There is a field of work in the public relations industry that is referred to as “media training”.
It is generally done in a workshop format, whereby executives are prepared to interact with the media by putting them through their paces in terms of trying to get a sense of how the media operates. They are pushed to anticipate the kinds of questions spokespersons from a given company may face when they make a particular announcement or respond to an issue that has arisen.
No doubt someone has documented when this kind of ‘media preparation’ first took place in a formal sense (perhaps the Kennedy-Nixon TV debates leading up to the 1960 U.S. Presidential election, when both candidates when through a number of rehearsals), but this has been going on informally for generations.
Spokespeople going through this training process are routinely told to focus on delivering “three key messages”.
The notion of focusing on delivering a select few messages makes sense, as the struggle to effectively deliver a laundry list of important ideas can end up diffusing the impact a spokesperson or organization is aiming for.
Unfortunately, part of the process usually involves telling the “trainee” they should stick to their messages no matter what.
That is, even if they are asked a fair and reasonable question, if it is one they don’t want to answer, they should either ignore the question and simply “deliver their message” anyway, or say something such as, “I’m not here to talk about that, I’d like to talk about our new plans for….”
This brings to mind the recent Hall-of-Fame weekends in both Major League Baseball and the National Football League that brought forward the imminent prospect of Mark McGuire being up for consideration for Cooperstown. (The results of the Hall-of-Fame voting will be released in January, 2007.)
It’s brought to mind because it was McGuire who appeared before a Congressional committee last year and kept “sticking to his message” (as he was no doubt told to do by either lawyers or his PR advisors) and repeating, when pressed about whether he had used performance-enhancing drugs: ”I’m not here to talk about the past…” before launching into his rehearsed message track about how he would like to positively influence young people in the future, etc.
A very nice message, to be sure.
Unfortunately, it was almost completely obscured by – and quite properly so—his ill-advised attempt to not answer questions directly, to avoid revealing anything about his own actions that could have indeed set baseball on a more honest and straightforward path.
By choosing the old, worn tactic of “sticking to his message”, ignoring the questions he was being asked, and so obviously not answering questions directly, he wavered badly off the high road. He left a horrible impression in the minds of the public and the media, and lost all credibility.
Based on his statistical accomplishments (assuming he was “clean”, which his testimony did nothing to affirm), McGuire indeed deserves induction into the prestigious baseball Hall.
But taking the advice given to too many politicians over the years, to “stay on message” no matter what, has put him in the same class in most people’s minds as the vast majority of political-types: they are seen as being untrustworthy, evasive and as lacking integrity and credibility.
A missed opportunity to communicate truly effectively may have not only cost McGuire an opportunity to make a real difference to our youth through taking an opportunity to acknowledge his errors and seek forgiveness. It may well keep him out of the Hall in 2007, and well beyond.
