TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

Foreign.

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

My guest today is one of the icons of American journalism. Bob Berkowitz has been a major force in TV, radio and print journalism since the 1970s. He was the founding correspondent for CNN in their White House and presidential coverage. In 1980, he has been a top rated talk show host PrimeTime on, on CNBC, the financial news Network. You've seen him on the Today Show, Good Morning America. You've seen him everywhere. One of my questions to Bob and to all my guests is who are some of your childhood and early adult heroes as a broadcaster? And mine was none other than Bob Berkowitz. Bob, thanks for joining us today.

My pleasure, TJ. You know, I grew up at a time in New York City where talk radio was at its high point. And there were three local talk radio hosts that had a profound influence on me to the point where I decided when I was, I don't know, 12, 13 years old, that's what I wanted to do for a living. I wanted to be a radio talk show host. And I was able to do that in my 20s. But so I listened to three guys. Barry Gray, who I thought was the dean of talk radio host. He was just such an erudite, smart, interesting, curious and in the best sense of the word, interviewer. A guy named Brad Crandall, who again had a perspective on a broader America beyond just my understanding of New York City. And Barry Farber, who I got to work with and be friends with later in life, also was a very smart, interesting broadcast. They all were great broadcasters and he was a master storyteller, the best. And I would toss in another one also. Long John Neville was another very, very, very good talk show host. They were interesting people. They, they had on terrific guests, not just folks who were there to plug a book or a movie or a play or whatever. They were. Just every night you'd hear smart people sitting around the microphones at their various studios around New York City talking about whatever was interesting that day. And I really, I grew up fascinated by that whole concept of interesting, provocative, thought provoking conversation. I loved it. So what was your big break?

Lots of people liked talk radio. I like talk radio and used to listen to AM stations in Charlotte, North Carolina. But I didn't end up the CNN White House correspondent. What was your big break?

Well, to be the I actually, to be in talk radio. I'll get there, there and then I'll tell you about cnn. I was A student at the University of Denver. And I was working at the college radio station there, but I was mainly as a disc jockey. But as I said, my eye and my energy was to be a radio talk show host. And there was a talk radio station in Denver at those days, kgmc, which I think has changed its call letters probably a million times. I don't even know it's still on the air. And I, in those days I had more, more chutzpah, more gall, more cheek than I had brains. And I just walked into the station, I asked to speak to the owner and I, I asked for a job and, and he looked at me like I was a little crazy. But he started throwing a lot of questions at me, questions about what was in the news that day. And I, I guess pretty well. And it was again, it was a time where they wanted to hear the voices of young people. The generation gap was a very big term in those days. And so to have a young person on the air was, I think a smart move by them and certainly was a big breakthrough for me. And it was a great time to be on the air. It was Vietnam, civil rights, fascinating politics, Watergate. And after a while I was commuting back and forth. On the weekend I was working at KGO Radio in San Francisco. And again, I was about 21, 22 years old, something like that. And in Denver during the week, you know, days off to be were irrelevant because I was having so much fun. Honestly, it was just, I couldn't believe that they were paying me to do this. It was just a gas. So I did that for a while and went to Washington. And in Washington I started working for the Associated Press Radio Network, which was after 150 years being in the news business, the AP decided this radio business was here to stay. So they, they started up a radio network. And in 1980, the winter of 1980, I was covering the Republican primary in New Hampshire between Ronald Reagan and George Bush. And I got a call from this guy and he says, you ever heard of Ted Turner? I said, of course I've heard of Ted Turner. Who hasn't heard Ted Turner? He says, well, he wants to start a 24 hour a day all news cable network. Would you be interested in working for us? I said, well, I'd be interested in talking to you about it. I've got a government.

What was your reaction? I mean, now it seems like just an obvious. But at the time a lot of people were highly skeptical that you could have more than 20 minutes of news.

