Who’s Media Training These Guys?
Another day, another “negative repeat” from a Presidential candidate. Today it’s John McCain on “The View”: Joy Behar brought up two of his recent ads against Mr. Obama… “We know those two ads are untrue, they’re lies,” she said, and yet at the end of each, Mr. McCain’s voice says he approves of those messages. [...]
Round One of the PR Battle Goes to McCain
There’s no doubt that since John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate, the Republican ticket has generated an incredible amount of buzz and positive momentum. And there is also no doubt that McCain has been winning the PR battle: getting his messages out, getting Obama off message and responding to McCain’s charges, [...]
Political Candidates Are Bad Role Models
Every four years, we are treated to the spectacle of journalists and moderators asking tough, pointed questions of presidential candidates, only to have the candidates completely ignore the questions and launching into their pre-planned talking points. And every four years, corporate spokespeople wonder — is that how I’m supposed to answer questions I don’t like? [...]
The Building Blocks of Quotable Quotes
If you want to make sure the information you are trying to get across is picked up, you need to make sure it is interesting. Too often, business information is full of fluff words and jargon that makes it impossible for other people to care. But what are the building blocks of interesting information, or [...]
The “Chocolate or Vanilla” Rule of Answering Questions
Let’s say a reporter asks you the following question: Do you like chocolate ice cream or vanilla ice cream? How many possible answers are there? Did you say two? I’ll tell you how many there are: five. Chocolate Vanilla I like both equally Neither — I prefer a different flavor I don’t like ice cream [...]
How to Handle Questions You Don’t Want to Answer
There are really two types of questions that you think you don’t want to answer: questions you don’t have an easy answer to, and truly touchy questions that you’d really rather not answer. Here’s a process for figure out which is which: Preparation is the key to success: Brainstorm potential questions Develop answers (or non-answers) [...]
Pentagon Plays the PR Game To Win
I’m having a hard time getting terribly worked up about the New York Times story that the Pentagon used media training tactics to prep retired military officers for appearances as military analysts on TV talk shows. This has nothing to do with my position on the Iraq war. The tagline for this blog is “smart [...]
Tibet Supporters Use PR to Outfox China
The New York Times, of all places, gives a shout-out to the “value of PR” in a business section story today about how Tibet supporters leveraged the upcoming Beijing Olympics to shine a spotlight on China’s treatment of Tibet: “The protesters quickly established a communications plan, focused their message and ran camps where they taught [...]
Charlie Rose Says “Be Authentic”
I’m at the Bulldog Reporter 2008 Media Relations Summit, and the first keynote was a very interesting and fun conversation between PR legend Howard Rubenstein and TV personality Charlie Rose. Charlie really represents the high-water mark of media interviewers: he has a one-hour show, commercial-free, on PBS, and he likes to get in-depth with his [...]
Chelsea Clinton Should Have Expected “The Question”
You can’t tell me that the Clinton campaign is so unprepared that it hasn’t given a great deal of thought to how to handle questions about the Monica Lewinsky affair. It was the defining moment of the Clinton presidency and may determine the outcome of this year’s race. So how could it be that Chelsea [...]