During President Obama’s State of the Union Address back in February, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) sat in the audience and tweeted a woman named Victoria Brink.
The tweets appeared to be intimate, with one saying, “Happy Valentines beautiful girl.” Cohen quickly deleted both tweets, raising the media’s suspicion. Journalists were curious why the never-married 63-year-old Congressman was tweeting a 24-year-old bikini model.
It turns out that Ms. Brink is his daughter, although he hadn’t made that public. Cohen claims he learned that he had a daughter just three years ago. As he told WREG-TV in Memphis, “I Googled her mother, found out she had a child, and the math looked pretty accurate.”
In this case, Mr. Cohen wasn’t doing anything wrong. But by deleting his tweet, The Sunlight Foundation, which catalogues deleted tweets sent by politicians, flagged his seeming indiscretion.
That helps prove one thing: Regardless of whether or not you’re a politician, if you “Tweet and Delete,” there’s a good chance someone will notice and become suspicious.
But “Tweet and Delete” has a flipside. Let’s say you want people to notice your tweets. Should you delete a tweet you sent on purpose while making it look like you had sent it by mistake? Is “Tweeting and Deleting” an approach PR professionals should consider using to help highlight their events, products, and brands?
Whatever your answer, Mr. Cohen used it. Since he had learned that the media would pick up on his deleted tweets, he used that knowledge (he claims) to “punk” the press by sending the following tweets to pop star Cyndi Lauper and quickly deleting them:
As he suspected, his deleted tweets caught the eye of the media. So he released a statement claiming he “Tweeted and Deleted” to help promote a cause. In a statement, he wrote:
“On Tuesday night, the President and Mrs. Obama, along with the Grammys and PBS, hosted a musical tribute to Memphis Soul at the White House. Wanting to promote this great program, which will air this coming Tuesday on PBS, I realized the best way to do this was to tweet and delete. I knew the Sunlight Foundation would highlight the deleted tweet as a Politwoop and knowing how some in the media report deleted Politwoops as nefarious, it occurred to me that a perfectly innocent, factually-correct tweet, once deleted, would receive great media attention. And that is exactly what happened.”
I can see how some edgy brand might make the “Tweet and Delete” strategy work. But overall, this strikes me as a dangerous game to play. Yes, PR pros using this technique might successfully fool the media and the public with a “Tweet and Delete” strategy. But it could come at the cost of their media relationships and their public credibility.
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This is an excerpt from my book, The Media Training Bible: 101 Things You Absolutely, Positively Need to Know Before Your Next Interview, available in soft cover and all major eBook formats.
Most people don’t know how to use a telephone. Sure, they talk on the phone with their family, friends, and business contacts every day. But the telephone habits they use during those calls are radically different from the ones they need for print or radio interviews conducted by phone, known as “phoners.”
So forget everything you (think) you know and remember these eight tips the next time you have a phoner.
- 1. Get out of your office: Don’t sit at your desk, where you can become easily distracted by incoming emails, phone calls, and office visitors. Find an empty conference room with no distractions, and tape a “Do Not Disturb—Interview in Progress” sign on the door.
- 2. Bring your notes: It’s okay to have notes in front of you during phone interviews. Be careful not to “read” them to the reporter but to use them only as memory triggers. (See lesson 94 for more about the best way to prepare notes for an interview.)
- 3. Get a headset: Telephone headsets are terrific gadgets for phone interviews. They allow you to use both of your hands to gesture, which adds emphasis to your voice, and they free you from cradling a phone to your neck in case you need to jot down a few notes during your call.
- 4. Stand: When our trainees stand, they literally “think faster on their feet.” They also tend to project more authority, likely because pacing helps them use their nervous energy in a more productive manner.
- 5. Smile: Smile when appropriate. The reporter (and audience, for radio interviews) can hear your warmth radiating through the phone.
- 6. Prioritize audio quality: Speaker and cell phones have inferior sound quality and can be a barrier to easy communication. Plus, reporters may conclude, “He thinks he’s too important to pick up the damn phone?” It’s best to use a landline with a high-quality headset.
- 7. Click, clack, repeat: During print interviews, listen for the sound of typing on the other end—you’ll hear it when you say something that intrigues the reporter. That’s your cue to slow down and repeat what you’ve just said to make sure the reporter has time to capture every word. Also, don’t hesitate to check in with the reporter by asking whether your explanation made sense.
