interviews.  Here’s a list summarizing eight of the most common ones:

1. Being unprepared:  Without question, the most common mistake people make when talking to reporters.  Sometimes it’s because they’re overconfident – executives who are good speakers and think they can wing it, for example.  Sometimes it comes from not realizing the importance of being prepared.  And sometimes it happens because the person being interviewed doesn’t know what s/he wants to say.  You should know what your objective is (why you’re talking to the reporter), who your audience is and what your message is before beginning any interview.
2. Overselling the story:  Reporters interview people every day who oversell their stories by being too optimistic and refusing to acknowledge obvious problems.  Think about the people you know who do that when talking to you.  You don’t believe them.  Reporters won’t believe you, either, if you oversell your story.  Do it too often and your credibility will be ruined for good.
3. Saying too much:  If you have more than three messages (including one primary one) for any given interview, you aren’t focused enough.  Throw too many messages at a reporter and the one you care about may not be the one that ends up in the story.  And failing to stick to your message is a formula for saying things you shouldn’t.
4. Saying too little:  There are times when it’s perfectly okay to remain silent when reporters want to talk to you. But when the public health and safety are at stake, you’ll be expected to disclose information and answer reporters’ questions.  The stronger reporters and the public feel that you owe them an answer, the more likely you are to pay a price for remaining silent or limiting what you say.
5. Speaking hypothetically:  Reporters love to ask hypothetical questions to get people to say more than they should.  Any time a reporter asks you a question that includes a variation of “what if,” alarm bells should go off in your head.  Don’t speculate or respond to the hypothetical scenario described by the reporter.  Stick to facts you know.
6. No line in the sand:  If you change your position on a topic or situation to fit what’s convenient on any given day reporters will learn to distrust you.  Be consistent in speaking your truth, even if that feels inconvenient at times.
7. Being combative:  We’ve all seen news stories where the person being interviewed becomes angry and argumentative.  Have you ever seen one where the person being combative won the argument?  Me, neither.
8. Being dishonest:  As obvious as it is, it requires repeating.  You’re entitled to a point of view and to make the case for your point of view.  Most reporters won’t fault you for that.  They will fault you for being dishonest.  Being dishonest includes being misleading by saying something that may be “true” but is designed to mislead.  One lie can destroy your credibility forever.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?  Next week:  More mistakes people make during interviews.

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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.