192: A Week in Press Conferences: The Good and Not So Good with Warren Weeks

What a week it was in press conferences. From the good to the not so good. Welcome to the Indestructible PR Podcast, where we use current events and tested media and PR strategies to help prevent or manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. This week on the podcast, I'm speaking with one of my favorite guests, media trainer Warren Weeks. I asked Warren to join me to talk about this topic because he joined me and members of my indestructible online community for our monthly training. It was all about media training. And after that conversation, I said, hey, let's hop on the podcast and let's chat about two things that have been in the news. The first was the press briefing by Matthew McConaughey about gun violence and responsible gun ownership. He spoke at the White House in the briefing room, and I also wanted to speak with him about defensive coordinator Jack Del rio from the D.C. commanders. He had a not so good press moment. It wasn't a press conference. It was more of a media scrum after a practice. But he got himself into a bit of hot water there. So Warren and I talking about press conferences, the good and the not so good. Take a listen, Warren. It's our second conversation of the day.

It is. Thanks for having me here.

Well, thank you one for taking the first part of our conversation with the Indestructible online membership. You did your latest media training and some of the tips, and every time I talk to you, you always drop in new nuggets of knowledge.

Well, trying to keep it fresh, I guess.

It's good. Now, let me just start off here. So we're going to talk about two current events, two current press conferences, but I'm just going to check in. It's been a while since you and I spoke last, but are you noticing any changes in the environment, in the media environment?

Nowadays, everyone seems a little on edge, I will say that. And I think it's exacerbated by Twitter. And now that the pandemic is kind of winding down, I think people are a little prickly. And then the media. I think what we've seen over the last decade or so is just a continued deterioration of the media, the revenue models, less reporters doing more work. There's a lot of stuff that's not getting covered. And so it's a bit of a dog's breakfast overall.

Oh, a dog's breakfast. Is that a Canadian.

Is that a Canadian thing?

Yeah, exactly. Well, what does that mean, a dog's breakfast? A hearty breakfast. There's. Oh, There's. Oh, a mess. Okay. All right. I like that. I got that. I might. I might swipe that. All right, so we're going to focus on two areas of media analysis. The first One is Matthew McConaughey's remarks to. In the White House. In the White House briefing room, certainly. I don't even know. Warren, I'm just asking you. You have obviously been following the shooting in Texas. I know it's not your home country, but have you been following what happened in UV Day?

Of course. You can't not see it. And I think, what, 21 people died. It was outrageous. And then the response and the PR team and the police and the mom going in. That's my spirit animal right there. That would be.

Yes. The mother going in. Tell me just quickly, as a Canadian, what do you think when you see a story like this?

I think everyone who has kids, you shudder, just imagining what happens. What happens if that's my kid? And the hypothetical question that I was asking myself, because people were complaining about and who knows, here we are, Monday morning quarterback and everything else. But would the response have been different if there was one child of that police team in that room?

Yeah, I know it does make you wonder. And my podcast last week was about the response and what to do and an ambush interview and what to do when you're just not prepared. And I think on a small town like that, that's what it down to is they simply were not prepared to make sound, rational decisions. But off of that, off of that tragedy, that shooting, we saw one of Uvalde's own, actor Matthew McConaughey, who went directly to his hometown after hearing about the shooting he was on. He was recording, was on a film shoot, I believe, and came down and did something about it. And certainly we see a lot of performative actions by actors and celebrities, but Matthew came down and wanted to do something about it. So what did you hear about the Matthew McConaughey reaction?

Well, the first thing I saw was you talking about it online.

Oh, me? That was your first blush of it?

Yeah. And you're living your life. You're out doing things, and people were busy picking up kids, dropping stuff off, picking up groceries. And I kept hearing Matthew McConaughey's in the White House talking about guns. What.

What is happening here?

