Monday Morning Media Minute

The answers you get often depend on the questions you ask.  So, if you ask the wrong questions, you’re likely to get the wrong answers.

The current brouhaha over the appointment of a new senator from Illinois to replace that guy with the funny name who quit because he got a better job is a good example.

Gov. Blagojevich’s in-your-face appointment of Roland Burris is hardball politics by someone who appears to be asking:  How do I stay out of prison?  He’s reminding prosecutors and everyone else that he’s still governor.  My guess is he wants something — his freedom — in return for resigning.

There’s been talk in Springfield of speeding up impeachment proceedings against Blagojevich by legislators asking:  How do we get rid of the political awkwardness caused by the Burris appointment?  They’re asking the wrong question.  Blagojevich may deserve to be impeached, but speeding it up to scuttle the Burris appointment is the wrong answer because they asked the wrong question.  The right question is should Blagojevich be removed from office because he’s corrupt, not should he be removed from office quickly because he embarrassed other politicians by making an appointment he’s legally entitled to make.  Moving quickly to impeach Blagojevich for the wrong reason will cause more problems than the one it’s intended to solve.

And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced before the Burris appointment that the Senate would refuse to seat anyone appointed by Blagojevich — something he’s repeated since the appointment was announced.  Experts disagree over whether the law is on the side of Reid and other senators who want to keep Burris out of the Senate.  Regardless of how that issue is resolved, the effort to keep Burris from being seated promises to create a political circus that can only cause further embarrassment for Senate Democrats.

Reid and others like him asked the wrong question:  How can we show our disapproval of Blagojevich?  They should be asking whether Blagojevich got any kind of illegal payoff for naming Burris to the job (no one’s credibly suggested that’s the case) and whether Burris is qualified to be a senator (clearly he is).

The Blagojevich mess will take care of itself over time.  I have my guesses about what will happen.  You probably do, too.  We won’t resolve that here.

So, what’s the point?  People and organizations in the public eye frequently create problems for themselves by asking the wrong question, sometimes in the name of doing the right thing.

Make sure you ask the right questions.  You’ll have a better chance of getting the right answers if you do.

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.

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 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.

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.