Go figure
Eric Dixon

Go Figure: The Art of Not Revealing a Number When You Don’t Want To

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Here’s a little secret.

There’s a technique that journalists sometimes use called ‘kite-flying’.

It’s a method of extracting a number out of an interviewee who is reluctant to reveal it.

Go figure

In journalism, kite-flying is suggesting a fact or story to provoke a reaction. Image from Unsplash

Here’s how it works:

After asking the initial question ‘how much?’ and being told by the interviewee that it’s not something they wish to reveal, the journalist then offers a wildly inflated version of what they think the number might be, which prompts the interviewee to respond with words akin to ‘no, no, not that much!’ The journalist then immediately comes back with a lower figure which is likely to be closer to the one they are trying to extract. Having already engaged in discussion about the number, it’s now much harder for the interviewee to say that they can’t reveal it, and they often reply with something like ‘yes – that’s more like it’ or ‘yes, that’s closer to the truth.’

Voila! From the journalist’s perspective, a reluctant interviewee has been tempted to reveal a number (or a ballpark figure, at least) that they were originally trying to withhold.

The bad news: this technique is so powerful it almost always works.

The good news: now you know the secret, it doesn’t have to work with you!

The method to avoid falling into this trap was exhibited by an interviewee in a Louis Theroux documentary ‘Shooting Joe Exotic’ on BBC2 last week. One of his guests was lawyer Francisco Hernandez, lead counsel for the legal team behind Joe Exotic, the subject of the American true crime series ‘Tiger King’, who is now behind bars (if you need a briefing on the content of the programme, Wikipedia does a good job of summarising it here).

Go figure

Louis Theroux

In a space of just 20 seconds, Theroux asks Hernandez three times for the amount Joe Exotic is making from the proceeds of ‘Tiger King’, despite being a convicted criminal:

Link to BBC iPlayer: Louis Theroux – Shooting Joe Exotic 

(from 1:07:04 to 1:07:24)

His first question goes as follows:

LT: Do you know how much Joe is making on all of this?

FH: Er… I have an idea; I’m not at liberty to disclose it.

An excellent response. He’s telling the truth about what he knows, but also states he’s not going to reveal it. (Note: for Hernandez to claim he “didn’t know” in order to close the question down would be lying – something we never recommend and could have got him into even deeper water!)

Nevertheless, this is immediately followed by Louis’ second question, designed to pin his interviewee down to a ballpark amount:

LT: Six figures? Seven figures?

FH: I can’t, I can’t, I can’t disclose anything related to that.

It would be tempting for his guest to ‘give’ a little by acknowledging one of those two options (namely “six” or “seven” figures) or perhaps to come up with a ballpark of his own (e.g. “well – five figures, maybe”). But this would have been a ‘win’ for Theroux, who would have immediately started drilling down further. Instead, Hernandez resolutely states not only that he “won’t” reveal the number, but for an undisclosed reason he “can’t” (which suggests that even if he wanted to, such a response would not be possible).

Finally, Louis makes one more attempt, with a classic ‘kite-flying’ question:

LT: In theory it could be more than a million?

FH: I, I, I, I, can’t even… I can’t comment… I can’t comment even higher or lower, or even warm… I cannot.

Again, it would have been tempting for Hernandez to agree to the “in theory” part of the question. But to do so would have signalled to Theroux that he was willing to discuss the amount after all, which would have allowed him to push for an answer again. Instead, when Hernandez states explicitly that he is not going to reveal whether the suggestion is even close to the true answer, Theroux is forced to give up on this line of approach.

Ultimately, however tempting it is to do so, don’t even engage in a discussion about the number you are determined to withhold, and simply state that it’s not something you can reveal. If you have a genuine explanation for why you can’t reveal it (e.g. ‘for reasons of commercial confidentiality…’), even better.

In short, the journalist may choose to fly a kite; you don’t have to join them.

Avoiding journalist tricks and traps is just one part of our regular media training sessions.

So, if you’d like to stay safe during your next interaction with the media, we can help.

media trainer's notes feature
Lindsay Williams

Media Trainer’s Notes

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Rather than focus on one story this week, here is a brief comment on several: the PMs statement on the Sue Gray report, the Temporary Targeted Energy Profits Levy, Jacinda Ardern’s Harvard speech and Woke Capitalism.

Tone Matters in a Public Apology

If you are going to apologise and ‘take full responsibility’ our advice would be that the audience, whoever that is, need to believe you are sincere, otherwise you will do more harm than good. Teenage children are good at apologising without meaning it, it’s not quite what most people expect from a Prime Minister in the House of Commons.

In my view, Boris got it entirely wrong. The words were there but the tone was wrong and the further minimising of his own role simply sounded petulant.