And then it was on Twitter. And overall, the sentiment, I thought, was very positive. A lot of people scratching their heads like, why is he there? And I guess it's because he was born in the town. But a very Persuasive speaker, very popular actor from people who. I obviously don't know him, but people who do say he's a really genuine, sweet guy, very thoughtful, different. He's wired differently. And if you've read his book, it's just. Even the way he tells stories, it's. He's a very unique individual. But it seemed like a weird fit. But the overall, the sentiment seemed. It seemed like they're like, how do we fix this? How do we change this? Because whatever's working, whatever's happening right now is not working with the whole Second Amendment debate. And here I am as a Canadian chirping in on this. But to me, it feels like they're just trying to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. And it seems like this has kind of resonated because his messaging was a little different and maybe using that celebrity, I don't know. But overall, it seemed like it was a good move.

Actors, celebrities are accused of being performative all the time when they speak out on issues or show up at issues. I happened to mention on TikTok maybe the week prior, I had noted I was discussing Beto o'. Rourke. Beto o' Rourke, when he ambushed the press conference. And then I had mentioned I tagged on Meghan Markle because she showed up to place roses, you know, at. At the school. And I had remarked that I felt it was. That the world did not need to see Meghan Markle there. And in TikTok world, talking about Meghan Markle's like, it's third rail. There's just. There are third rail categories. Amber Heard is one of them. You know, gun violence, if you get into. But Meghan Markle. And I like Meghan Markle, but I am critical of her because I think her team is. Is doing such a poor job with her or she's not listening to anyone. But I had stated that I didn't really appreciate. And she's a celebrity. I don't even consider her really royal anymore. I mean, she's ex royal. But there was something about her showing up to lay the flowers. It didn't feel like the right move. And in contrast to what Matthew McConaughey did, I think it's more effective. Like, what do you think of those performative actions?

We kind of talked about this when we were doing the webinar a little while ago, right. It's like, who is it about when Matthew McConaughey does it? It seems like it's about the public, it's about the kids. It's about the stories, it's about the families. When she does it, it's like, hey, guys, don't forget about me.

Hey, everyone, I'm here. And I thought the timing of it too, because she was heading over with Harry to the Jubilee. And I'm sorry, I highly scrutinize mar moves like this. That to me is a publicity move.

How did the, how did they know to show up with their cameras? You know what I mean? Like, the press briefings were sent out, emails were sent out, security was hired. Like, this is, this was not just, oh, she's there by accident.

I know. Well, people on TikTok told me otherwise. What is wrong with her showing up? There's plenty of other people who just show up. She didn't bring a camera crew with her. Well, whether she, I, I, I'm sure that there was a camera crew with there, but at any rate, people certainly let me have it on there. But the piece about Matthew McConaughey on, on Tik, which you and I talked about, like, holy TikTok, like, what, what a platform. It just makes me like, I'm in shock by that platform and what goes, what goes viral, you know, how the algorithm works. But in the beginning, you know, so many people were quite laudatory of what Matthew McConaughey did in my replies. But then you get the thread of people who said, oh, he's just pandering. And he why do we care about actors? So the idea, the point that I had made in there, why I thought it was such an affair, effective statement that he made, or at least his team made. I was, I was picturing Matthew talking to his team, like just spouting, you know, and just giving ideas. And then someone was, was writing it and putting a structure behind it. But why I thought it was so effective is he started by, he had an intention and he had a problem that he had to dodge, which was explaining how he could be an advocate, you know, about gun violence and controlling, you know, guns ownership and use, while being a gun owner and knowing probably that there's anyone who could come out of the woodwork, you know, with photos of video, like, well, Matthew, what, what did you say when you had the gun at this point? And he, and in his remarks, he went back to the past. He talked about being a child in Uvalde and why he, and how he first learned how to use a BB gun. And he created the sense of place and created a story and narrative about how he was, was a responsible gun owner and how that responsibility was rooted in Uvalde. So it was this poetic irony of his speech that I just found it so effective.