- 8. Now, what did I just say? If you think you may have mangled a key quote, you can ask the reporter to read it back to you (some reporters will oblige, others won’t). Reporters may not be willing to change something you said if you don’t like the way you said it—but they usually will if you said something factually inaccurate.
Case Study: Toronto Mayor’s Disastrous Phone Interview
In 2010, Toronto Mayor-Elect Rob Ford agreed to an interview with As It Happens, a national radio program that airs on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).
But when the reporter called at the scheduled time, Mr. Ford was busy coaching a youth football game. He proceeded with the interview anyway.
Unsurprisingly, he was unfocused, simultaneously yelling at children and telling the reporter about fiscal restraint. He interrupted the interview numerous times and made his points inarticulately, until finally admitting he was “being distracted.”
The interview ran unedited, creating an embarrassing—and self-inflicted—public relations disaster for the incoming mayor.
The Media Training Bible, an Amazon Public Relations #1 Bestseller, is available from Amazon here and for the Kindle here. For other eBook formats and to read free sample lessons, click here.
During the worst of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward thought it would be a good idea to place the awful spill into a larger context.
Sure, the spill was bad—but was it really that bad? Hayward didn’t seem to think so, saying:
“The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”
Hayward may have been technically right. But the fact that he sought to downplay the horrific effects of the worst marine oil spill in history was rightly criticized and widely mocked.
Many companies, nonprofits, and government agencies occasionally encounter similar situations—no, not oil spills, but moments when they think it might be a good idea to place a specific fact into a larger context. For example:
A hospital spokesperson might be tempted to say: “This woman’s death was extremely unusual. We’ve performed more than 14,000 of these types of surgeries, and this is the first time a patient ever died from it.”
A spokesperson from a government agency might be tempted to say: “Although there was massive fraud involved in this case, we’d like to point out that every other project we’ve completed this year has come in under budget.”
A spokesperson from a trucking company might be tempted to say: “This is the first time in our 42-year history that one of our drivers has ever caused a death while intoxicated. We have had 8,200 drivers in that time, almost all of whom have done their jobs responsibly.
But those statements all sound defensive. And there’s one thing missing from all of them: An acknowledgement that even one massive oil spill, case of fraud, or death, is one too many. See how different the above statements read simply by adding that sentiment. As an example:
“We’ve performed more than 14,000 of these types of surgeries, and this is the first time a patient ever died from it. But that gives none of even the slightest bit of comfort. One death is one too many—and we are going to do everything possible to prevent this from ever happening again.”
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Last Tuesday, the day after the Boston Marathon bombings, the food website Epicurious—which has 388,000 Twitter followers—created a social media crisis by sending out the following tweets:
I wrote about the incident in more detail last week. Today, I’m interested in dissecting Epicurious’ crisis management response over the past six days.
Epicurious’ first response to the social media uproar was to send a stream of tweets, all saying the same thing, stating that their tweets “seemed” insensitive.
The linguistic choice of the word “seemed” appeared to shift the burden of blame onto the website’s overly sensitive readers, adding fuel to the social media flames. So on Tuesday afternoon, Epicurious went one step further:
Our food tweets this morning were, frankly, insensitive. Our deepest, sincere apologies.
— epicurious (@epicurious) April 16, 2013
Then, nothing. Silence. Six days passed without another word. No longer statements. No interactions with angry fans. No explanations of what went wrong. No commitment to getting it right in the future. No pledge to create policies preventing this from occurring in the future.
This morning, six days later, Epicurious suddenly showed up again and resumed its Twitter stream as if nothing had happened:
Celebrate #EarthDay with these 24 top-rated spring vegetable recipes: epi.us/11xsX5w
— epicurious (@epicurious) April 22, 2013
All of this raises a question: Did Epicurious do the right thing by going silent, waiting for the storm to pass, and then resuming when it had (mostly) blown over?
Let me make the case for their head-in-sand strategy. Executives at Conde Nast (Epicurious’ parent company) may have rightly calculated that these types of social media controversies are often short-lived and pass quickly. By waiting until the online fervor had subsided, they could just ride the wave to a moment of relative safety and continue business as usual. Plus, by making a longer statement, they would have just extended the news cycle as the statement itself would spawn new stories.
But that case, while partially true, is also nonsense.
Imagine if Epicurious had come out with a longer statement on Tuesday, such as:
“The tweets we sent this morning were incredibly insensitive. We’re devastated that in a moment of national tragedy, our actions made matters worse instead of better. We are all motivated by a mission of helping to improve people’s lives through healthier eating—and today, we let our readers down.