Reengineering Popular Language Makes You Look a Fool

media trainer's notes

How did you feel when you heard Rishi Sunak had stood up in the commons and announced a ‘Temporary Targeted Energy Profits Levy’, carefully avoiding the words ‘windfall tax’? I am prepared to bet that you, like many MPs who heard him say it, laughed out loud. This small incident demonstrates two media training principles: one if you use more complex words to say something that is simple you look foolish. Second, when this is reported or spoken about afterwards, people will quickly revert to the more easily understood, friendlier or in some cases fun phrases. All media reported this as a ‘windfall tax’.

Women Speakers Study Jacinda

Last week, New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, gave the Class of 2022 Commencement Speech at Harvard University. Ardern is always impressive on the world stage, and this was a gem of a speech that hit all the right notes.  Most of the coverage focussed on her reminder that NZ had banned military-style semi-automatic and assault rifles after the Christchurch shooting, something that got a standing ovation coming so soon after last week’s Texas school shooting.  But there are many well-crafted elements.  From starting it speaking in the Māori tongue to a careful joke about NZ being so small, she always knows half her audience, to some big sweeping global themes. All delivered in a strong, confident but humble style, with lots of use of metaphor. There are really a dozen lessons that could be drawn from this speech.

Are you prepared for the Woke Capitalism question?

And finally, a significant new trend is emerging: a backlash against ‘purpose-led business’. And it now has a catchy name: Woke Capitalism. A combination of the Stuart Kirk story and the global leader’s jamboree that is Davos, prompted an important analysis by the FT’s US Business Editor Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, entitled The War on Woke Capitalism (paywall alert.)

Edgecliff-Johnson said the talk of Davos was push-back against ‘purpose led’ organisations and a business led role in solving social and environmental ills, whilst travelling by private jet.

A lot of the chat was prompted by the outspokenness of the Head of Responsible Investment at HSBC’s Global Asset Management, Stuart Kirk. He had previously delivered a no holds barred but pre-approved presentation, suggesting that concern over climate risk had gone too far.

Kirk chose to be highly quotable. For example, saying that throughout his career there had always been “some nut job telling me about the end of the world” and  “Who cares if Miami is 6 meters underwater in 100 years”.

HSBC swiftly and very publicly distanced themselves from Kirk’s comments, and suspended him.

But Stuart Kirk is just the latest in a long list of people from Elon Musk to Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who are now looking to turn the tide on ESG. And according to Edgecliffe-Johnson, this movement was the talk of Davos.

I would suggest every business spokesperson now prepares their answers to the question ‘Isn’t this just Woke Capitalism?’. It is going to be one of the most popular questions asked by journalists of businesspeople in the months and years ahead.

 

Lindsay Williams

The Power of the Specific

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“On the evening of Feb 21, 2022, three days before Russian forces began the largest land invasion on the European Continent since World War II, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave an angry televised speech.”

The Power of the Specific

So starts an eight-page essay in Foreign Affairs, a specialist American journal of international relations and US foreign policy. The essay is titled: Putin’s War on History:  The Thousand Year Struggle over Ukraine. (Sorry, behind a paywall.) The writer, Anna Reid, is a seasoned journalist and author and she chooses to start her long academic piece, with something very specific the date and time of an angry speech, helping her readers to tune into her main thesis.

It is a well-known way to start a feature or a think-piece and it works brilliantly. As a reader it is easier to connect initially with a specific, rather than to a large conceptual big picture, which in this case covers a thousand year history of relationships between peoples we now call Ukrainian and Russian.

From the same edition of the same journal, there is a piece about military innovation and AI.  (Also behind a paywall.) It starts:

‘Gunpowder. The combustion engine. The airplane. These are just some of the technologies that have forever changed the face of warfare.’

Different essay, and a different style of specific, but still specific. The piece starts with three specific examples of ‘technologies’ without claiming them as an exhaustive list. As the reader, I immediately understand that we are talking about a step change in military advance.

And here is a completely different example.

On BBC Radio Four’s Today on Monday morning, Anneka Rice was interviewed about Channel Five’s revival of the TV show ‘Challenge Anneka’. (Rice’s interview Starts at 8.21am on the recording, while the BBC Sounds Version remains available.) As a professional communicator, Anneka was quick to shoehorn into her interview the example of a Romanian Orphanage she and her team helped 30 years ago, and updated that story for today. She later referenced a very specific Zoom call during lockdown, when she couldn’t make the technology work, but which led ultimately to the decision to revive ‘Challenge Anneka’. She did these things because – as a professional communicator – she understands the power of the specific to entertain and to make something memorable.

