Mr. Media Training

There are a few immutable laws here on Earth. The sun rises in the east. What goes up must come down. And as long as there are people, they will do stupid things.

Here, without further ado: The five worst video media disasters of January!

5. Dear NAACP: Kiss My Butt. Signed, The Gov.

Maine Governor Paul LePage declined invitations from his state’s NAACP chapter to attend events commemorating Martin Luther King Day. When asked why, he told reporters the NAACP could “kiss my butt.”

After receiving predictably awful press for making such an inflammatory remark, Mr. LePage backtracked and added an MLK Day event to his schedule – but not the one to which he was originally invited.

Click here to read my analysis of this incident, “Maine Gov: Tell the NAACP To Kiss My Butt”

4. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN): Look Me In The Eyes!

Against the wishes of her own party, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann insisted on delivering the Tea Party’s response to the State of the Union address. She shouldn’t have jumped so quickly.

What should have been a big moment on national television for her became a train wreck consisting of zero eye contact, strange hand gestures, and poorly executed graphics.

Click here to read my analysis of this incident, “Michele Bachmann’s Odd Tea Party Response.”

3. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) Compares Republicans to Nazis

Have you noticed how everyone’s a Nazi these days? Public figures casually throw the term around to describe offenses large and small – but none of those offenses come even close to the horrors of the Holocaust.

Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen is far from alone in being guilty on this count. But his comparison of Republican health care talking points to Joseph Goebbel’s mass extermination of Jews is just a little over-the-top – and especially distasteful coming from the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. 

2. Owen Honors: Relieved of Duty

Earlier this month, the Navy removed Captain Owen Honors from his post as the head of the aircraft carrier Enterprise for producing offensive videos.

In an effort to entertain his crew, he produced several videos in 2006 and 2007. According to The New York Times, the videos contained simulated masturbation, the simulated eating of feces, and a simulated rectal exam. 

Charming, Captain.

Click here to read my analysis of this incident, “Do You Know Someone As Offensive As This Guy?”

1. Sarah Palin’s “Blood Libel”

On the morning of President Obama’s speech from Tucson, Sarah Palin released a video blaming the media for committing "blood libel." No matter that the term is an anti-Semitic slur referring to Jews murdering Christians.

Democrats predictably reacted angrily to the video. But her poll numbers also plummeted with independents and Republicans. Instead of using the moment to expand her base by issuing a gracious statement, Ms. Palin narrowed it instead, leading many political prognosticators to declare her 2012 hopes dead.

Bonus Video: Mika’s Freudian Slip

It’s been a grim month, so here’s a fun one to end on a lighter note. It needs no introduction.

Enjoy.

Click here to read my full analysis of this incident, “On-Air Freudian Slip: How to Handle Mistakes”

Related: Top Ten Media Disasters of 2010

President Obama’s State of the Union Address (SOTU) represented a rare landslide victory for the White House. Two polls taken immediately afterwards found that a whopping 84 to 91 percent of viewers gave the speech positive marks, and that independent voters responded strongly in favor of his bipartisan message.

But as a full-time media and presentation trainer, I couldn’t help noticing the speech’s flaws. A few moments felt just a little off, others represented missed opportunities, and at least two were downright cringe-inducing.

Since many writers have already documented what the President did well in Tuesday’s speech, my focus here is on what the President can improve upon.

That’s not to suggest the President’s speech was bad; quite the contrary. His was a solid, if uninspiring, address. But even brilliant orators can improve – and in that spirit, here are five things the President should do differently for next year’s State of the Union.

1. Choose Bigger Stories: Every President since Ronald Reagan has used the SOTU to tell stories about a few “real people” in the audience. Well-chosen anecdotes can help bring abstract topics to life, and it is a good idea for speakers to alternate between general themes and specific examples.

But this year’s stories felt too small and incidental to land an emotional punch. The stories served more as transitions, failing to highlight successes in a substantive way and instead coming across as a hackneyed speechwriting technique. The longest anecdote – about a Pennsylvania company that helped rescue trapped Chilean miners – was also, not coincidentally, the most effective of the evening.

2. Mark Chapter Beginnings and Ends: This year’s SOTU had a terrific narrative structure (“Win the future”), containing four chapters in the middle: Encouraging American innovation, educating our kids, rebuilding our infrastructure, and reducing the debt.

But Mr. Obama didn’t sufficiently make clear when one chapter ended and another began. His transition from point one (innovation) to point two (education) didn’t clearly indicate the beginning of a new chapter. His transition from point two to three (infrastructure) did point out a new chapter, but was delivered in a cadence too similar to the material immediately preceding it.

The President should have more explicitly marked each new “chapter” from the last, helping to move his audience seamlessly from point to point.

