How to Answer Tough, Nasty Questions from Reporters

How do you answer tough, nasty questions mean questions, vicious questions. This rattles a lot of people, even seasoned politicians and CEOs. Well, for starters, when you hear a question that you think is tough, nasty, mean, all that means is you have not done your job yet. Your job is to listen carefully to the question, to rewrite the question. Please note, I did not say dodge the question or ignore the question. If you ignore a question, it's going to be obvious to a lot of people and they will assume that you're guilty, ashamed of something, and the reporter is completely right in any accusations made. So you can't dodge the question, but you have to answer it in your own terms. So let me give you an example. Quite often when I go to foreign countries, I and I'm working with a prime minister or president or leader of major stature, political reporters may come to me and say, tj, don't you feel guilty and ashamed about teaching people how to lie and spin and obfuscate? Now that sounds like a tough question, doesn't it? How do I answer that question? I don't teach people to lie. But I don't want to say I don't teach people to lie because that sounds very defensive and it kind of sounds like what a professional lying teacher would say. I don't feel embarrassed about my profession, but I don't want to say I don't feel embarrassed about my profession because it sounds defensive and it also sounds like what people say when they're in embarrassing professions. So how do I answer that question? I can't answer the question until I've neutralized it. Again, the question is, don't you feel embarrassed and ashamed about being in a profession where you teach people to lie and spin and obfuscate? I don't agree with the final premise of lying. I don't agree with the middle premise of feeling shame. Let's back it up even further. What is the reporter really asking you, T.J. how do you feel about being in your profession? Well, now it's a completely neutral question that makes it easy for me to answer. I feel great to be in a profession where I teach other leaders how to communicate effectively to the world. The reporter might not love my answer, but they can honestly claim that I dodged the question. And more important, there's no part of my answer that can be edited to make me look defensive, negative, or stupid. So that's the real art of this. And it takes practice. It's hard to do when you're feeling pressure. But if you find yourself saying, wow, that reporter. I just asked a mean question, a stupid question, a nasty question. All that means is you didn't do your job. It's your job to rewrite the question. Nobody cares about your opinion of the reporter's question. Just rewrite it in your own mind to make it an easier question for you. Once you've made it an easy question, the easy answer will follow and you keep yourself out of trouble.