Yeah, it was. Because the two sides of the argument are we want to take your guns away and the other one is you're going to take them out of our cold, dead hands. Wasn't that Charlton Heston's line or whatever? And so he's somewhere. And I'd like to think this is where we are in Canada. There are of a lot, lot of gun owners. I was just in Alberta last week. That's like the Texas of Canada and many, many gun owners. But there are rules, there are regulations, and so I can't see the states going to that extreme. But I think he mentioned some of the proposed recommendations, like, why don't we raise the age for you to be able to buy a machine gun to 21? Is that a huge problem? Have background checks? Is the person going through a divorce? Do they have mental health issues? Are they psychotic? Does it seem like that? Problematic? But this is lobbying and people just dug in. Politicized. It's a really big issue in the states. But I feel so weird being a Canadian chiming in on this. But these rules, like the Second Amendment, people were shooting muskets when the stuff was written. It took you 30 seconds to reload. And it's scary. We've had a couple lockdowns in my community. I live in this very suburban, safe neighborhood in Canada. But. And it was, you know, someone brought a BB gun to school or someone thought they saw something and the whole school is shut down. There's SWAT teams there. This is an overflow or an aftereffect of what's going on in the States. You have these massive mass shootings and everybody is on a heightened sense of alertness and everyone wants to be doing the right thing. And so. And I'm sure this is not the only community where this is happening. So I think it's having a huge impact. And, you know, something's got to give. There are more guns than people in the U.S. yes.

And I don't know, there's something about this school shooting that feels different. The response feels different. The passion, the advocacy, the. Just the voices. It seems like the. The needle has moved. I mean, certainly from this. It just. And I don't know. And just the media environment that allows social issues to have more weight and heft to it. I'm just. I'm just noticing the impact of it. So let's move from a really effective press event to a. To the opposite end. Of the spectrum and a really bad one. Now I know as a Canadian, you do not actively follow the NFL. You're more of a hockey guy, but certainly you're a newsy Warren like me. So you saw the video briefing from the Washington commanders, the defensive coordinator, Jack Del Rio. Did you see it?

I did, yeah. And hey, you know, we have, we do have football up here.

Oh, oh, yeah. Different. Different type of football. Right. Every. Actually I.

One of my first jobs when I got out of university, out of my journalism program, I worked for free. So it wasn't really a work. But I volunteered as a communications coordinator for the Hamilton Tiger Cats, which is the cf. The CFL is actually older than the NFL. And there was a time. It is, it is. And there was a time back in the 1970s when CFL players made more than NFL players. That day, sadly, is. Is gone. But I worked for the team and yeah, I followed the NFL and it was. It's another one of those stories where, you know, is it. Is it much ado about nothing but this when you're working for an organization? This is the kind of thing, this is called self inflicted damage. Like we have enough things to do and they just change the name of the team and they're trying to get a new stadium. We don't need staff members having political interviews. Right. Like, and I'm looking at the comments and like you said, like, Shirley Pants 32 thinks Matthew, like, okay, everyone has their opinion. You've been in this business for like three decades. You know, I think it's about three decades as, as people who work in leader, as leaders in those organizations, like, we don't need this. Like, what's the upside? What's the. You might have these opinions. Save them for the bar when you're having a drink with your buddies. Save them for the dinner table. I think it's. Again, I don't know this individual and I feel like a Monday morning quarterback, pun intended. But when you see interviews like this take place, he's just. You heard that term stay inside your lane, which is kind of like an offensive little term. But like, when it comes to this, if he got asked that question, just say, hey guys, let's stick to football for today. Right? And just like, just talk about being a defense. And it's ironic. The guy, he's like a defensive specialist and he like totally got blindsided by this. I know.

Yes, that's. That's a good choice. Yeah.

Spontaneous word choice and you're trying to think through an interview in real time and probably this little selection of four or five words comes up, and he chews his dust up. I don't think there's any malice attached to this. I don't think that it was a negative intention, but it was just the wrong choice of words, especially for folks on the other end of the political spectrum. They went bananas. And then you have his apology on Twitter and everything else. It's super avoidable. First of all, stick to football. Don't make up your interviews on. On the fly. And, like, what do they say? There's. Don't talk about religion, politics. What's the other thing?

