On January 25, 1988, CBS News Anchor Dan Rather interviewed Vice President George H.W. Bush, who was then running for the presidency. You can learn a good lesson from Mr. Bush’s handling of that unexpected ambush interview.
Mr. Bush was under the impression he would be the subject of a “candidate profile,” but Mr. Rather chose to press Bush on his role in the Iran-Contra scandal instead.
What followed was a remarkably heated interview, one that has rarely been seen in presidential politics since.
Mr. Bush did a good job of pushing back against the storyline, making clear to the audience that Mr. Rather broke his agreement. And since Bush was widely viewed as a “wimp,” his aggressive tone worked to his advantage. Peevish answers rarely work – but they did for Mr. Bush.
Ted Koppel, my former boss and the long-time host of ABC News’ Nightline, has an interesting idea about these types of interviews. He says an audience’s allegiance is to the interviewer, not the person being interviewed – at least at the beginning. But if the viewer perceives the interviewer as being unfair, impolite, or flat out rude, the interviewer will lose his audience and sympathy will shift to the person being interviewed.
Mr. Bush banked on that dynamic, and he got calmer as Rather got more aggressive – exactly the right thing to do in this case.
As a result, Bush was widely seen as the winner of the debate. As the New York Times wrote the next day:
“Mr. Bush seemed to stun the anchor in a reference to a September walkout by Mr. Rather that left CBS broadcasting a blank signal.
‘It’s not fair to judge my career by a rehash on Iran,’ Mr. Bush said. ‘How would you like it if I judged your career by those seven minutes when you walked off the set?’”
That Mr. Rather ended the interview abruptly only led to further accusations of bias and disrespect for the office of the Vice Presidency. (In a strange twist, he was forced out of CBS for running an incorrect story in 2004 about Mr. Bush’s son, George W. Bush.) As for Bush, he defeated Michael Dukakis in an electoral landslide, becoming the nation’s 41st president.
Do you have a favorite “classic clip?” Please leave a link to your favorite media disaster or infamous media moment in the comments section below for consideration as a future Friday Classic Clip.
Related: “You Are Stuck On Stupid” (Friday Classic Clip)
Related: The Five Worst Media Disasters of June
July 8th, 2011 at 11:02 am
Brad, here is a classic from Nightline in 1987. The unfortunate part about this clip is that some people still believe this.
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video?id=3034970
July 8th, 2011 at 11:14 am
Thank you for the suggestion! Boy, do I remember that interview. I was driving home from watching a boxing match between Marvin Hagler and local hero Sugar Ray Leonard when the local news station broke in to discuss Al Campanis’s comments. And yes, you’re right – too many still hold those toxic ideas.
Brad
March 26th, 2012 at 3:16 pm
This is a Canadian clip… I think Mr. Trudeau ended winning that ambush interview in the public eye.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfUq9b1XTa0
March 26th, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Marika,
Thank you for leaving that clip! Unfortunately, YouTube won’t let me watch the clip here in the U.S., but I’ll leave it here for any of our Canadian friends who can access the clip.
Thanks again,
Brad
March 28th, 2012 at 1:20 am
It’s too bad you can’t see the actual clip!
But here’s a wikipedia article explaining the interview for US readers who’d like to learn about this very important media moment in Canadian culture :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_watch_me
In the end, Pierre Eliott Trudeau won the sympathy of more conservative-leaning canadians who wanted to see a stronger leader in our liberal Prime Minister. Although it didn’t do any good for him in Quebec (quite the opposite), it did help him earn the respect of a lot of canadians and reaffirm his authority as a leader.