166: 3 Media Interview Lessons from the Ben Affleck Interview with Howard Stern

When I was listening to Ben Affleck dig into his over two hour interview with Howard Stern last week to promote his new film the Tender Bar with George Clooney, I knew he was in trouble. Ben Affleck is clarifying his recent comments about his divorce from Jennifer Garner, his alcoholism and their co parenting. Ben is doing some damage control after that controversial interview with Howard Stern where he talked about his failed marriage with Jen Garner and how it led him to drink. Yikes.

The clickbait thing of like, you won't believe what he said. Click on this, come to our site right and he said that I had blamed my ex wife for my alcoholism and that I was trapped in this. Like just made me out to be like the worst, most insensitive, stupid, awful guy.

Welcome to a podcast that uses current events and tested media and PR strategies to help you manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. This week is Ben Affleck a stupid, awful guy? In this episode, we're going to discuss three key media interview lessons from Ben Affleck's recent interview with the king of all media, Howard Stern. What went right, what went horribly wrong, and what anyone can learn when it comes to preparing for a media interview. After giving this expansive interview on Stern's radio show to promote his new movie, Ben Affleck faced backlash over some of the comments he made about his marriage to actress and Instagram sweetheart Jennifer Garner about their troubles and how it contributed to his alcoholism. In this episode we're going to discuss what are the rules of a media interview nowadays, what is never changing and what is ever changing, and how one media interview can create more problems than the promotional opportunities which was the reason behind the interview in the first place and the outcome. What can we learn from this interview to help all of you in your next interview or when you are prepping a person within your organization for a media interview? Now, the number one comment I hear from people often about why they do not want to give media interviews, number one, overwhelmingly is the press is out to get me. They'll also say the press will take anything I say and take it out of context. Then there is the media bias. Why bother to speak with the press when they're just going to write their own version of the story anyway? Is there truth to those three comments? Of course, it happens all the time. I never discount a fear that someone shares with me, but the reason why it happens so often is because the person sitting in that interview doesn't own that interview. They're not prepared enough to feel confident enough to be able to run the interview on their agenda. There is a responsibility on the part of the interviewee to make sure that their agenda for the interview is realized. It's when you don't prepare well enough or you don't have a goal for an interview that creates these fissures in the foundation of your interview. And if you're not paying attention, things are going to fall through those cracks. Ben Affleck is a perfect example. If you listen to the interview on SiriusXM, if you're a subscriber, you would have heard it right away. The interview dripped the next day, parts of it, and then now online is the full interview. I'm including a link in the show notes for you to watch and listen. The story about the interview went viral immediately. As soon as it dropped, it was picked up all over the place. So if you were to Google Ben Affleck and even type the letter H, Howard Stern was going to come up and the press was focusing on one area of this interview. So let me start right here though by saying Ben Affleck. I'm a huge Ben Affleck fan. I am. I just watched Argo on a plane ride and I've watched that movie multiple, multiple times. It's just an excellent movie. I loved Good Will Hunting. I love the way back during the pandemic and this line from the film the Town, the 2010 movie that he directed, co wrote and starred in with this iconic line, I need your help.

I can't tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later. And we're going to hurt some people. Whose car are we going to take?

Also one of Jeremy Renner's best movies. But having lived in Boston, you know, he's a Red Sox fan. I know people who know him. He's a, you know, he's known to people in my, you know, my bigger circle. I'm just a fan of Ben Affleck, but he has problems. Here's a quote from the New York Times that ran earlier this year. He said, people with compulsive behavior, and I am one, have this kind of basic discomfort all the time that they're trying to make go away. He said this a couple of Sundays ago during a two hour interview at a beachside spot in Los Angeles. Side note, another two hour interview. You're trying to make yourself feel better with eating or drinking or sex or gambling or shopping or whatever. End quote. Now, Ben Affleck is known for speaking frankly about everything from his addictive Behavior and to his divorce with Jennifer Garner. Now, he wanted to set the record straight again. Now, this interview that he did with the New York Times over the summer, it was promoting the movie that he had that came out during the, during the pandemic. So he probably got, you know, comfortable with that format and the New York Times interview. And I remember reading it when it came out live, it was still contained. It was a good interview. As a matter of fact, it was an excellent interview for Ben Affleck to appear in the New York Times. So he probably felt some comfort sitting down and having a long form interview with someone else. So he sat that someone else was Howard Stern. So if you haven't listened to the entire interview and it's, it's long, so many of you probably haven't. You know, maybe you've seen clips about the interview or at least news articles about it. But here's the line that got Ben Affleck into hot water last week.