Please know that we take this extremely seriously and will take every necessary step to make sure this never happens again. In the meantime, our thoughts are with the people of Boston. We’re going to stop tweeting for the next week because we think it’s appropriate to let some time pass before resuming business as usual. In the meantime, on behalf of all of us at Epicurious, we are very, very sorry.”
Such a statement would have been added to every news and blog story about the incident, including mine, showing a brand that screwed up but took full accountability for its actions.
Instead, they said nothing. And that says to me that they learned nothing from this incident about the right way to use social media.
What do you think? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
A reader named Sean Hughes ran into a familiar problem recently when dealing with a local reporter. He writes:
“We have a local metro reporter who loves to edit on-camera interviews to his (or his editors’) liking, typically avoiding our key messages in favor of sensationalist reactions from incited passers-by. To help fairly manage our participation in public discussion, is it okay to record the interview alongside the camera man, post the vid to our own site/blog, and link back to it in the comments section if the story gets skewed? This may not help in the media-trust department, but…I also think that the simple gesture during the interview may prompt a second-guess by the story crafter before they take a hard angle. Any experience with, or thoughts on, this potentially sensitive tactic?”
You’re handling this situation exactly right, Sean. I generally don’t advise subjects of news pieces to shoot raw video of their on-camera interviews for the reason you cite—it can lead to a reduction of trust between reporter and source. But in cases in which that trust has already been fractured, you have little to lose by putting the reporter on notice that their careless or motivated editing will be available to—and scrutinized by—the general public.
I’d offer a few additional thoughts:
First, try working the journalistic food chain before getting too aggressive. Try speaking to the reporter, then to the editor, then to the news director. Request to meet at their office. Share your concerns. As you might suspect, that doesn’t work a lot of the time—but it does occasionally, so it’s worth the effort.
Second, if you do decide to tape the interview, tell the reporters in advance. By doing so, it lets them know early in their story preparation that they should toe the line carefully. Plus, it prevents you from being accused of an “unprofessional” reverse media ambush.
Third, releasing the video on your own networks/blogs/websites is a great idea—but also contemplate a few additional possibilities. Consider sending it to your full mailing list with video embedded in the email. And if any traditional or online news organizations in your city criticize other competitive local media outlets, consider pitching them on a piece comparing the butchered story to your raw tape. (In Washington, D.C., for example, The Washington City Paper, an alternative weekly, regularly critiques The Washington Post.)
Good luck, Sean. Thanks for writing!
Do you have a media or presentation training question you’d like answered on the blog? Please email your question to Contact-at-MrMediaTraining.com.
I’ve written close to 1,000 posts since beginning this blog. Many of the posts containing the most critical public speaking tips have gotten buried, so I wanted to post them all in one easy-to-find place.
So, with no further introduction, here are the 25 links I consider to be the most important for public speakers everywhere. I hope you find them useful!
YOUR OPENING AND CLOSING
1. Eight Great Ways to Open a Speech (Part One)
2. Eight Great Ways to Open a Speech (Part Two)
3. Eight Great Ways to Open a Speech (Part Three)
4. Seven Ways to Close a Speech (Part One)
5. Seven Ways to Close a Speech (Part Two)
6. Seven Ways to Close a Speech (Part Three)
7. How To Deliver a Closing “Call-to-Action”
THE MOST IMPORTANT BODY LANGUAGE ELEMENTS
8. Public Speaking Body Language: Energy
9. Public Speaking Body Language: Tone
10. Public Speaking Body Language: Eye Contact
11. Public Speaking Body Language: Gestures
12. Public Speaking Body Language: Posture
13. Public Speaking Body Language: Voice
14. Public Speaking Body Language: Interacting with PowerPoint
15. Public Speaking Body Language: Where to Stand
YOUR SPEECH DELIVERY
16. The One Sentence Most Public Speakers Get Wrong
17. The Biggest Mistake Many Public Speakers Make
18. The “Grocery Cart” Approach to Public Speaking
POWERPOINT
19. The “4S” Approach to Showing PowerPoint Slides
20. The Five Most Common PowerPoint Mistakes
21. The PowerPoint Slide I Hate The Most
MANAGING FEAR
22. Five Ways to Manage Your Fear of Public Speaking
23. What To Do When You Have an “Oh, Shit” Moment
24. Managing Your “Imposter Syndrome”
25. Five Ways to Recover From a Brain Freeze
If you found these links helpful, please check out my book, The Media Training Bible: 101 Things You Absolutely, Positively Need to Know Before Your Next Interview.