You can't believe the skepticism that I heard from people. I mean, they thought it was going to be a joke. They didn't think it would last six months on the air. And people laughed at Ted Turner. They thought he was, you know, a con man, a huckster, showman, and they didn't take this thing seriously at all.

And he is. He has parts of those things, too.

He is, but he's also a very serious man. And Ted fits my definition of a genius, TJ because one of the definitions that I have of a genius is that somebody who sees the future and then makes it happen. We all have great ideas. Everybody who's listening to this podcast, you, me, everybody has a great idea making it happen and making a big difference with that big idea. Well, that's. That takes a very special person. And Ted Turner is that. Ted is brilliant. I mean, he's the. One of the most interesting people I've ever met in my life, and one of the smartest, by the way. So I really didn't think a lot about it, honestly. I had to focus on. I went from New Hampshire to Florida, to Illinois, then came back to Washington, sat down and had a talk with them. And I wanted to get into television. So this was a perfect opportunity for me. So I did it.

Because unlike a lot of people in radio, you were not one constantly told you had a face for radio.

Fortunately, no. Fortunately, no, I was not. But so I. I joined CNN two months before we went on the air, and it was chaotic, man. We didn't know what we were doing. I thought, this is going to be a mess. And I remember my first assignment was to cover the Ohio primaries. It was Carter versus Kennedy and the Democratic side of Reagan versus Bush on the Republican side. And the first night that CNN went On the air, June 1, 1980, I sat with my producer and my crew at a bar outside of Cleveland because they had a TV and they had CNN and their cable system. Not too many cable systems carried CNN in those days, and there weren't that many cable systems. And we sat there and we watched it for a couple of hours, and we couldn't believe how good it was. And then what was. So I covered Reagan. They assigned me to cover the Reagan campaign. And then when Reagan was elected to the White House, I became the White House correspondent for cnn. And what was interesting to me is that when, you know, everywhere we'd go with the President, Sam Donaldson, Leslie Stahl, John Palmer, Andrea Mitchell, they were the big stars. They would. Man, people would go crazy over them. But when we went into San Diego, I remember this especially San Diego at that time had the highest penetration of cable and CNN was a big deal. We didn't know that I was suddenly the rock star because they. And they would all come up to me and say, we can't stop watching cnn. It's like an addiction. We just, we start watching it, we just can't. Off now. We thought in the very early days of CNN that it was going to be something that you watched in between shows or during a commercial break or between innings. You'd flip over and catch up on the news. And it wasn't. People started watching it and they couldn't stop.

And it's still on today.

It's still on today and making a lot of money and very different from the very rough early days of the network back in the early 80s.

Tell me more about Ronald Reagan. There's so much mythology about him as a communicator. He certainly lived up to the name of the great communicator. Many people just assumed because he was an actor, he could just do everything flawlessly off the top of his head. You were there.

No, he really couldn't. I mean, I think off sometimes he was good off the top of his head and sometimes he'd get himself into trouble. He was pretty tightly scripted as both a candidate and as president. Even when he didn't have a teleprompter in front of him, he had three by five or four by six cards in his hand and he'd read all that.

I gotta ask, what was that like? Because I've had. I've heard people who. Some worked for them, some met with him and said it was kind of weird to be sitting in a meeting with him and he was glancing down at three by five note cards, reading the whole time.

Well, you know, he was a professional actor, so he could work around a script pretty well and make it sound very convincing. But he did need that because when he'd get off message, when he'd get off, sometimes he'd get into trouble. I remember during the 1980 campaign, he said off the cuff that the biggest source of air pollution in America were trees, because trees emit carbon dioxide. And a lot of people laughed at that. And then Jim Brady, may you rest in peace. Jim was the campaign spokesperson. And he came to the back of the plane, the back of the campaign plane. Reagan was up front. He came back and we were flying over some forest area somewhere in America and he looked down and he says, look at those killer trees down There we all laughed and of course quoted him. And. And Ronald Reagan never said anything, but Nancy Reagan gave Jim quite a tongue lashing for that, so he didn't do that again.