3. Develop Better Comparisons: Comparisons – in the form of similes, metaphors, and analogies – can be a speechwriter’s most effective rhetorical device. But a poorly-chosen comparison risks obscuring the larger point and distracting the audience, as did this one:

“Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine. It may make you feel like you’re flying high at first, but it won’t take long before you feel the impact. (Laughter.)”

The notation of “laughter” at the end of the quote is from the official White House transcript. It is a dishonest transcription, since you don’t hear laughter at the end of that line, but rather an audible groan.

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

4. Lose the Shtick: As my friends are painfully aware, my humor comes straight from the Borscht Belt. So I laughed out loud at Mr. Obama’s salmon quip: “The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they’re in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them when they’re in saltwater. I hear it gets even more complicated once they’re smoked.”

But as funny as his delivery was, I found the joke wildly out of place for a SOTU. Imagine, for example, that you’re a relative of a loved one serving overseas. You’re waiting anxiously to hear the President’s remarks on the wars abroad. Do you really want to hear a silly fish joke before a single word on our nation’s involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq?

His quip about not needing a pat down prior to boarding trains was also ill-considered. As someone who rides Amtrak several times each month, I sure didn’t appreciate a joke pointing out train’s glaring security vulnerabilities.

5. Reduce The Hushed Tone: When President Obama sought to emphasize a key point, he used a hushed tone, something akin to a “spoken whisper.” It is a perfectly good technique, one that helps speakers align their words to their vocal delivery. But he used it dozens of times during the speech, reducing its impact on every subsequent use.

Instead of over-emphasizing the spoken whisper, he should employ a greater variety of the tools he has demonstrated so effectively in the past. For example, he might emphasize his words by adding volume more often, rushing certain passages while slowing down in others, and occasionally highlighting key phrases with a more pronounced staccato delivery.

This piece was originally published by Bulldog Reporter, an excellent public relations website. Thanks to editor Richard Carufel for commissioning the story.

Related: Should Barack Obama Lose The Teleprompter?

Related: Was President Obama’s Tucson Speech Too Long?

Here’s a fun experiment: The next time you have a hallway conversation with a colleague, start nodding as you make a point. You may surprised to find your colleague instantly returning your nod.

Same thing if you smile as you speak – your colleague will likely smile back.

Why do we humans subconsciously imitate that which we see? Some neuroscientists point to “mirror neurons,” an emerging subject of considerable interest and intense debate. Even though the science is still a bit murky, the implications could be huge.

As described by Wikipedia, “A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron ‘mirrors’ the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting.”

Here’s a bit more science: According to authors Giacomo Rizzolatti et al.:

“Each time an individual sees an action done by another individual, neurons that represent that action are activated in the observer’s premotor cortex. This automatically induced, motor representation of the observed action corresponds to that which is spontaneously generated during active action and whose outcome is known to the acting individual. Thus, the mirror system transforms visual information into knowledge.”

Your understanding of mirror neurons could be a huge boon for you as a speaker. Allan and Barbara Pease, co-authors of The Definitive Book of Body Language, report that members of your audience are more likely to accept your ideas if they are nodding and/or smiling.

The next time you give a speech, try nodding and smiling as you make a critical point. You’ll likely see many members of your audience responding in kind. And when they do, you’re that much closer to achieving your goals.

Related: Acting “As If” You Are a Good Public Speaker

Related: Three Things To Do When The PowerPoint Crashes

In a response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address last night, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) offered a response from the Tea Party that can only be described as bizarre.

First, she didn’t look straight into the camera. According to CNN’s Sam Feist, Ms. Bachmann had two cameras in the room – one was the Tea Party camera, the other was the network camera. She chose to look at the Tea Party camera.

I watched Ms. Bachmann’s speech live, and was too distracted by the strange optics of her response to fully focus on her content. Based on commentary about her response both on-line and on-the-air, it seems I was far from alone – her (lack of) eye contact was the first thing almost everybody remarked upon.

Since viewers watching the feed from the Tea Party camera weren’t as likely to hold Ms. Bachmann’s slight lack of eye contact against her, I’d argue she should have prioritized the network camera. It’s true that her core audience is the Tea Party, but it’s likely more Tea Partiers will see her response through clips on mainstream news broadcasts (including Fox News) than through video captured by the Tea Party’s camera. And that means they’ll see Ms. Bachmann’s performance referred to as amateurish on many of those news broadcasts.

Second, the camera operators weren’t prepared for Ms. Bachmann’s use of PowerPoint. She should have given a script to the network cameraman and marked the spots to widen the shot before the new slides appeared. That way, the public would have taken in the full slide the moment it appeared instead of a mere corner of the slide.

Finally, what was that chair doing behind her? She appeared to be standing the whole time, so the chair created yet another visual distraction.

Ms. Bachmann’s performance is a perfect example of a spokesperson whose message gets obscured by poor optics.