I was trapped. You know, I was like, I can't leave because of my kids, but I'm not happy. What do I do? And what I did was like, you know, drink a bottle of scotch and fall asleep on the couch. Which turned out not to be the solution.

This is where we're going to start our three lessons. What can be learned from this Ben Affleck interview? Lesson number one, right out the gate, ask yourself, do I need to do this interview? And if the answer is yes, is this format the right format for this interview? Is it the right thing to do? Ask for yourself. If you're the person doing the interview or as an advisor to someone else, scrutinize that person and decide, is the format the best thing to do? Because there are radio interviews like this Howard Stern interview, there are newspaper interviews, there are television interviews, there are email interviews going back and forth. A two hour freewheeling interview with Howard Stern, who is arguably a master at the media interview. I at least think he is. He has a knack for getting people to say the outrageous or to say the things they wouldn't normally say sitting down in a typical publicity like interview. This was not the right format for Ben Affleck. Not at all. I never, I never would have okayed it if Ben Affleck was my client. Quick, short clips of Ben Affleck are great. He always knows a good line. Ben Affleck sitting for a talk show, whether he's with Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, when he was with Conan o', Brien, any of those interview setups, those are good for Ben Affleck. Ben Affleck knows how to turn it on. He knows how to entertain. He knows how to play the role no matter what the film is, if he's the writer, the director, or the actor. If you think back when he and Matt Damon won an Oscar for screenwriting and Good Will Hunting, that enthusiasm, that fun, that kind of boyish fun that they had together, that's Ben Affleck. That's the brand. But sitting down for that long form two plus hour interview, we got to see the real Ben Affleck. And maybe we saw too much of the Ben Affleck. So it wasn't the right interview format for him. All right, lesson number two, rawness and relatability. Well, it helps. In interview, the day after the Howard Stern interview went viral, Ben Affleck appeared on Jimmy Kimmel to discuss not only the movie, but the interview. Here's what he had to say about the initial thoughts coming right out of that interview. Take a listen.

The irony is I was really happy with it. You know, great interview. I thought, wow, I should do more honest, exploratory, you know, self evaluating things. And I started seeing all this stuff come up on and I was like, what is this? And I sort of researched through it and then saw that one of these websites had done the clickbait thing of like, you won't believe what he said. Click on this, come to our site.

Right.

I looked on it and they had literally taken the conversation that I had had for two hours and made it seem as if I was saying the exact opposite of what I said.

There's a reason why Affleck felt that way. He probably felt amazing because he got everything off his chest. It was like a two hour therapy session, which is what Howard Stern is going after. He wants to get to the heart, to the gut, to the rawness of Ben Affleck. Howard Stern wanted the interview that he got because it was honest. It was exploratory and self evaluating all the things that Ben Affleck said. And even when he was discussing all his movies in his past, you know, Good Will Hunting, talking about Robin Williams. He talked about growing up in Cambridge, Mass. Growing up with Matt Damon. He talked about his Hollywood grudges, the snub with his film Argo. It was an interesting interview if you were interested in Ben Affleck, but it was also kind of, kind of manic. He ping ponged all over the place and your head almost hurt trying to keep track of everything that he was saying. Freewheeling might be fine if You're Lin Manuel Miranda and you are doing his shtick, you know, his rap singing, and you're just freewheeling. That works, and it works beautifully, but it never, ever works in a media interview, and it never works in a media interview when you are someone who has a reputation that can be hot and cold, can be good and bad, and where the spotlight is always on you. So the rawness and relatability, it definitely helps, like showing your authentic you. And the parts of that interview with with Ben Affleck certainly showed that those were like, real highlights. But when you're too raw and you're too relatable in the sense that you're almost giving too much information to the point where it makes someone feel uncomfortable, well, then they can't help but start digging for the real story. Which leads us to lesson number three. If the press does pick a part of your interview and you don't like it, don't complain. Now, I know again that bias. Does the media have a bias? Do reporters to press newspaper, do outlets, do they have a bias? Of course. We see it all the time. There's a bias. We see a conservative and a liberal bias in our cable news channels and some of our newspapers as well. Reporters, commentators. There's just a bias everywhere. And Ben Affleck in this interview even talks about how he was loved, the beloved, you know, Hollywood giveth, and then his reputation just soured. Hollywood taketh away. And he brought us kind of on that journey, which was fascinating. So he's absolutely right. But this is where he was. I felt wrong. It was framing that he frankly probably had to do. But it still lands with a thud. Because if you prepare properly for an interview and you have a key message, like you have an agenda and you have a key message in mind that you want to get out in that interview, then you should never have to worry about that problem, that the press is going to take things out of context. Because reporters want to tell the right story. They want to tell the accurate story, because if it's not accurate, they have to retract it, and they don't want to do it. And editors don't want to do that either. And Ben didn't see it that way. Listen to what he said on Kimmel about this part.