Now, I have been told that Reagan was such a serious student of public speaking that he would, first of all, work with his speechwriters for months on a big speech like the State of the Union address, and second of all, spend a whole day doing video rehearsal for a major speech. Speech like the State of the Union.

Yeah, he was. He was a great speaker. He was a great speaker. He connected to his audience and he was incredibly likable. You know it. He did rehearse a lot because that came from his career as an actor. He connected with his audience and his audience liked him a lot. Even those who disagreed with him, they found Ronald Reagan a likable guy, and he was a likable.

You mentioned that he rehearsed. Would you see on the. The official. I mean, the White House typically would put. Would put things on the calendar of what the President's doing. You're just hearing that?

Oh, yeah. I mean, I became pretty friendly with two of his speechwriters, one of whom, by the way, became United States Congressman. So I knew them pretty well. And, you know, they would tell me. They would also tell me which speeches he wrote. He was a pretty good writer and he knew his own voice. And one of the things about being a speechwriter or if you're a speaker, hiring somebody to write a speech for you is that they've got to capture your voice. And that is very, very hard to do if you're able to write your own speech. I truly, truly strongly advise you to do that because nobody knows your voice like you know your voice.

And of course, he had a lot of experience because in the outside years, 76 to 80, he did daily, what, three to five minute radio commentaries that he wrote out by hand.

Yeah. And he would go around the country and he was an after dinner speaker probably at least once a week. So he got a lot of practice at public speaking and became very, very good at it. He was one of the best I've ever seen, really. He's up there. The top two or three.

We can't all have a career as a professional actor for decades before entering the arena. But what are the things that Ronald Reagan did as a communicator that anyone could do? Anyone in our audience, for that matter?

Well, there are two people who knew how to use the pause exceedingly well. And I think the pause is the most underrated tool that any public speaker can use. The pause can emphasize a point. We don't see Reagan except maybe in old film clips these days. But you see President Obama all the time. Obviously, he's still president. Watch Obama use the pause. Reagan was very good at this, too. When Obama wants to to make a big point, he pauses. Now, we were told guys like you and me grew up in radio. Oh, you can't have dead air. Well, Obama uses that dead air, and so did Reagan. To their advantage. That pause was almost a signal to the listeners, the viewers, the people in the audience. What I'm about to say is very important. And he'd pause and then he'd hit his big line. The other thing also, that both Reagan and Obama do exceedingly well is that they use their voice as an instrument to make their points. So again, listen to Obama. When Obama says, and this, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly why America should be doing xyz, he'll change the cadence, he'll change the tone. He'll suddenly go from a lower range in his voice to a higher range in his voice to again make the point. And Reagan was extremely good at it as well. You'll see some speakers. Hillary Clinton is not by her own admission, a great speaker, but she almost comes off as shouting. So does Trump to a large degree as well. Reagan almost sounded, and this is a real compliment to him, conversational when he was a speaker, yes, he knew it was public speaking because I would talk to him, and he was a little different. But he was so natural at it and he was so comfortable with it that it sounded, even if he was giving the State of the Union address, conversational, and most speakers are not that way or that good.

Why is it that so many people who proclaim to love Ronald Reagan, whether it is Donald Trump, but some Democrats, but we saw in Both conventions in 2016, speaker after speaker yelling, whether it was Bernie Sanders, certainly Rudy Giuliani, who can be a great speaker. It just seemed as though they were yelling at the top of their lungs. No idea.

Have no idea. It's a great point. TJ And I watched especially Giuliani, and I said to myself, why are you doing this? I guess you're right. He's not a bad speaker. You know, you and I live in New York City, and so we saw Mayor Giuliani up close and heard him a lot because of he was in office for quite a long time. So I don't know why. I think they think it's going to energize the audience that they're yelling and screaming will energize them. Well, Reagan didn't yell and scream. Obama doesn't yell and scream. Bill Clinton doesn't yell and scream. And I just think it's a big mistake. It sounds unnatural. Cory Booker, who I think could be a great speaker again, has that tendency, though not as much as Giuliani, of yelling at me, yelling at the audience.