The Power of the Specific

Anneka Rice

Song writers use this trick too: Ed Sheeran sings in Shape of You, ‘Put Van the Man on the jukebox’ … a very specific reference to Van Morrison. And for those of us of a certain age Bobby Goldsboro creates a whole teenage summer vibe with the words

“It was a hot afternoon, on the last day of June and the sun was a demon….”

[ This rite of passage song was a hit in 1973 but there are millions of us for whom ‘the last day of June’ will for ever be associated with the song ‘Summer the First Time’.]

Imagine you are a ‘transformation consultant’: Obviously most of us in business know that you are helping companies to modernise in some way. But in a competitive market, what makes the listener or reader think: this woman knows what she is talking about. We all have clients we remember, transformations that made our reputation, special moments that made us proud.

Capture it! Bottle it! Codify that story! Record the details. Where were you when you received the news, what day was it, what was the weather like? These details provide context that creates mood, authenticity and above all ‘stickiness’.

My experience of businesspeople (outside of advertising), is that they really struggle to find the specific. I don’t fully understand why. What I do know is, that it is much easier to connect to a big idea, to a product or a purpose, once we get one, two or three specific details or illustrations.

Using the specific in any business communication; presentations, media interviews, town-halls, etc. is such a simple trick. And yet most people don’t do it.

So my challenge to you this week: get specific to power up your business communications.

hypothetical questions feature
Eric Dixon

Handling Hypotheticals

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Hypothetical questions seem to be loved by media interviewers almost as much as they are hated by media interviewees.

This is because the “What would happen if?” or “What would you do if?”’ scenarios that they involve are never positive ones for the guest concerned. For example, you can’t imagine a politician being offered the question “What would happen if your party/cause/campaign became immensely popular and received more support than any other?”

The problem for the interviewee is that simply entertaining the idea of the negative outcome taking place – regardless of the fact it might never happen – heightens the awareness that it could occur and immediately drags the interview down what is, for them, a less helpful line of approach.

hypothetical questions

This is precisely what happened during a good-natured spat between LBC presenter Andrew Marr and Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry last week. It followed the announcement from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer that both he and his deputy Angela Rayner would resign, should they be fined by police after being investigated for rule-breaking during the pandemic:

AM: That would leave your party suddenly leaderless. What arrangements do you have in your party to ensure that somebody takes over?

ET: Well – look. [PAUSE] He’s not going to resign because he hasn’t done anything wrong. And Angela won’t resign because she hasn’t done anything wrong.

Notice how Thornberry refuses to indulge Marr in his hypothesis and states her belief that the problem he puts forward is not going to happen anyway. However, her job is made more difficult because the hypothetical scenario involved was actually brought about by her party leader – as Marr immediately points out:

AM: Well, he… he raised the possibility himself this afternoon – all I’m asking you is, if that happens – you can’t have a leaderless opposition presumably – does the NEC step in and appoint somebody, what happens?

This puts Thornberry in a tricky situation. Her interviewer, is, after all, only legitimately asking questions about something her party leader has brought up. Nevertheless, her dislike of the hypothetical question is so great, she responds by spending most of the time stating what is currently happening (rather than trying to forecast the future) and then repeating her view that it’s unlikely to happen. Notice the length of her answer (a full 24 seconds) as well as how hesitant it is, for someone who is usually a very fluent interviewee:

ET: [PAUSE] At the moment, all we are doing, is we are holding this government to account. We are preparing for the Queen’s speech which is happening tomorrow. And – er – and preparing for the… for our opposition and our holding the government to account when it comes to the next term, and the – er – legislative programme that the government is going to be putting forward. Er – we will wait and see what happens next, but I am confident that he will not be fined because he has done nothing wrong.

But Marr is not going to give up that easily:

AM: Well I’m… I’m still sticking with the possibility that he raised himself – I didn’t raise it, he raised it – um… this afternoon. And if that happens, and you are left leaderless, can you at least reassure people that we won’t have months and months and months of a… a Labour Party leadership campaign going on?

In these circumstances, Thornberry clearly feels that refusing to get involved for a third time isn’t really an option – so she gives a short, curt, factual reply, which at six seconds in duration is a quarter the length of her previous response:

ET: It would be a matter for the National Executive Committee to decide what to do next; how long any leadership campaign would be.

Marr, having finally got her onto his line of thinking, then piles a second hypothetical question onto the first…

AM: Um – and would you be confident you’d get a leader by the time of the party conference in October?

… which prompts his interviewee to explain why hypothetical questions are so reviled:

ET: [PAUSE] You see! I answer one hypothetical and then another hypothetical comes. This is the reason why politicians don’t answer hypothetical questions at all. And we do it as politely as we can!