Related: The Ten Worst Video Media Disasters of 2010

Note: My full analysis of the State of the Union will appear here – and on Bulldog Reporter’s PR website – early Friday morning.

You have a crisis communications plan in place. You’ve assembled a crisis response team, written a comprehensive crisis plan, and role played the most likely crisis scenarios. You’re ready for the unexpected. 

But then the crisis strikes. Your adrenaline surges. Your boss is suddenly irrational, choosing to abandon your well-conceived plan and just “wing it.” 

Print this article and hang it on your bulletin board. When a crisis strikes, take 30 seconds to scan this list to remind yourself – and your freaked-out boss – about the seven larger truths of a crisis. 

1. You Will Suffer In The Short-Term: You will probably suffer when a crisis strikes, at least in the short-term. But crises do not have to affect organizations negatively in the long-term. When handled well, crises can ultimately enhance an organization’s reputation, increase its stakeholder loyalty, and add to its bottom line.

2. You Need to Communicate Immediately: Communicate immediately, if only to acknowledge that something happened, you’re looking into it, and will share more information as soon as you know it. Organizations that communicate immediately have a much greater chance of becoming the media’s main source for information during the crisis. 

3. If You Don’t Talk, Others Will: Reporters need to gather information and get quotes. If they don’t get it from you, they’ll get it from someone else, usually a less-informed third party. That, in turn, will fuel even more negative coverage. 

When Tiger Didn't Talk, A Dozen Women Did. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

4. Saying “No Comment” Is The Same as Saying “We’re Guilty:” When a crisis strikes, many executives want to withhold comment until they have more information. That’s an understandable impulse, but also a wrong one. In the eyes of the public, your refusal to comment is the same as saying, “we don’t care,” “we’re out-of-touch,” or “damn, we’re screwed.” 

5. Your Response Needs to Be About The Victims: British Petroleum’s former CEO, Tony Hayward, failed miserably on this count when he told reporters “I’d like my life back.” His comment was about himself, not the eleven workers who died on his rig or the thousands of newly unemployed locals. Especially in the early hours of a crisis, align your communications – and actions – to human safety and victims’ needs. 

Hayward's Response Wasn't About The Victims. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

6. Facts Are Not Enough: Even if the facts prove that you did nothing wrong, they’re not enough. During a crisis, facts get obscured by perceptions. A good crisis response should be aligned to the concerns of your organization’s stakeholders and shouldn’t rely solely on a mere recitation of facts. Yes, get the facts out – but do so in the context of your audience’s most pressing concerns. 

7. Get It All Out: It’s human to want to bury the bad parts of a story that haven’t yet gotten out. But trying to bury negative parts of the story often extends the crisis and makes it worse. Information usually gets out anyway, and the lack of forthrightness reinforces suspicions about your integrity. If you think something is likely to get out anyway - and it probably will – it’s better to get it out on your own terms instead of letting a reporter catch you.

Related: The Three Questions Reporters Always Ask

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Last week, Apple announced that CEO Steve Jobs, a pancreatic cancer survivor and liver transplant recipient, is taking his third medical leave in seven years.

Upon hearing that news, Fortune Magazine’s Doron Levin reported something new – that Mr. Jobs had secretly gone to Switzerland in 2009 to seek an unusual treatment for neuroendocrine cancer.

There’s a good reason Mr. Levin sat on that news until finally releasing it last week: His source had told it to him off-the-record.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Photo Courtesy Matthew Yohe, Wikimedia Commons

It turns out Mr. Levin’s source was Jerry York, an Apple director who died in March 2010. According to Mr. Levin:

“Under our agreement at the time, York wanted the facts of Jobs’s treatment in Switzerland to remain out of the news. He didn’t say whether the board knew of it. (With York’s death, the off-the-record agreement is no longer in place.)”

I haven’t seen evidence that Mr. York ever agreed for that information to be released upon his death. But it’s out there anyway, and it’s not the first time that death ended an off-the-record agreement:

In 2007, reporter Robert Novak revealed that former Senator Tom Eagleton (D-MO) was his source that labeled George McGovern, 1972’s Democratic nominee, the candidate of “Amnesty, Abortion, and Acid.” It was a major story at the time, since one high-profile Democrat was attacking his own party’s nominee. After Eagleton died in 2007, Novak named him as his source.

Woodward and Bernstein famously agreed not to release the name of Watergate’s “Deep Throat” until after his death. Unlike Mr. York, Mr. Felt agreed to have his identity revealed after his death. Mr. Felt ultimately revealed himself in 2005.

Mark Felt, a.k.a. "Deep Throat"

Journalists don’t agree whether death should end an off-the-record agreement - and while many argue it shouldn’t, others are eager to release a previously unreported nugget.

What’s clear is that it’s yet another detail that has to be agreed upon between reporters and sources before any off-the-record information is exchanged.