Yeah, I was a little more favorable towards Cory Booker's speech, although I thought the beginning seemed a little overly.

Too.

Much, trying to be like Lincoln and a little tribe. But I do think he's a good.

I think he could be better. I think you could be better.

Well, anyone can improve at any age. I think that Hillary Clinton did improve in that she did, for the most part solve her problem of yelling too much. Where I still fault her in her 2016 Democratic convention speech is that she spoke at the same speed and paused the same amount between each word and it didn't sound conversational.

Yeah, I agree. And that's between her and Obama. Obama varies the cadence, varies the speed, varies the tone. Again, it engages the interest of the audience, but it also, he can use that voice and the way he uses it as an instrument to make his points more clearly.

We're speaking to Bob Berkowitz, famed broadcast journalist, also one of the best known media trainers in the land today. For more information about him, you can go to bobberkowitz.com you can also send him a message on Twitter Oberkowitz. You're listening to Speaking with TJ Walker, brought to you by Media Training Worldwide. If you're looking to improve your own speech, your own media skills, then go to mediatrainingworldwide.com or click on the link below in the show notes and you can get a free no obligation online course for both media training and public speaking training. Back to Reagan. Is there anything else you think he does that really isn't that hard, but most people just don't do it? And then I want to move on to some other well knowns you've dealt with.

Yeah, when he would answer a question, he'd go, well. And he was pausing a little bit to give him a second or two to think up his answer. And too many politicians want to just jump into the answer without giving themselves a little second or two, a beat or two to think, what am I going to say here and what is the answer and why is it important for the audience to know it? And Reagan was quite good at that. He was excellent at that. And he always Had a little bit of a twinkle in his eye and he was funny. He could be very, very funny as well. But I think it's a mistake when people in our business, the media training, speech, presentation training, business, advise people to tell a joke in a speech. And I always say to them, I don't know how you feel about this, T.J. i always tell them if you really know the joke is funny and you're really funny and that you know that it's also relevant to the topic you're speaking at. Okay. But don't do it if you have any hesitation about any of the above, because if you bomb in your joke, it will affect the audience and will affect you for the rest of your time standing in front of those folks.

I agree. And I recommend people stay away from jokes when you can make fun of yourself and it seems natural and it's a part of the story. Great. Now, what Reagan did, I thought quite well is he really could retell a joke he saw or he read in Reader's Digest and do it in a way where he didn't seem like he was trying too hard. He still came across likable and it generated a chop. Most people do that. It doesn't work.

He gave me a laugh. I was covering the debate. It was the second debate that he had with WALTER Mondale in 84. And the first debate he did very badly. I mean, he was just, it was scary how bad he was. And people were starting to wonder, you know, has he had a stroke? Is he getting senile? Is he. Is the dementia started to set in. And as we know later in life, he did have Alzheimer's. And so he made a joke about it in the second debate and it was hysterical. He said, yes. I'm trying to remember exactly what he said. He says, as Thomas Jefferson once said, and I was there when he said it, making fun of his age. And he did it just beautifully.

And then with Mondale saying, I will not make your youth and inexperience a campaign issue.

That's Mondale. Reagan said that to Mondale and it was great. I mean, he could make fun of himself and he was just terrific at it, but he was not a mean spirited guy. So he wouldn't, he wouldn't, you know, the things that pass for political discourse these days. I just think if, you know, Reagan were around, he would just, he would cringe. He wouldn't believe it.

Moving on from the White House, you became a very successful talk show host. My first encounter with you was watching your nightly primetime show on Financial News Network, then CNBC where you interviewed anyone and everyone. Tell me who you think some of the most interesting communicators were, what they did that made them really stand out from the normal celebrity politician humdrum.

