TJ Walker tells how he got fired as a congressional press spokesperson after telling a Roll Call reporter a bill was unclear. The reporter quoted him on the front page. Walker's lesson: never repeat a reporter's negative framing, because it becomes the soundbite they use against you.
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Nobody's born knowing naturally how to speak to the news media. But some people do learn at an early age. When I was in my 20s, I was a press spokesperson for a member of Congress. And I remember one day in the office there on Capitol Hill, these majestic buildings you're in. It's really awe inspiring. The phone rings, and it's a reporter from Roll Call, one of the local newspapers that follows all the policies and all the legislation. Capitol Hill. And the reporter says, TJ I'm doing a story on your boss's legislation, HR 1400. HR 1400 is unclear. I don't understand it, and I'm hoping you could clear it up. I said, sam, I'm happy to. You're right. HR 1400 is unclear. It's being cleared up in committee. And when it does, you'll see it does exit it is why? And I explained it to him. Reporter was incredibly friendly, polite, nice. Oh, T.J. thank you so much. Really appreciate your professionalism. Thanks for getting back to me right away, answering my questions. Appreciate it. Hung up, the phone kind of puffed out my chest, thinking, wow, I am good at this. The reporter's happy, thinks I'm great. And I go home that night, and I go home and I pack my suitcase because I'm so excited. I'm working for a Hawaiian member of Congress, and I'm about to fly to Hawaii the next day. I can't wait. My whole life, I've seen images of Hawaii, the beautiful sunsets, the volcanoes. So I pack my suntan lotion, my Hawaiian shirt, my sunglasses. I walk into the capital the next day, put my suitcase down. There on my desk is roll call, okay? There on the front page is the story about this legislation. Oh, there's my name. According to press spokesperson TJ Walker, quote, HR 1400 is unclear on page C27. This was before the Internet. It was actual paper. On page C27, there were more quotes from me. Nothing particularly bad or critical. I'm explaining the details. But the only quote on the front page is me saying my boss's legislation was unclear. A few minutes pass, the buzzer rings on my phone. It's the chief of staff. TJ I want you to come on into the office. Go into the chief of staff's office, says, TJ I got good news and I got bad news. The good news, you're all packed. The bad news, you're not going to Hawaii. You're not going anywhere. You're fired. Get out of here. Kicked out. Fired. That day. What had I done wrong? Well, I committed the cardinal blunder of using the report. I use the reporter's negative words, unclear. Therefore, I attacked my own boss's legislation. When you call something unclear, it's a form of an attack. An attack is one of the ten soundbite elements. For any of you who've been in my media training courses, you'll know that. So I answered the wrong way. I reacted. I used the reporter's words, I used negative words. It's kind of like when a politician gets caught saying, I am not a crook. Well, what's the only quote going to be? I am not a crook. Now, it wasn't the nastiest criticism. It wasn't harsh, mean, but it was still criticism of my boss. Now, can I claim that I was misquoted? Well, no, I actually said it. Can I claim that I was quoted out of context? I could, but nobody cares because every quote is out of context. You can never complain about being quoted out of the context when you are presenting your ideas to the media. So I deserve that quote and I got what was coming to me. Smart people learn from not their own mistakes, other people's mistakes. So the reason I tell this to you today is so that you don't learn the hard way and lose your job like I do and you actually protect yourself so that you know how to answer questions correctly in a news media interview. Okay, so what did I just do in that story there? I let people know and I use this story when I'm conducting typically a day long media training course. I use this story for several reasons. Number one, I want people to know I'm not just some natural born genius that they can't relate to. I mean, if you go to basketball camp from Michael Jordan, he may tell you some good things, but at some level you're thinking, well, I'm not Michael Jordan. I can't just sail three feet above the rim and slam it down. It's almost like his advice isn't worth as much because he has so many natural gifts. I want people to realize I don't have any natural gifts. I don't have some innate talent for this. This is learned behavior. And I tell them this for a couple reasons. I want them to realize that this is stuff I learned, therefore they can learn it too. I also want them to realize there is a danger of talking to the media if you're prepared. I also want them to know that there is a very specific danger of using a reporter's words back to them in an interview. So there's actually a couple of lessons there. That's why I use this story.