I don't. The sex, the insurrection. Oh, you're not supposed to talk about sex.

Like, in. They say in polite conversation. Stay away from those topics, and you should be okay. And I think when it comes to media interviews, it's probably a good idea as well.

So some of the lessons here. Did you say telling someone to stay in their lane is offensive?

It has the. Through the pandemic, it. It had the. It just has that little flavor of, like, someone scolding you, like, hey, stay in your lane. Like, you'd have people commenting on something, and it was always said in a derogatory way. I mean, it like to. To help yourself, like, protect your reputation, protect your team. If you are a plumber, why would you be giving. Why would you be answering questions about nuclear physics? And if you're a football coach, why would you be talking about one of the most polarizing events that took place in your country in the last 50 years?

Yeah, well, when you had mentioned that. Because my first tweet about it yesterday was about staying in your lane. And I thought, what. What have I missed? Have I offended without knowing?

No, it's. You're correct. But it's like, it has. It has a little bit of, like, you know, it's just the way it's often been used. I think it. It's like thoughts and prayers. Right. The term thoughts and prayers 10 years ago meant thoughts and prayers. Today, it kind of means the opposite. Because it's been attached to the nra.

Yes. And also I think thoughts and prayers is on its way out. Like, as an official response, we're still going to hear it, but I think people now intentionally are not going to use it because it's been such a. It's now. Yeah, it really. It really is. So I like looking for lessons. Right. You know, so Jack Del Rio, so he is, you know, defensive coordinator. I mean, he's not at the top of the food chain by any means. But he is providing us with just fertile soil to work from here of how you can, you know, recover from these situations or not get into them in the first place. But it shows how his disregard for just the press, you could see if you listen to it, and also just disregard for just that media scrum. I mean, it wasn't really like a planned press conference. He was just speaking after practice. So I'm going to play the clip of what he said and then we'll chat about it.

A simple question. Why are we not looking into those things? We're going to talk about it. Why are we not looking into those things? Because it's kind of hard for me to say. I can realistically look at it. I see the images on tv. People's livelihoods are being destroyed, businesses are being burned down, no problem. And then we have a dust up at the Capitol. Nothing burned down. And we're not going to talk about. We're going to make that a major deal. I just think it kind of two standards and if we apply the same standard and we're going to be reasonable with each other. Let's have a discussion.

Okay, so Jack Del Rio is saying, let's have a discussion about politics. So he was to set the context here. He was comparing the insurrection on January 6th as, as he's labeled now, a dust up with what happened in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis and then the ensuing riots that happened. He was trying to weave the two together. I would say one of the biggest mistakes is he is not a sociologist, he's not an academic. He's not someone who we need to hear from. He's a defensive coordinator from a football team that is already dealing with toxic issues and problems. Right. Wouldn't you agree?

Yeah. It was an unnecessary interaction with the press. And you talk about lessons. The lesson is, first of all, and I sound like a broken record and obviously I'm biased, but media, trainer, spokespeople, I've been in sessions with folks like this. They sit at the back of the room, arms are crossed, looking at you with that look like, I don't need to be here, I don't need any of this. And over time, you kind of win them over. We're not trying to lecture you. This is an insurance policy for your career. And people have lost their jobs based on those little interviews. And especially in the sports realm. There was a hockey player. Again, go back to hockey. There was a hockey player here for the Calgary Flames 10, 15 years ago. Mike Camilleri. He did an impromptu little chat with a journalist in the basement of the Bell center in Montreal where they played. And they were going through a losing skid of games. And the journalist just asked him, like, why are you guys in this funk? Why do you keep losing? And his intention was to say, we have the wrong mindset. We're approaching the game like losers. We're approaching it with a losing attitude. And then the story comes out the next day. Mike Camilleri calls teammates losers. And within 24 hours he was, oh, no, it was in Montreal. And within 24 hours he was on an airplane. He'd been traded, gone, his career irreparably harmed by this little thing that he said. And I have no doubt he blamed the journalist. And I have no doubt this the defensive coordinator. You blame the journalist, right? It's the easy thing to do. And it's completely on you. It's so preventable. And the tips and the tricks and it's. Go to Google. How to handle a media interview. What should I do? This stuff is free. It's so funny. Why do companies like United Airlines and Boeing, these multi billion dollar organizations, why are they so bad at this stuff? It's not about money, it's not about assets, it's not about access. It's about mindset and leaders making the decision. You can't get good at this stuff on the day that it hits the fan. You have to build those muscles ahead of time. They talk about leadership training, they talk about executive training, they talk about diversity and inclusion. But there's this huge blind spot of dealing with the media. And everyone thinks, I watch cnn, I know how to do this, or I watch Fox, I know how to do this. It's different. And so my big takeaway is find someone, train your people, do practice interviews. And I guess, yes, if you're a defensive coordinator, getting asked about politics, stay in your lane.