Well, when I did a business show on cnn on FNN rather, I thought Lee Iacocca was a brilliant communicator. He was a great storyteller and he, he was a natural salesman. But he could sell his ideas and he did it with a sense of passion that was contagious. And you would believe whatever Lee said. You would believe it. And he was amazing. But I remember him telling me a story that stays with me to this day. He said that a lot of his workers on the assembly line at Chrysler plants in Hamtranock, Michigan and places like that could not read. They were illiterate. And so I said, what do you do? He says, what can I do? I said we would make our instruction books with pictures. And I had one of the top executives from McDonald's on who said the same thing. He said a lot of their, a lot of the people working behind the counter were illiterate. And so instead of having the name Big Mac on the cash register, they'd have a picture of Big Mac on the cash register. And that was it. Seared into my memory of that. Here we are, you know, the wealthiest country in the world and we'd like to think of ourselves as the greatest country in the world and we have a substantial number of our fellow citizens who are in the workforce force who are functionally illiterate. And that was, that was a real shocker to me. But they both, both of these executives. I forgot the name of the gentleman from McDonald's but Lee icoco, I just never forget it. The way he looked at me, he just shrugged his shoulders. What are you going to do? You got to work around it. You got to do your.

He was not the first, but sort of one of the first edge of the celebrity CEO who had the best selling books. And he was very much a part of the rehabilitation celebration of the Statue of Liberty and really leveraged his position to be almost a pop icon.

Yes, that's true, but I think he also started the bad trend. You're absolutely right. Lee Iacocca was the first step doing all of the above. And he was one of the first people, not the very first, but one of the first people certainly on that level to do his own commercials. And I see that unfortunately all too often. You'll see it in local television, even in a Big market like New York City, where the advertising agency is playing up to the ego of the guy who owns the Chevy dealership in Brooklyn or in Columbus, Ohio, whatever, and say, oh, you should be on television. You're so interesting, you're so awesome and so appealing. To his vanity, this poor schnook goes on television and makes a fool of himself trying to sell his Chevys or whatever he's pitching, or it's his daughter or his granddaughter or his girlfriend, or it's just awful. Lee Iacocca could do it because he has such tremendous presence and he was naturally gifted as a communicator. Most executives, smart as they may be, successful as they may be, they're not in his class and it's a mistake to do that.

You know, I'm a little conflicted, Bob. On the one hand, I cringe too when I see some stiff executive who is reading a teleprompter and their head is stiff and their monotone and they've got a fancy suit on. But everything else is awful. And there's a part of me cringing for them, but there's another part of me with my media training hat. And I would think with your media training hat where you think, wow, if this person had just spent a day being trained properly, they could come across well too, because very few CEOs get to where they are without being good communicators at some level.

That's true. I agree with you, T.J. except a commercial is different than a speech. A commercial is different than a media interview. A commercial is. Takes a certain amount of, I hate to say it, but acting. And sometimes you're put in a dramatic situation and it looks awkward, it looks fake and it looks phony. Whereas if they're making a speech, somebody like yourself or me, yeah, we can make them much better, there's no question about it. And we could make them better for that commercial. That's true. But it's a different medium from my perspective at least than. Than usually other kinds of presentations. I mean, sometimes they have them doing such goofy things, especially in a local car dealership commercial, you just, it's just cringe worthy.

You mentioned acting and you've interviewed a lot of actors throughout your career. Some, some actors who are fantastic actors, Robert De Niro, Warren Beatty are famously horrible at being interviewed. Who are some of the actors who you think actually did a great job when they were out promoting?