AM: It’s not an unreasonable question…

ET: No, but the trouble is, you can’t build a hypothetical on top of another hypothetical on top of another hypothetical. You just can’t!

AM: I’ve… I’ve had a very long career doing exactly that!

ET: And I’ve had long career not answering such questions! [LAUGHS]

AM: [LAUGHS] You certainly have! Emily Thornberry, thank you very much for coming in and not answering that question!

In usual circumstances, we would normally suggest that hypothetical questions are revealed as such (“I don’t have a crystal ball…” or “I can’t possibly predict what might happen in the future…” or “We’ll have to see what plays out…”) followed by a ‘bridging’ expression which allows you to talk about something else instead (“…but what I can tell you is…”).

However, such a response wasn’t possible in the interaction above precisely because the imagined scenario being debated was brought up by her own side; refusing to talk about a hypothesis your own team have created is impossible to do convincingly. Labour’s spin machine would have realised this, of course, but would have felt that for Sir Keir to have taken the high moral ground on this issue was worth the consequences that might follow.

What’s more, the good nature of the interaction worked well for both interviewer and interviewee. So, on such occasions, it’s often worth keeping the tone of the conversation light, if possible.

Not a Good Look for Someone Who Wants to be PM
Lindsay Williams

Not a Good Look for Someone Who Wants to be PM

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Paul Brand pointed out on Twitter last week what was obvious to any viewer. The leader of the opposition looked very uncomfortable in his set-piece interview on Good Morning Britain.  You might even say scared.

Not a Good Look for Someone Who Wants to be PM

It is not a good look for someone who wants to be Prime Minister.

He, of course, has a right to be on his guard: Beergate revelations were getting a lot of traction, and a week after this interview led to his promise to resign if found guilty of an offence.

On this occasion he was being interviewed by the GMB duo of Richard Madeley and Susanna Reid. Reid positions herself as a tough aggressive journalist and she has clearly put a lot of thought into how to be an intimidating interviewer. The BBC no longer allows disrespectful aggression and will publicly and privately criticise presenters who step over the line as Nick Robinson did with the Prime Minister last year, but other broadcasters still encourage some interviewers to make this style part of the brand.

Others on Twitter were irritated by such superficial analysis of Sir Keir Starmer’s performance.

Not a Good Look for Someone Who Wants to be PM

At The Media Coach, we do think body language matters and on TV it can – as it does here – undermine the message.

If you listen to Starmer in this interview without watching the footage, what he says is strong, clear and credible. He doesn’t sound as if he is struggling to cope with the aggression or the questions.

But if you watch you have a totally different impression.

What is strange is that Starmer has not already been coached out of looking rattled. Given his job and his ambition you would think some work would have gone into this.

As someone who coaches people to look comfortable on TV (among many other things) I would say it is not particularly difficult to tackle and simple coaching techniques are pretty consistently effective.

How you behave on camera when being ‘grilled’ by a journalist is no different to any other unconscious behaviour.  You cannot change it until it becomes conscious. And then you need a feedback loop so you can constantly ‘improve’ and get to where you want to be.

In training we use the video camera, record an interview, play it back and identify the unwanted behaviour, then suggest alternatives. Trying these different things out on camera then watching it back can fairly quickly produce behaviour change. Clearly, this has to be ‘topped up’ at regular intervals but if you are always appearing on the media that is not a problem. You can ensure each event is recorded and watch some of them back.

Media interviews (and presentations) are a performance. As soon as you realise this you can apply a whole range of tools and techniques honed by actors and broadcasters. Slow down. Speed up.  Drop your shoulders.  Breath differently.  Pretend you like the person interviewing you, etc.

My colleague, Eric Dixon, says your audience needs to ‘Believe, Like and Trust’ you – giving the acronym BLT,  just like the sandwich. I look for ‘Warmth, Authority and Animation’ which is a less elegant acronym but works better for me in training.

I know of a number of politicians and others who fought against media training (Jeremy Corbyn was one apparently) and who rather too late in the day embraced it out of necessity. London is full of great media trainers, someone should persuade Starmer to invest. If it’s not too late.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

aggressive interviews feature
Lindsay Williams

Ten Tips for Surviving Aggressive Interviews

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The tricks journalists use in an aggressive interview are small in number and well known; and in reality, really aggressive interviews are rare. But if you think your spokesperson, or you, could be facing aggression, here is a checklist of things to do or think about.

aggressive interviews

1. Rehearse your messages 
As with all interviews, there is a need for rehearsed, thought through messages. Always ensure there is something credible to say.