Related: Why Going Off The Record Is a Dumb Idea

Related: Should You Protect Yourself by Taping Your Raw Media Interviews?

“Off-the-record” may be the single most misunderstood journalism term you will ever encounter.

Journalists don’t really understand off-the-record either – or more precisely, they can’t agree on what it means. If you speak to ten different journalists, you will probably hear ten different definitions.

They don’t agree on the meanings of “not for attribution” or “on background” either. In fact, one survey found that even journalists working for the same news organization have widely divergent views of what those commonly-used terms actually mean.

Even websites about journalism – such as those hosted by The Poynter Institute, the Society of Professional Journalists, and the American Journalism Review – offer little information on what the terms mean.

If journalists themselves can’t agree on the definition, you’re going to get in trouble if you rely on those terms to forge an agreement with a reporter. So banish them from your vocabulary entirely.

You probably shouldn’t be speaking off-the-record anyway. Although most reporters keep their word, some break their agreements with sources. Even well-intentioned reporters can get overruled by their editors. And courts don’t recognize agreements between a reporter and a source as a sacred trust – judges can force journalists to disclose their sources under threat of imprisonment.

If you choose to proceed with an off-the-record interview anyway, you should keep the following four tips in mind:  

1. 1. Consult with a communications professional – either in your own company, organization, or agency – or with an external firm, preferably one with crisis communications capabilities. You may be unaware of the landmines that exist in your specific case.
2. 2. Consider your relationship with the reporter. Journalists you know well and who have treated you fairly for several years are generally safer risks than reporters you are working with for the first time. 
3. 3. Ask the reporter to define exactly what off-the-record means to him or her, preferably in writing.
4. 4. Make any agreements with a reporter in advance of the interview. You can’t say something interesting and then suddenly declare it off the record.

Remember: Regardless of any agreement you make, you may still be identified by name as the source. Therefore, the most prudent advice is to remain on-the-record at all times. Even if your name isn’t used, the words a reporter uses to describe your position may make your identity perfectly clear.

Unless you’re fully prepared to take that risk, don’t ever speak off-the-record.  

Have you or a client ever spoken off-the-record? How did it go? Please leave a comment.    

Related: If You Go Off The Record, Don’t Die.

Related: The Seven Times You Should Turn Down a Media Interview   

Fifty years ago today – on January 20, 1961 – John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th President of the United States.

The speech he gave on that snowy day is most famous for this line: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

Today, I’ll offer four pointers to help you use his speech to become a more effective speechwriter and public speaker.

If you’ve never seen the speech, you’re in for a treat.

1. Passion Trumps Flaws: What immediately strikes me when listening to this address is Kennedy’s thin voice and strong accent. This should be encouraging to those of you who hate the sound of your own voice, as it proves you don’t have to be blessed with a perfect speaking voice to be an effective public speaker. Kennedy’s emphatic gestures added to his conviction. Like JFK, you can compensate for imperfections by speaking with passion.

2. Pacing Matters: Kennedy’s words are even more powerful since he pauses for a few moments between each thought, allowing the audience to consider them on their own terms. If he rushed the speech, people would have been unable to fully engage with his content; instead, he spoke deliberately and gave each thought its due measure.

You can get a good sense of JFK’s pacing in the above clip by listening to the way he delivers the following words. By pausing after every comma, he imbues each phrase with its full weight (beginning at 2:32):

“Let every nation know…whether it wishes us well or ill…that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

3. Terrific Use of Rhetorical Devices

Kennedy used many rhetorical devices during his speech; these three are among the most notable:

Antimetabole: Although President Kennedy deploys many rhetorical devices throughout the speech, none was as memorable as one called antimetabole, in which the same words are used in successive clauses, but in reverse order:

“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

“Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”

Anaphora: Note the repetition of the word “to” at the beginning of six consecutive paragraphs: “To those old allies,” “To those new states,” “To those peoples,” “To our sister republics,” “To that world assembly,” and “Finally, to those nations.” That rhetorical device is known as anaphora, since the repetition occurred at the beginning of each subsequent thought.

Alliteration: This type of phrasing refers to a repeated sound in words, phrases, or sentences. In his last sentence, Kennedy used the phrase, “…let us go forth to lead the land we love,” a terrific use of alliteration.

4. He Ended With a Call To Action

In the final minute of his address, Mr. Kennedy uttered his most famous line: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” Good speakers everywhere close their talks with some kind of call to action, whether it asks the audience to buy a product, consider an idea, or vote for a candidate.

In this case, Kennedy left his audience with a much more important closing call-to-action - a request that asked Americans to contribute more to the nation than they took from it.

Note: You can see more of JFK’s speeches on the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum website, at http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/Historic-Speeches.aspx. The library recently put many new clips on-line.