George Clooney's great. He's a great. He's so natural and so comfortable in his own skin. And funny and charming. He's just tremendous. Do you remember Jennifer Beals? She was in sure Flash Dance. Exactly. In the 70s, when I was a correspondent for the Today show, I was on, I was gonna be on the set live with Jane Pauley. I, I, but typically is that I would do, I had a story and Jane would do the setup to the story, introduce me, then I would do another setup and the video story would go on the air and Jane and I would do a little by play afterwards or Bryant, whoever I was doing it with that day. In this particular day, Brian was on the other side of the studio. It's all live, of course. Stage was live, as you all know. And Brian is going to interview Jennifer Beals, who was in a picture which I think lasted in the theaters for about 20 minutes. She did a remake of Bride of Frankenstein or something close to that with Sting. And it was just apparently one of the worst films in the history of Hollywood. And, and clearly she did not want to be out there promoting it. It was going to open up that day. It's a Friday, I remember that. And, and so Brian is interviewing her and she's giving these monosyllabic answers, yes, no, or shrug her shoulders, I don't know. And this is supposed to be like, like a six or seven minute segment, which is pretty long on the Today show. And, and so about two minutes into that, Brian is trying everywhere. And Brian is a great interviewer. I mean, he is just, you know, you don't get any better than Brian Gumbel. And finally he looks at her, he says, I guess we don't want to talk today, do we? Well, I guess that'll be the end of this interview, Jane. Which was great for me because I got another five minutes of FaceTime on television. I was thrilled, but I was watching this like, oh, my God, what is going on here? And it was live television. It was, it was thrilling.

That happens. And Brian Gumbel is in some ways the, I guess the, the reverse or the mirror image opposite of Ronald Reagan. Everyone always talked about how likable Ronald Reagan was, even political foes. A lot of people who have tremendous respect for Bryant Gumbel don't really find him likable.

Well, he would probably agree with you. Bryant was very honest, and Most people aren't 10% as honest as he is. He said, I don't like most people. And it came across. But I think people, and you use that term yourself, they respected his abilities. And I think he proved that there's an old rule in television which I think, for the most part is true that you have to be likable. The audience has to like you. I don't think the audience particularly liked Bryant, but they really knew he was excellent at what he did. He was a great interviewer. He prepared an enormous amount, and nobody was better in a live situation. Faster on his feet and quick thinking as Bryant Gumbel. So.

And he's still around. He has a great show on hbo.

Yeah, Yeah. I almost don't recognize because he's lost so much weight. He looks. He almost looks too thin to me. But. But neither here nor there. But he. But he was. He's just really great. He's top of his class, but not a particularly likable guy. I agree with you. And he's honest. He said, I don't like most people. I don't know that he liked me, but that's okay. I don't care if he liked or not, you know.

Sorry. Hard. Hard to imagine. Of all the people you've interviewed, are there any interviews that stand out? Whether it was a. An edited piece on remote or in the studio is just the best interview and the worst interview.

The worst I can give you real fast. I was doing talk radio back in Denver, and I was again, 20, 21 years old, something like that.

And.

And Jane Fonda was my guest, and I think she was in Denver for an anti war demonstration, Vietnam War days. And she walked into the radio studio, shook hands, very nice, wore a nice jacket and jeans. And she took off her jacket and she was wearing, like, this meshy blouse with nothing underneath it. Now, I'm a young man with real high testosterone, and I'm sitting across a table from her. She has her mic in front of her, I have my microphone, and I'm. And she was a big.

She was a big sex symbol.