And don’t forget to sign up for our mailing list by adding your email address to the box on the upper right of the blog!
CNN is yet again being criticized for misreporting a major news story.
This time, the network claimed that a suspect had been arrested in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing. After the FBI issued a stern rebuke, the occasional news network backed away from the story. (Others got the story wrong as well, but CNN’s mistakes were made with particular panache.)
BuzzFeed did a wonderful job of capturing CNN’s awful hour of reporting here.
Below are a few other high-profile examples of mainstream media outlets getting a major story wrong.
In December 2012, after the horrific shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, many news outlets wrongly identified the shooter as Adam Lanza’s brother, Ryan. Lanza’s mother was also widely reported to have been a teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School; she wasn’t. Many news outlets also misreported the type of gun used in the attack.
In June 2012, both CNN and the Fox News Channel misreported the Supreme Court’s decision regarding President Obama’s health care law, as the screenshots below show.
In 2011, many news organizations misreported that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had died. According to Poynter.org:
“Organizations such as NPR, Reuters, Fox News, CBS, CNN and the Huffington Post sent out tweets or distributed other reports declaring Giffords dead. The New York Times’ website briefly reported her dead as well.”
In 2004, The New York Post splashed John Kerry’s Vice Presidential choice on its front page: “Dem picks (Dick) Gephardt,” blared the headline. Except he didn’t. John Edwards got the nod.
In 2000, CNN reported that Al Gore had won Florida.
In 1981, President Reagan’s spokesperson, James Brady, was declared dead by news networks after being hit by one of John Hinkley’s bullets. He’s still alive.
Remember President Thomas E. Dewey? In 1948, The Chicago Tribune named him the winner of the presidential election. He wasn’t. Harry Truman was elected to a full term.
These are just a few examples – the list of incorrect media stories could include hundreds of others.
I think it’s reasonable to conclude that breaking news coverage is broken. I no longer trust the first wave of reporting on the cable news channels. In the rush to be first, they too often blow the story, or at least critical parts of the story.
We should be skeptical when reporters rely upon the wording “sources said.” Yes, anonymous sources are often reliable. But as we’ve seen from these high-profile examples, they’re too often wrong. And we, as viewers, have no way of determining the credibility of those anonymous sources. That has always been so, but in light of these major and recurring mistakes, it’s more so now than ever before.
From now on, I’m inclined to wait until law enforcement officials confirm stories publicly before fully believing them. You probably should too.
What do you think? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
You finish your presentation. You turn to the audience and ask, “So, do you have any questions?”
No one responds. Audience members feel uncomfortable with the unfilled silence. People begin awkwardly squirming in their seats.
You finally end their misery by saying, “Well, if no one has any questions, thank you very much for your time today,” and quietly walk off the stage. And then you crawl inside your own head, interpreting their silence as a sign that you were unable to capture the audience’s attention.
That may be a bad assumption.
First, let me admit it. If I ask an audience whether they have any questions and no one does, I’m disappointed. I’ll occasionally crack a joke, pretending I’m addressing the wait staff by requesting a few jumbo-sized pots of coffee for the clearly caffeine-deprived attendees. But I recently realized that those “jokes” are a bad idea, since they make clear my disappointment in the audience’s failure to pose a question.
That joke is passive-aggressive.
I came to that realization when my wife and I attended a child birthing class a few months ago. The instructor was terrific, but the information she was dispensing was rather intense (“If the cord is wrapped around the baby’s neck, we may have to do an emergency C-section.”)
When she paused to ask if we had any questions, none of the 12 couples did. But it was clear that we were all listening and that we valued the information she was providing. Our lack of questions didn’t signify that we weren’t interested. If anything, it meant the opposite. We simply needed some time to process the information.
Sure, a lack of questions can also indicate audience boredom or a speaker who’s communicating at an inappropriately advanced level. But those audiences usually reflect that in their body language through signals such as heads resting in palms, tapping, or fidgeting.
So the next time an audience doesn’t ask questions, try to figure out whether it’s because you’re succeeding or flopping before automatically assuming that your presentation is a disaster. And instead of making a joke such as my caffeine one, be kinder to the audience by saying something such as, “I know. That’s a lot of information to take it at once, isn’t it? I want you to know I’ll be available to you as you reflect on what we discussed today.”
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