2. Identify the tough questions
Once you have your messages, work out what the tough questions are likely to be. Politicians and even senior bosses are in a much more difficult position than most, because they can often be legitimately asked about a very wide range of subjects. For others, the scope is more limited and anything outside the scope can be ‘closed down’ by simply explaining you are not the right person to answer the question.

3. Work out the answers!
Now you have worked out the tough questions, work out the answers but keep them as short as possible. These are called ‘reactive lines’ and are different to your messages. You don’t offer a reactive line unless asked the question.

4. Don’t lie
The hardest ‘reactive lines’ are the ones where you can’t tell the truth and you can’t lie. In my experience, there is always a way but it can take a few minutes to work it out. However tempting it is, never ever lie. If you lie and are caught out which in these days is highly likely, you will lose credibility for ever.

Aggressive questions

Jeremy Paxman, former BBC Newsnight presenter perfected the ‘rabbit punch’ question.

5. Beware the rabbit-punch
Beware the ‘rabbit punch’ question: a tough destabilising first question, often unexpectedly personal. It’s a technique that was often used by the now-retired UK journalist, Jeremy Paxman. A couple of his classics: to politician and former cabinet minister Ann Widdecombe ‘Were you a little in love with Michael Howard?’ To the Iranian ambassador ‘Sir, your country is lying to us isn’t it’. To deal with this you need to respond briefly and if appropriate with wit and then move on to saying something credible and relevant.

6. Slow down
If the questions get tough, slow down your answers, it will give you more thinking time.

7. Avoid jargon 
Do not start using jargon and technical language; you will immediately lose the sympathy of the audience, and provoke the journalist to be more aggressive.

8. Be reasonable
Stay reasonable, even if the journalist isn’t, and be humble.

9. Say sorry 
If you have made a mistake admit it and say sorry. If lawyers tell you, you cannot say sorry you will have to say you ‘understand’ concerns.

10. Don’t get personal
Don’t fight with the journalist. It’s better not to say ‘you’ at all. What I mean by this is don’t say, ‘you are wrong’, ‘I don’t know where you got that number from’, ‘you guys are all the same’, etc. If you make it personal the journalist is likely to increase their aggression. Your job is to stay reasonable and professional. In a Sky News interview from 2015, Kay Burley did her worst with the head of Merlin Entertainment, owner of the Alton Towers Theme Park, just after an accident on a ride called the Smiler. Five people were  seriously injured in the incident and Burley ridiculously aggressive and unpleasant. Nick Varney, managed to survive a long aggressive interview, without ever losing his cool.

This blog was first published in July 2015.

rehearse aloud
Lindsay Williams

The One Simple Thing Most Presenters Don’t Do and Why You Should

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There is a simple, time efficient practise that will massively help you sound more professional, get your ideas across more efficiently, give better presentations or be more confident in that media interview: and yet most people simply will not do it.

What is it? Rehearse aloud.

rehearse aloud

I recently came across the golden nugget “Practise Analytically, Perform Intuitively” in an essay by David Perell on golf and writing.

In golf this can be explained simply. Practise analytically can mean videoing your swing, being critical, study what you are actually doing when you strike the ball. Perform intuitively: means once you are actually playing, just do it.

“Practise Analytically, Perform Intuitively” can be applied to many things, including communication skills. Spend time planning, analysing, tweaking, editing and above all rehearsing before you actually do something. Then when you get to the moment of delivery, you just do it. Clear your mind and let it flow.

Rehearse during not after the preparation

Rehearsal, in my view, is part of the work you do before your creative process has finished. My advice: rehearse aloud, before you are ready. I read somewhere, rehearse aloud once you have done about 40% of the work on your speech, your presentation or your message prep.

Speaking aloud during the writing will make the whole thing better, as well as prime you for your eventual performance.

And to supercharge your productivity and effectiveness, record your rehearsal (audio or video) and listen or watch it back.

rehearse aloud

Why do most people not do this? I think it is because it takes self-discipline and because you have to confront the problem that initially you are not that good! And that is painful. But there is likely to be some really interesting psychology going on behind the extremely widespread reluctance to rehearse. As a communications coach, I come across it every day.

[I would love to hear from anyone who has research or science behind the reluctance to rehearse aloud. I am looking for ways to help my clients overcome this hurdle faster and with less discomfort. There is also an army of PR people who would love to know how to manage the dozens of justifications and excuses that spokespeople use to avoid rehearsing.]

In summary, why you should rehearse aloud:

  • You will develop ‘tongue memory’, reducing the stress of performance and the likelihood of blanking.
  • You will improve your final performance 5-10% every time you actually rehearse aloud.
  • Recording and listening back may initially be painful but it is super useful: you won’t realise how fast you speak, how flat your delivery is or how boring your content is until you listen back.
  • If you are reading a script, rehearsal will help you ensure you are using ‘standard intonation’ i.e. putting all the stresses on the right words. You would be amazed how many people stress the wrong words during a performance and have no idea.
  • Preparation and rehearsal will allow you to find your flow. You may even enjoy it.