Gigantic, both counts. And very nice too, by the way. So I am doing the interview, not looking in her eyes that the way you would normally have a conversation with somebody, but looking at other parts of her body, which were quite revealing. And I was concentrating to the best of my ability on the interview, and I said, well, Ms. Fonda, what do you think of blah, blah, blah, blah? And she. She just pauses. Her mouth is agape, and then she just breaks up laughing. And I thought, again, I thought I'd asked a very straightforward question. And finally she controls herself. And this is again live radio. And I said, what, What? What? What? What did I say that was so funny? She says, do you realize what you called me? I said, no, you called me Miss Fondle. And for me to be speechless was little Freudian slippery, not so Freudian. Yeah, Quite a statement. But she was very nice about it. Years later, I was at a party in Hollywood at a friend of mine's house who was an actor in Hollywood. And she was there with her then husband, Tom Hayden. And I was talking to Tom Hayden, and she came over and she said to me, she says, you look very familiar to me. Have we met before? And I knew we had met before. I said, gee, I doubt I've seen you in movies many times. I'm such a big fan. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You changed the subject. Oh, can you tell me about Clued or whatever, you know, any movies you're in? And she says, I know who you are. And she looks at Tommy, honey, that's the guy. Jane Fondle, you won't live that long. No, no, no. It was a pretty interview that I did that day, I think. One question I remember I asked, which I thought was a pretty good question, was when I was a reporter and A American Airlines D.C. tenant crashed outside of O' Hare in Chicago. And I covered the. It was then called the cab, the Civil Aeronautics Bureau. They were in charge of airline safety, and many people died. It was a horrible event. And they were giving a very dry recitation of the facts. And, you know, they were not giving much information out. And I turned to the guy who was giving the President it was time for questions. I said, would you let your family fly on a DC10 now? He said, hell, no, because that's really what was important. You know, you can talk about the mechanical issues and the manufacturing issues and all that. All which is important. I'm not saying it's not important, but what American people wanted to know is, am I safe flying on this plane? And he said, hell, no, not now. Eventually, they fixed the problem. DC10s were great, and I've flown on a million times. And they're. They were wonderful planes. I don't fly them anymore. I don't think so. That I think what a good interviewer says to him or herself is, what does the audience want to know? And what's the question that I would ask that the audience wouldn't ask, wouldn't think to ask? And what's really. What's this really about? When I was a White House correspondent, one of the things I learned in observing Sam Donaldson, I thought was a really great reporter, was that Sam was really good at getting to the heart of the issue. What's the story really about? Too many I thought reporters in Washington were doing what we used to call inside baseball. The politics, the who's up, who's down kind of part of the story. And Donaldson was really good at saying, what's this really about? He would cut to the heart of the story, cut to the chase of the story. And I tried to do that as an interviewer, too.

We're speaking to Bob Berkowitz, longtime broadcast journalist and media trainer. He has been basically at every network. You and I have similar careers that were both media trainers, but the only difference is I failed miserably at every attempt that I ever had as a broadcast journalist and talk show host. And you succeeded massively and worked your way up the media food chain. I want to get your sense of how strengths and weaknesses, businesses play into people's careers. Because you talk to the average person in my media training classes, your media training classes. They have this sense that everyone in the media is just born abnormally articulate, good looking, everything is smooth. But then you look at someone like Barbara Walters. I know you've worked with her, and she has a lisp, she has a bit of a speech impediment, and she is. Until recently, she was on the air almost every day. She's still occasionally on the air. And she's been on the air for what, going on 70 years. What is her secret to success?

Whip smart. That's number one. Number two, she's exceedingly confident in her abilities as an interviewer and as a broadcaster and as a journalist. Number three, she is unbelievably prepared going into an interview. You know, Larry King was the opposite. I'm not saying one's right, the other one's wrong. Obviously, Larry had a great career. Larry would go out of his way saying he would never read the book because he wanted to be in the position of the person at home watching this who obviously hadn't had a chance to read the book, too. And I thought that was a bit of a cop out, because I would read a book because I wanted to test the author. Usually there were 99% of them were nonfiction books. You know, does this make sense? Is what the author's saying correct or true? I'll give you an example of that. And I go back again back to Barbara Walters. But I had these two people, and I'm drawing a blank on their names. But at the time when I had my show on the Financial News Network, they had. They had a gigantically popular book about trends in the future. Married couple.

And.

And they. Part of that one of their predictions was that that. That in 10 years or 20 years, time up, the future, more people would be going to the Tofflers.

Heidi and Alvin Toffler.

No, no, it wasn't Alvin Toffler. It was. Believe me, it wasn't Alvin.

Mega Megatrends. John Nesbitt.