And I started seeing all this stuff come up on Twitter, and I was like, what is this? And I sort of researched through it and then saw that one of these websites had done the clickbait thing of like, you won't believe what he said. Click on this come to our site, right? And I looked on it and they had literally taken the conversation that I had had for two hours and made it seem as if I was saying the exact opposite of what I said. I had gone on and said, like, how much we respect each other and cared about each other and cared about our kids and put them first and went through our stuff. And he said that I had blamed my ex wife for my alcoholism and that I was trapped in this marriage. Like, just made me out to be like the worst, most insensitive, stupid, awful guy.

Is he right? Did the press or one website, as Ben said, take the one part of the story and share literally the exact opposite? Yes, but no. They quoted Ben's quote. They did not misquote Ben Affleck. They used the quote of one statement, one sentence. And granted, there was a much bigger story, but there is no rule that says the press has to use every single nuance of your story. If they did and they captured his two hour interview, the entire 15 pages of a website would be dedicated to the story about Ben Affleck. They have to take the parts that, yes, are clickable, that people want to read, but they have to take the parts that are relevant. And I'm sorry, Jennifer Garner. Everybody knows Jennifer Garner. Everybody. You know, a lot of people see her on Instagram. Everybody knows about Ben's relationship with JLo. People are interested. The press took the one interesting line that he said that he probably didn't even remember saying, and they ran with it. And yes, it was a line probably to go viral and that's what happened. But he did say it. Now I get why he did this, for the damage control. Because what did not come up a lot in the interview he's definitely touched on, it was Jennifer Lopez, J. Lo. Hello, J. Lo. Ben and Jen Bennifer. They have spent so much time and energy and money on their publicity campaign. I call it the A Rod revenge tour because JLo used to date a rod. And I feel like she's trying to make him jealous and hype her brand. So who better to hype her brand with than her old boyfriend, her old fiance, when they created the first mashed up name of Bennifer, nobody was bigger than them in the paparazzi days, when they were engaged, when paparazzi was a thing. But Ben Affleck's reputation suffered for it. So I'm really surprised that he actually hooked back up with J. Lo. But he thought, you know, maybe lovey dovey photos and me in great outfits and Suits and jackets and wool coats will be the thing to kind of, kind of put my act together. So I get why they did that. But for all the effort that they're putting forth on this publicity campaign, why do you have a publicity campaign for eyeballs? So people pay attention to you. So people go to your movies, which Ben Affleck has coming out and JLo has coming out as well. It's a part of the machine. It's a part of the game that Ben Affleck is playing. The light is already on him. And that spotlight, when it just happens to shine on one sentence, well, he really can't complain. So why really did this Ben Affleck interview go sideways? And what can anyone learn from this? The fact is, as I touched on in lesson number one, Ben was too relaxed in that environment. It wasn't the right format for him. He was too nonchalant. He. I've mentioned this on the podcast before. One of the mistakes that you can make in a media interview is a assuming that it's a conversation. And that's the masterstroke of Howard Stern. He makes people comfortable. When he started the interview with Ben Affleck, the first thing he did was start asking him questions about Prince and Prince's song Bat Dance to the Batman movie, which Ben Affleck starred in. And he wanted Ben Affleck's opinion on that, which he gave it. And it started very, very conversational. But I had asked on Twitter last week what people thought of this interview. And most people that got back to me, you know, had said, you know, it was too freewheeling. Jody Fisher, who was on the podcast a few weeks ago, he said, in my mind, Affleck's performance is everything. A public relations interview should not be. Freewheeling and unscripted. The polar opposite of the Alec Baldwin interview with George Stephanopoulos. And that is true. Scripted to almost a millisecond. Brad Phillips, Mr. Media Training, who's also been on the podcast, he said, honestly, my biggest takeaway is that he's still quite vulnerable. The biggest question I would have asked him before proceeding would have been, ben, are you sure you wanted do this now? The opportunity will still be there six months from now. How about we punt a little longer? And Tatya McKenzie, she had said, here's the thing. The authenticity has translated to forever fans to him, for him, which is true. I'm one of them. There's a large portion of the population that still crave and appreciate an unfiltered, unrehearsed response to Real life questions. His well rehearsed girlfriend may not like that, but I dig it, and I agree with. With all three of them. There's one more response I wanted to mention, and this is from Brian Buchanan, who said that, yeah, Howard is a terrible interviewer. Ben talked about criticism in Hollywood, reminded him of his dad's criticism. And the next question by Howard, did the criticism in Hollywood remind you of your father's criticism? So constantly talks over the people he interviews. He's awful. So I agreed with Brian that Howard wasn't on his A game in this interview. And I think the reason why is because I think he was unexpected. He was. He was surprised. It was an unexpected almost gift that Howard was given with the realness and honesty that Ben Affleck was giving him. And he didn't quite know what to do with it at that time. Howard Stern isn't doing as many interviews as he used to do, you know, daily. So I think he's not as quick with his interviews. So I think this one kind of threw him a little. But Howard Stern still, though, is a master at people getting comfortable. And that's when I knew that this was gonna be bad for Ben. Like, right off the bat, right after they started talking about pr, it just moved right into a conversation. As I mentioned, Ben was in his studio in his home. In the initial remarks, he said the mic that the Howard Stern show sent to them wasn't working, so he had to use a mic in his office from Walmart. So you're getting a sense again, of that kind of freewheeling, loosey goosey, not prepped for it. When you watch the video, Ben's leaning back in his leather chair. I do like his wardrobe. He was wearing, like, a cream sweater. I thought that looked good. He was also smoking. Ben Affleck was, which I would assume he did that to take the edge off. But sometimes in an interview, you want your edge. I was at a workshop last weekend. In the training, one of the participants had said to me, we had talked about being nervous when you speak, and he was a lecturer at one time in a college, and he had said, you know what? I kind of like the edge. It keeps you on your toes, which is so true. So in a media interview, you don't want that to come across as nerves, but you want to come across as focus. And that's what Ben Affleck did not have. The fact is, Ben Affleck did not take that interview with Howard Stern seriously enough. And then when the press pulled out one line that he had said word for word. He got upset about it. So now what do you, the average person, the non Hollywood star, what can you take from this? How can you prevent something like this happening from you? So maybe it's not Howard Stern, but it could be a local interview at a television, radio, newspaper. It could be an industry newspaper. It could be anything, right? Anyone could be taken out of context at any time. Person in the street interview, you know, anything can be taken out of context. Each podcast, I offer an indestructible tip. This is the one leave behind that I want you to get from this podcast. And here it is. If you ever go into a media interview, you want to have a clear goal in mind. Do not speak to the press just because they asked you. Think about what do I gain from sitting down or from speaking to this reporter? And if you agree to that interview or the person you are advising, what is the goal of that interview? Why are you there? And then create a key message around that goal with supporting talking points. You could use facts, you could use anecdotes, but you have to have a goal. Ben Affleck did not have a goal. Ben Affleck's intention for that interview was to discuss his new movie with George Clooney. But what happened instead? It was an interview that created damage, and then he had to go into damage control. So here are the three key media interview lessons for you again. Number one, decide if the media interview is a good idea and if it is, if the answer is yes, make sure the format is the right format for you and for your skill set and for your preparation. Two, raw and relatability can be very good. The real, authentic you in a media interview. Oh, that can shape your reputation in the best ways. Realness works in an online environment. People are drawn to it. But an unscripted interview can cause problems. Be raw, be relatable, but be prepared. And three, don't complain about the press when they take you out of context. A quote is a quote. Yes, there is bias in the media. Of course it's there. But the press will not write a story and will not quote you if that quote didn't exist. So make sure that you have an intention when you go into that interview. Have your quotable quotes, and for every bad quote that comes out of an interview, like the quote about Jennifer Garner and feeling trapped, make sure you have a lot of good ones that can be used as well. So that's all for this week on the podcast. You want to check me out on Twitter? Molly McPherson I'm in the last two weeks of my PR response tips. All year I've been pulling the three takeaways from each podcast episode. So check them out. You can use them, you can retweet them, you can copy them. I don't care if it helps you take it. They're yours. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.