In summary, when you should rehearse aloud:

  • For your presentations. Chunk it, do a section at a time. Refine as you go.
    • Do a full run-through, record it and time it. Listen back, make a few notes.
  • For your media interviews. Rehearse your argument or your messages aloud.
    • Chunk it: rehearse one message at a time. Practise moving from questions to relevant messages.
  • For your job interviews. Practise articulating and evidencing what you are selling.
    • Ask yourself, do you sound competent? Do you sound boastful? Do you sound like a leader (if the job requires this), do you sound like someone nice to work with?
  • For any Town Halls. Chunk it. Record it. Time it.
    • Ask yourself what the audience will think, feel and do as a result of your address.
  • For any Speeches. Rehearse aloud in full performance mode.
    • Time it. Listen back. Ask is it clear? Is the tone right? Is it entertaining?

If you can’t find the self-discipline and the diary space to prepare and rehearse aloud, you should know that it is one of the services we provide either online or face to face. Choose either Presentation Training, Media Training or Personal Impact Training.

Images:
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Why are journalists so rude to PR people? Feature
Lindsay Williams

Why are journalists so rude to PR people?

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This weekend I read this on LinkedIn.

“Working in PR is tough. I’ve received hefty abuse from some journalists, including death threats. I took a PR role because I struggled financially as a freelance journalist. …I always see tweets criticising PRs. Granted, there are some rogue PRs out there. But I think some people forget we’re only trying to do a job – ultimately to pay the bills and put food on the table. Let’s be kinder to each other.”

I don’t know the writer, and his industry and role were not clear.  The reference to death threats was unexplained and is thankfully rare, at least in the UK.  However, some journalists do behave quite badly.

And I know there are PR professionals all over the country who are scared to answer the phone to journalists!

Why are journalists so rude to PR people?

That may be hard to imagine but it’s true. The Media Coach has, on several occasions, been asked to work with such teams and explain how journalists think and why they can be so challenging.

I can only imagine that as a new graduate, in your first PR job, keen to get it right, with no experience of the rough and tumble of a newsroom, it must be highly disconcerting to have journalists speak to you with disrespect or even rudeness.

So, to all newbie PRs, this is my guide to how journalists think, and how to deal with them.

Professional Juxtaposition

First, let’s remember the context: given the two professional roles, it would be impossible to avoid tension. Journalists both need PR people but sometimes, despise them. And vice versa.

Journalists want seemingly simple information and access to senior people, the right people on the right day, for a story. Journalists believe their job is to find the facts, hold people to account, to shine the harsh light of truth into the murky corners of spin. And to do all that today.

PRs are sensible gate-keepers and often refuse to provide information or deny access, judging the information is not so simple and any interview comes with some risks, and might not be in the best interests of an organisation. And besides, they can’t get access to the right senior leader until next week. In this case, the PR has the power, and they use it to thwart the journalists.

And then a week, a month, or a year later the boot is on the other foot.

PRs are tasked with winning coverage for a positive story. Suddenly, they become salespeople.

Most journalists, who are busy professionals like everyone else, are fighting off press releases, emails, phone calls, or Twitter DMs, from PRs. The PRs are often peddling a half-baked story to the wrong person at the wrong time.
In this case, the journalists have the power.

So, we have two groups of people that need each other in different ways at different times and both have to be firm, steadfast and sometimes robust in holding the other at bay.

Of course, there are some occasions when PRs and journalists want the same thing, but this happy overlap of the Venn diagram of life is rather a thin slice.

Why are journalists so rude to PR people?

Culture Clash

Mostly, we have two types of professionals tasked with ‘managing’ each other.  Each living in a very different professional culture. PRs are typically in large organisations with lots of rules and clear hierarchies, not a lot of shouting.

Journalists work in newsrooms which can be very intense places to work. Here are some of the reasons why.