That's it. Nesbitt and his wife. I forgot what her. Her name. He was John Nesbitt. I forgot what her name was. And Artaflo was brilliant. Tava was a genius, died very recently. But the Nesbits came on. They were saying that in the future, more people would be going to cultural events than sports events. And it just didn't make sense to me. I said, wait a minute, let me think about. And they were talking about the near future. I said, giant Stadium is sold out every Sunday with either the jets or the Giants. And that holds 60, 70,000 people. If you added up all the Broadway theaters together, every single Broadway theater and off Broadway theater, that doesn't add up to that. Yankee Stadium holds 50, 60,000 people that time. Shea Stadium could hold about the same amount and had sold most of their seats. Madison Square Gardens, 20,000 for the Knicks in the Rangers just here in New York alone. I said, it just doesn't make sense. It doesn't compute. And they were sort of hemming and hawing. They walked out and they were sort of cursing me out under their breath. They didn't know I was there right behind them. And so I think without reading the book, they would get away with a lot of stuff that just is wrong or didn't make sense. And I think a good interviewer, in part, has to be almost like a consumer advocate. You know, should you buy this book? Does it. Does it. Will you learn something from the book? Is this book telling you the truth? And Barbara Walters was really, really a tough. I think she's a fair interviewer, but she was a tough interviewer, too. She would really put the person, generally speaking through the paces. Now with actors, she would be a little softer. And she, you know, on those Barbara Walters Academy Awards specials, she would. She wanted to get some tears, I think, more than hard truths out of the. Out of the people she was talking to. But. But she was really good. Really, really good interview. You know, you know, the one question, how you feel about this TG That I hate when actors are asked that when. When they're asked about their political points of view, who they're going to vote for, why they. They believe in this. Who cares? Honestly, who cares? If you want to talk to them about acting. Great. That I'd love to hear because they're experts in acting. They really knows their stuff when it comes to acting. But I don't care about their opinion any more than I care about the person is going to. In fact, I care more about the opinion of the person who's going to clean up the studio long after we're gone that night. Because that person has a much sharper sense of reality than an actor's got a gazillion dollars and doesn't have to worry about making the mortgage or the rent payments every month and getting food on the table and saving money for their kids education. They're filthy rich. They're powerful though influential. Whereas the person, you know, the average working stiff, they have a strong sense of reality, of what it's like to live in America. And those are the people. I'm more interested in their opinion than I am in an actor or ball player.

I partially agree with you, but I do think it depends. Just like there are some really rich CEOs that command a lot of airtime because of their stature. They ran an aluminum company well, so now they want to weigh in on tax policy. They don't really know what's best for tax policy any more than what a Hollywood celebrity knows that our foreign policy should be. I guess to me it just depends if I hear someone like Tom Cruise saying things that I personally think are idiotic. I don't let that dissuade me from going to one of his movies if I think it's a good movie.

I'm not saying that because I mean, I think Meryl Streep is a great actress. I just don't care about her politics. I mean, I haven't agree with her politics, but I just don't care what their political opinion is. But is she a great actress? Absolutely. Will I go see her movies? More than likely.

What do you think of someone like George Clooney, who He really did grow up in a news household. As you know, his father was a news anchor. He has a tremendous interest in news and he, to me, he's not someone mouthing off every day trashing politicians. He uses his celebrity to put a spot spotlight on human rights atrocities in Darfur and other places. To me, in a way that seems respectful and legitimate. Now again, maybe that's just because. Maybe it's just because I like his politics.

I like his politics too. But he walks the talk. He really has taken the time to go into DEF4. He just doesn't, you know, Do a drop in as a celebrity with a camera crew there to record his. His 10 minutes there. He really spends time in these places. He really gets to know the people, gets to know the issues. It's not just sort of a, I hate to say, PR stunt, but a PR stunt is what it is most of the time. Not with him. He really, really gets it. And I think he's the exception to the rule. But look, I guarantee, mark my words, as we get close to the, to the presidential election this fall, they'll be asking some ball players who they're going to vote for. And I think, who cares? You want to ask them about how to hit a curveball. Great. