A short training segment (from TJ Walker) teaching a media-interview technique: when faced with a difficult or hostile question, mentally rewrite it into a neutral, easy, or positive question you can answer honestly and without appearing defensive. Emphasizes responsiveness so a fair-minded listener won't think you dodged, and illustrates with an example about accusations of teaching people to lie.
Chapters
Okay, are you ready for the number one tip when it comes to answering questions? Here it is. When you hear a tough question, an uncomfortable question, an unpleasant question, it's your job to rewrite the question to make it an easy question, a simple question, a positive question. This relates to one of the earlier tips about not quibbling with reporters or trying to correct them, or challenging them, telling them you don't agree with their assumptions. You got to do all of it silently in your own brain. You hear a question that you think is tough, mean, stupid, negative, hostile, biased, all that means is you have not done your job yet. It is your job to rewrite the question to make it an easy question for you, a neutral question. Please note not saying you should just ignore the question. I'm not saying you should dodge the question. I'm saying you need to rewrite the question to make it easier for you to answer. You still need to do this in a way that a fair minded person who heard the question, heard your answer, feels that you were responsive in some way and didn't dodge. Let me give you an example. Quite often I'm brought to a foreign country, I'm working with a president of a country, a prime minister for media training or high level political figure. And political reporters may find out and come up to me and start bombarding me with questions and ask me, TJ don't you feel guilty and ashamed about teaching people how to lie and spin and obfuscate? Now that sounds tough, right? That sounds mean. That sounds confrontational. How do I answer that question? Well, I don't teach people how to lie and I don't teach people to lie. But I don't want to say I don't teach people to lie because that kind of sounds like what a professional lying teacher would say. I don't teach people how to lie and therefore I don't feel guilty. But I don't want to say I don't feel guilty about my profession because that kind of sounds like what a profile of a mobster or criminal would say. So I don't want to talk about feeling guilty. So how do I answer this question? I don't agree with the final premise of teaching people to lie. I don't agree with the middle premise of feeling guilty. What is this reporter really asking? TJ how do you feel about being in your profession? Well, now it's the easiest question in the world. I feel great to be in a profession where I teach leaders how to communicate to the world about the good things their organizations are doing, the beauty of that answer is not that it's especially brilliant or there's wonderful quotes, but the beauty of that answer is no part of it can be edited down to make me look negative, defensive, stupid. Nothing can be used from that to make me look bad. And no fair minded person can claim I dodged the question. I answer the question on my own terms. The reporter is going to have to deduce. I don't feel bad about being in my profession without me literally saying that. But a fair minded person could deduce that. A fair minded person could deduce I don't agree with the premise that I teach people to lie without me having to say all that and get my finger prints on it. So of all the skills when it comes to answering questions, especially for people at the highest level of government, politics and business, this is the skill that's most essential. When you master that, interviews are much easier, you don't feel the pressure. You don't feel like you're in combat because you no longer hear negative, attacking questions. You have the ability to to rewrite the questions, not dodge them, rewrite them to make them neutral and easy for you.
