Media Trainer’s Notes
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
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 is based in London but runs training sessions in multiple time zones, including the US, Europe, Africa and Asia, working online or travelling to host small and large scale training events. With 20 years of experience as a communications consultant with corporations and international organisations, Lindsay also runs Personal Impact Training and Pitching Via Zoom courses.
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Further to Lindsay’s comments about the ‘woke capitalism’ question…
As well as deciding on your key messages, we have always suggested interviewees prepare by identifying what the ‘anticipated negative’ questions might be. Without suggesting you should be led by the interviewer (your job is to land messages too), doing so helps you craft what you would say and how you would say it, if and when one of them crops up. All the big social movements of the past few years (race, gender, disability, environment etc) is potentially subject to further interrogation by a journalist. So if these areas apply to your area of work, it’s genuinely worth getting your ducks in a row first.