  • Tight deadlines. Most journalists’ deadlines are a few hours in the future, sometimes in broadcast it is minutes or seconds away, and the pressure can be intense. Journalists who miss deadlines do not stay in work for long. This makes for short conversations and abrupt responses.
  • Journalism is highly competitive. It’s not just one team against another team. As a journalist, you are competing with your colleagues for the best stories, top billing, the front page.
  • Journalists need to think differently. The job is to cut through the misleading spin of political and corporate life. Their holy mission is to think ‘if this is costing £3m, who is paying?’ ‘If 85% are successful what is happening to the other 15% and how many people is that?’ This can mean if you walk in and say ‘Good Morning’ you might find someone disagreeing with you!
  • Related to the point above, as a journalist, you must not be taken in by charm, or money, or power. Your job is not to be influenced by these things.
  • Journalists are lied to. If you are a journalist, people lie to you all the time. Clearly, you end up assuming people are probably lying, even when they are not.
  • You have to hustle: to get to the bottom of stuff, to get interviewees on camera, to find the person who knows, you have to hustle. Newsnight would never get on air and The Times would never get published if the journalists did not hustle. Journalists push people when others would give up.
  • And finally, as a journalist you are rewarded for getting the story, writing the scoop, getting the interview. No one, but no one cares (in your newsroom) that you upset the PR woman or were rude to the receptionist, in order to get what the story needed.

To take an extreme example of this, the BBC’s World Affairs Editor, John Simpson and his cameraman upset almost the entire Muslim world by posing as women – disguised in burqas – while being smuggled into Afghanistan in 2001. In his book ‘News from No Man’s Land’ Simpson talks about discussing the plan and weighing the future cost of such upset. He was totally aware that there would be a huge outcry, but he decided to do it anyway, to get the story. Simpson narrowly escaped having a worldwide ‘fatwa’ issued against him.

I realised a long time ago that journalists are good company, their take on life is refreshing but the profession rewards bad behavior. Of course, not all journalists succumb to rudeness, disrespect or aggression. Some remain courteous and reasonable whatever the pressure, whatever the story. But perhaps not so many.

And it should be noted that there are many PR-journalist relationships that are cordial, even friendly. The two parties have mutual respect, perhaps have some good history together or just hit it off. An experienced PR person will have built trust along with their media list, they will have dropped an exclusive, or bought lunch, maybe even given some useful background in the past. Maybe they’ve just been straight. These relationships don’t need a blog.

How to Deal with Journalists

This is written for those who find it challenging to handle the Fourth Estate. So, assuming you are a polite, diligent PR person how should you deal with journalists?

  • First understand, if they do sound a bit aggressive, it is not personal.
  • Second, accept that journalists live by rather different rules than you do. You don’t have to approve, but just as you would accept a tantrum from a child, or swearing from a drunk, understand journalists tend to be very direct, very RED if you are familiar with the Insights Discovery psychometric testing tool.

 

Why are journalists so rude to PR people?

  • Third, you are more likely to get the respect of journalists if you are direct. You don’t need to be aggressive (even if they are). Just be happy to say ‘Sorry I am not able to answer that question.’ ‘We are not putting anyone up for interview’, etc. Directness shows strength and builds trust. [Just remember not to be quotable as you do this. If you say ‘wild horses would not drag Mr X to a media interview in the middle of all this’ – you may find the quote all over Twitter and on the front page!]
  • Don’t waste journalists’ time. Make sure you have your story straight before you pitch. Pitch in a very few words and explain what you are offering them i.e. data, an interview, a quote. Don’t worry about being nice. Worry about being clear and succinct.
  • Call or email back when you said you would.
  • Don’t ring just before a deadline.
  • Finally, always think about helping a journalist add value to their viewers and readers. Journalists will always respond to a good story. They would never – in my experience – say I am not running or writing that story because I don’t like the PR.

For journalists, it is always all about the story.

Final Irony

And as a footnote, there is a final irony to all this. Many of those grumpy self-obsessed journalists may one day decide to become – guess what – a PR person! What is more many will try and fail because it is a very different job. I will leave the last thought with Neil Henderson, once a television journalist and now a senior PR. He responded, on LinkedIn, to this post’s opening quote:

‘I could paper the walls of my entire house and my neighbours with CVs from journalists who want to work in PR. Some of them were truly awful to me or my colleagues. When I first moved into PR/Communications from national television news in the mid 2000s I quickly realised that a lot of the PR people much derided by journalists, are more intelligent and better writers.’

 

Images:

iStock
Insight Discovery

 

 

 

Shape of Sheeran
Eric Dixon

The Shape of Sheeran

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As a multi award-winning musician, songwriter and lyricist, you’d expect Ed Sheeran to be able to turn a decent phrase.

And with years of performing experience behind him, you’d also expect him to connect successfully with his audience.

Last week he combined several of these skills when he appeared in his own video, following his success in a court case after he was accused of plagiarism.

The High Court judge ruled that an element of his 2017 hit ‘Shape of You’ was not copied, “neither deliberately nor subconsciously”, from the Sami Chokri (stage name Sami Switch) song ‘Oh Why’, released two years earlier.

