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How do you deal with unfair questions from the press?

Speaking the show about effective speaking in public to the media at work and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker.

Today's questions come from Andrew Silberman of the AMT Group, well known international consulting firm. By the way, folks, I really do mean this. If you write questions, I will answer them. This show is about you. It's not about me pushing a specific agenda on a daily basis. First question from Andrew, how to deal with unfair questions from the media. So this is a big problem for a lot of CEOs, people with big egos, politicians, they want to sit back and judge the fairness or the unfairness of a question. So, Andrew, I understand the question. It is in fact a fair question on your part. But here's my challenge to you. I want you to reframe your thinking. When you're in an interview, you should be focused on one goal and one goal only. Getting the message you want on a particular topic to the audience of that media outlet. Whether it's live or edited, whether it's tv, radio, print, text, online, it doesn't matter. That should be your focus. Getting the message you want, getting the quotes you want. If you're sitting back and judging and analyzing whether you like questions or not, whether it's a fair question or not, you've already taken your eyes off of your true objective. And this is a big problem. This can lead you down a path of despair. I've seen it happen a million times. Because once you start fighting or arguing with a reporter, that's not a fair question. I disagree with your premise. You're stupid for saying it this way. You get caught up in this whole trap, this whole cycle of negativity, and you allow the reporter opportunities for quoting you, being defensive. And when you defend in the media, you're losing. Are you a crook? No, I'm not a crook. This happened just the other day. As we mentioned on this program, Donald Trump's wife, Melania Trump, was asked, what do you think of Louis CK Saying your husband is worse than Hitler is like Hitler? She said, oh, he's not like Hitler, he's actually. And then the next five minutes of her response were all fine. But what was the only quote, what was the only headline in tens of thousands of websites all over the world? Melania Trump, my husband, not Hitler. So that's the problem with answering questions that way and with being defensive. So the first thing you have to do, first thing I train people in my own media training courses is when you hear a question that strikes you unfair. You have to fight back the desire to correct the reporter or complain to the reporter or whine to the reporter. Instead, you need to simply rewrite the question to, to neutralize it. So let's say, for example, Melania Trump had heard that question. What do you think of Louis CK Saying your husband's worse than Hitler? She could have reframed it into what famous world leader do you think your husband is most like? She could have then said, louis CK Is always a funny comedian, but when I think of world leaders that remind me of my husband, I think of Winston Churchill because he was so outspoken and considered very, very strong. Something like that. The reporter could not have quoted her saying, my husband's not Hitler and it wouldn't have been a complete dodge. So the challenge, the real finesse here, it's not dodging questions. That's what gives politicians, business leaders a bad reputation. It's about reframing the question to neutralize it. So if someone says, andrew, why are you still beating your wife? You don't want to say, well, I'm not beating my wife, that's negative. I never beat my wife. That's negative. And folks, by the way, I don't mean to trivialize a very serious issue. Spousal abuse is serious. But that is the sort of archetypal unfair question, when did you stop beating your wife? We'll change it now to when did you stop beating your spouse? You have to rewrite that question to neutralize it. You can't just say it's a lovely day. That's ignoring the question. It fools no one. You have to rewrite it to instead of when did you stop beating your spouse? You have to reframe the question to can you tell me about your relationship with your spouse? Because that is neutralized, it's a fair question. If in fact you did have some history of spousal abuse, that question would still address it. But let's assume for a moment that you've never beaten your spouse. You could then answer the question by saying, my spouse and I continue to have a wonderful, loving, mutually respectful relationship. And now the reporter can't quote you saying anything negative or defensive or any other problems. More questions from Andrew in just a moment.

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Andrew's next question is as follows. How do you stay on your own point and still actually answer the reporter's questions so as to not look like a politician? Well, that relates, Andrew, to the strategy I gave in your first question, which is you have to reframe these so called unfair questions to make it easy for you. So again, if someone says, tell me about your relationship with your spouse, that should be an easy question for you. Definitely easier than when did you stop beating your spouse? So if you do the first step correctly of rewriting the question in your own brain, you don't tell the reporter, I'm now rewriting your question or the real questioner, I'll answer, no, you do it all inside your brain. The other thing to factor in is what you perceive as an unfair question. Maybe no one else in the world does. It might be a negative question or attacking question or a question that is used to expose some hypocrisy on your part. Doesn't mean it's an unfair question just because you don't like it. You do see this with politicians all the time. Sir, when are you going to release your tax returns? Every presidential candidate has done that for 50 years. Why don't you? You might perceive that as an unfair question, but nobody else in the world is going to perceive that as an unfair question. So you have to factor that in as well. So here's the next step in this process. You say you don't want to look like a politician. Here's the thing. Some politicians are really good at this. Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, back in the day, John F. Kennedy was pretty good at press conferences. The politicians who are good at it are good because they answer the question at some level on their own positive terms. Now also in your question, you ask, how do you stay on point? Let me caution you there, and this may sound contradictory, because as I said at the beginning of the program today, your goal is to communicate your message on that topic to the audience. But you can't do it every single second. If someone, if a reporter wants to ask you about something that isn't really related to the messages you care about the most, you have to answer it. The key is, the real skill is answer it briefly in a bland way that isn't quotable, and then bridge to the messages you care about in a way that is relevant and not in a word for word, quote, verbatim way, the way Marco Rubio did in the 2016 presidential debates where he just went back to boilerplate and said it three, four, five times in one debate. That's not what I'm talking about. But thematically, going back to your message points in a way that makes sense, where there's a logic and it's not message point. One, two, three, sometimes you may go right to three, sometimes to the second one. There's one more question from Andrew in just a moment.

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Last question. And I did keep this as the last one on purpose from Andrew. Why does Donald Trump speak at a fourth grade level or why is it that Donald Trump speaking at a fourth grade level resonates with so many Americans? Well, I certainly have given this a lot of thought. And by the way, those of you listening to this program or watching it, I'm recording this in the early days of June 2016. So Donald Trump has won the Republican nomination. Although not yet been crowned at their convention and had a tremendous success in the primary season, his polling numbers do show that while he has a lot of support among Republicans, he has a negative rating of 68% of voters, which is in fact unprecedented. So you're asking why it resonates? I do think it's because his message. Now, this show is not a political show. I'm not here to condemn any political views. I'm certainly not here to promote my political views. Do I have political views? Sure. On pretty much everything, sure. But I don't want to get into this. This show is about presentation skill. I will say this about Donald Trump. He speaks in a very clear way. You can say his policies are muddled or they're contradictory, but he speaks in a clear way, often using simple language. He has a lot of emotion. He's easy to understand. Regardless of your views on Muslims emigrating to the United States, you know where Donald Trump stands. Regardless of your views of Mexicans and whether we should have a wall, you do know where he stands. So there's tremendous clarity in how he communicates. You say it's at a fourth grade level. I'm not necessarily disagreeing, especially when he starts calling anyone who disagrees with him an idiot, a fool, a disgrace, a jerk. There is an element to kind of a grade school bully. Apparently, some people like that. We'll have a more detailed conversation on this, Andrew, come the fall and next year, based on who wins the presidency, I will make one prediction. If Donald Trump does win the presidency, it will completely upend every single aspect of conventional wisdom when it comes to public relations media training for the last 50 years, starting with the idea that you can never lie to the media and get away with it. Okay, enough said on that topic for now. Andrew, thanks for writing. Those of you who are listening and regular listeners, feel free to send me your questions. And it could be multiple questions. I'll try to go into detail with as much nuance as possible. That's what this show is about. I'm T.J. walker. As always, may I love your presentations in life. Be a huge success.

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