Yeah. And when you had mentioned this person in your media training, I know that you can picture this person. And I'm the same. I have had the Jack Del Reyes in my trainings as well. But I always feel in my job too is I go into these situations. Like my, my objective is when I come away, I got to turn this person. Like, I just, I just got to turn them. And where I feel it comes from is two places. Like, one, there's just a fear, it's a fear of meeting that you don't know how to do something. So there's that. But also, even though I don't know Jack Del Rio, I feel like I know the guy. Like, everybody knows this guy. And you're absolutely right. Keep this conversation in the bar, you know, with your buddies, but you feel like he knows best and he's smarter than everybody else. And when the press is out to get him, and even in this as the conference, as it's not even a press conference, but this media scrum, when he was talking after practice, he said, well, I guess it's a news story. And then all of a sudd sudden, you know, then he poo poos, you know, the news and the chatter and everybody else is silly and he's the smartest guy in the room.

Hey, going back, you just made me think of something. Do you think that the Matthew McConaughey thing, do you think that at some point down the road he's going to run for office?

Oh, well, there's definitely the chatter of that, that he was going to run for governor. That was, I think, a number of months ago. I'm not sure. My, my mind gets fuzzy on time, but definitely there's a lot of chatter about doing that. And this could be a form of a trial balloon. To see the response. Yeah, to see how it's going. I mean, in terms of actors going into politics, Ronald Reagan did it at a much different time, and, and people value just being a skilled communicator in the medium of film and then onto television. Arnold Schwarzenegger also came at a time when being a, a blockbuster actor meant you could be a blockbuster politician, buoyed by his wife, Maria Shriver, and the Kennedys. But I don't know, is our world, is our world going to allow an actor to run for a governor of Texas? What do you think?

Oh, why not? And don't you, you don't forget about Donald Trump's amazing acting.

Oh, my God, how could I forget? He has. Maybe I was in the reality TV, TV realm.

Of course, cameo in Home Alone 2 was amazing.

Of course. That's right. But even like the blowback there, do we think, oh, my gosh, we've already had someone do this and look what happened. But yeah, you're absolutely right. We have, we have. Case in point, Donald Trump.

I think we might have the opposite problem. We might have nothing but actors. We might have, like, we're in this world where eyeballs access celebrity and Donald Trump, like, say what you will about the guy, he was pulling the levers of, of media like a, like a puppeteer. It was to see him operate, and he knew exactly what he was doing with all those things. It Was. It's kind of using it for not very nice purposes, but he did it very well. So I think. I think we have the exact opposite problem. We're gonna have nothing but actors.