You can listen to a comparison of the two clips for yourself here:

Whilst Ed’s words were spoken a little too quickly for our liking – and consequently he lost some of the natural stress and emphasis of normal conversation – here’s what we liked about it:

Short duration

Even if what lasted 1’04” should ideally probably have taken around 1’15” to say, he’s packing a lot of material into a minute and a bit. No one is going to resent spending that amount of time hearing his response to the ruling. The single ‘Shape of You’ lasts over three times longer than this; it was short, punchy and to the point.

Good eyeline

OK – it looks like he’s reading an autocue (probably why he’s speaking so quickly) and so has to look at the camera. But, crucially, this means he maintains eye contact with his audience throughout, and that creates connection and adds credibility.

Natural gestures

Occasional, simple hand gestures are used throughout, helping to emphasise what he is saying, and making him appear more natural and relaxed.

Conversational language

Despite the seriousness of what he’s just been through, no long words are used when they’re not necessary. Instead, the approach is direct and chatty: “Hey guys… I wanted to make a small video to talk about it a bit… claims like this are way too common now…”. What’s more, he doesn’t resort to legal jargon and say ‘sub judice’, but instead “I’ve not really been able to say anything whilst it’s been going on.” The result – everyone understands what he’s talking about immediately.

Numbers as evidence

Numbers do the heavy lifting of convincing in the moment – even if the details are quickly forgotten afterwards. Here, Ed uses three persuasive statistics, two of them rounded up or down for impact: “60,000 songs every day on Spotify…”, “22,000,000 songs a year…”, “only 12 notes available…”.

It got personal

This is the real crux of the video – by far the most personal and powerful part of the whole thing. As a result, it’s the bit which was destined to be quoted and used in newspaper headlines (as indeed it was). This section contained two ‘Power of Three’ statements (known in the trade as ‘tricolons’).

Firstly:

“I’m not an entity, I’m not a corporation, I’m a human being.

Directly followed by:

I’m a father. I’m a husband. I’m a son.

It offered humility

Whilst he could have been seen crowing over his success, that’s simply not Sheeran’s style. Instead, we get “I don’t want to take anything away from the pain and hurt suffered by both sides in this case…”.

He used a contrastive pair to finish

Contrastive pairs are ‘see-saw sentences’ – phrases which hinge around a mid-point, balancing each other in style and structure. They are powerful and memorable:

“Hopefully we can all get back to writing songs, rather than having to prove that we can write them.”

So, all in all, as far as the writing and structure of his statement were concerned, we think it was – in the title of another of his number one hits that year – ‘perfect’.

As you can see, powerful presentations are far from being down to just luck. With careful crafting, you can create the best possible opportunity to make sure your messages hit home too – something we explore in our Presentation Training sessions.

And you don’t even need to have had a number one hit single to get involved…

Refuse to answer a question on air
Lindsay Williams

How to refuse to answer a question on air

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What do you do in a media interview if you get a really uncomfortable question?

The answer is remarkably simple: tell the journalist you are choosing not to answer.

Daniel Radcliffe demonstrated this on GMB when asked about the Will Smith slapping incident at the Oscars ceremony.

Radcliffe did not hesitate: he said he was so dramatically bored by hearing other people’s opinions on the incident, that he wasn’t going to give one.

There are lots of ways to tell a journalist that you are declining a question. My advice is, where you can, give a short clear reason but the reason is not essential. Here are a few suggestions for close down phrases:

‘I’m sorry that is commercially confidential.’

‘I don’t have that number to hand.’

‘This is not a question for me’

‘I think I’ll leave that for others to comment on.’

‘That’s a question for the regulator or the politicians.’

It sounds so obvious. And it is liberating to realise that you have a choice.

However, having these lines to hand is not the whole answer.

The real challenge is to be in the right mindset during any interview. You should know what you are there to say, and be clear where your red lines are. Journalists are allowed to ask anything…that is the deal. It doesn’t mean you have to answer them.

When I suggest this close down strategy, I get push back:

‘Am I allowed to say that?’

‘Won’t the journalist think I’m rude?’

‘I don’t want to sound like a politician not answering questions.’

First of all, there are no external rules about what you say to a journalist, only internal ones – from your employer perhaps. I don’t think they will ever include a ban on declining a question.

Second, journalists are hard to offend and declining or ‘closing down’ a question would barely register. They hear such responses all the time.

Finally, I believe politicians rarely say ‘I am not answering that because it would be speculation’ or ‘I haven’t looked at it this week’. Interviews would be much less annoying if they did.  Politicians, for reasons I do not fully understand, normally try to ignore the question and answer something else. That is what is so irritating.

It’s much better to be upfront and say ‘that’s not a question for me’.

Practising how to deliver a close down is just one of the many techniques we cover in our media training courses, which can be delivered in person or via video link.