Oh, that's. That's really interesting. And so when I was moved by Matthew McConaughey's words, I also. I was just relating this story to someone. I don't know if I mentioned this to you, but I was at President Trump's inauguration. No way. Yeah. And. And fairly close. I had, you know, inside tickets there, you know, brought the family. And it was. It was one, you know, very interesting just to obviously be in inauguration and be so close to it. But I was listening and watching the mood of the room, so to speak, in the room, you know, being Washington, D.C. you know, at the Capitol. But when he spoke, it wasn't just the words. Like watching a televised would be different than being there. I felt it's almost like the. The sky, like it was an eclipse. Like everything kind of just went dark a little. But I just felt that his words were so persuasive in that argument that from the time that we walked in to sit down, from the time that we left and we started walking the streets of dc, the mood has. Shit had shifted and his power base became more powerful. And those are from being a persuasive speaker, which Donald Trump is an incredibly persuasive speaker.

Yeah, yeah. I don't think there's been a speech like that one at an inauguration that was very in your face, drain the swamp. Like just name calling to people who are sitting 10ft away from it.

Yeah, you're right. Pretty bold.

Very strange.

All right, so, Warren, that's your prediction, and I going to remember it about actors now ascending into all. Well, we won't call it ascending. Maybe it's just a parallel move, but moving into the political realm with more frequency. But let's just do some takeaways right now. You know, in every podcast, I always add like this indestructible PR tip, like, what is the one leave behind that we can take from a press conference where you need to persuade, like, you know, where opinion is in the press conference conference. What would you say as a tip for someone who is speaking to the press and you're speaking about an area that could be problematic?

I think one of the things that he did really well was storytelling. He had that little girl's pair of shoes. He had pictures of people. He was telling stories about their hopes, their dreams. You need to make it real. And you have to make it relatable for your audience. Many people, when you are writing, whether it's a speech or a presentation or content for a media interview, we tend to think of it from our eyeballs and our brain out. And I really believe one of the most powerful tactics you can do is take yourself out of that seat and put yourself in the audience. I used to be a speechwriter and I wrote many speeches for politicians. Maybe that's why I don't like working with fame.

What?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, Canadian politicians. But I used to write speeches and I would get writer's block because I would pretend I was at the lectern and I was at the front of the room. And what were these words that were going to be coming out of their mouths? And I always got stuck and the words sounded kind of weird and clunky. And then I realized I needed to be mentally sitting in the audience. And when I sat in the audience, the words just came because it's a different viewpoint. You're putting on a different pair of glasses. And so my challenge to anybody, whether you're giving a presentation, whether you're giving a speech, whether it's a press conference or media interview, make it relentlessly about your audience and think, what are the things keeping them up at night? What are the three things they want to know? What are the questions? What's the. That. That fear that they might have? How can I address that? We always talk about the elephant in the room. The thing that we know is there, but we don't want to talk about it. Well, let's just deal with it head on. Make it about the audience instead of about yourself or your organization. And then all of the other content pieces, I find, tend to fall more easily into place.

Oh, I could not agree with you more. In our. In our webinar for our media training webinar for indestructible online, you had mentioned that you worked with politicians. I thought it was from a media training aspect. But you were a speechwriter for them. Oh, that's fascinating. Your advice, though, is absolutely right. Dead on. Right. And Warren, I have to tell you, I was thinking the same thing when I was listening to Matthew McConaughey. I thought that was written for a person to see and hear and feel, you know, that he was so descriptive in his stories and he was so descriptive in his appeal for change, and he did it by speaking to the audience. You are absolutely right. Thank you for sharing that, Warren. How can people find out about you?

Weeks Media ca. That's that's our.com in Canada, ca. So you know or follow me on Twitter. Warren underscore Weeks, you're prolific on Twitter.

And you always give great advice on media training and just, and just how to look at, how to look at doing interviews, how to handle yourself in the press. And I just think you're one of the best. So thank you so much, Warren.

All right, all right, all right.

That's a great outro. All right, all right, all right. Thank you so much, Warren. We'll talk to you later. Later.

See you, Molly.

My thanks to Warren Weeks for joining me on the podcast. You can find out more information about Warren. You can find him all over social media. You could just go to my Twitter and you could find the replies that I have to his great tweets. But you can head over to his website@mediatraining toronto.com or Warren Weeks, Ca. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you again next week. Bye for now.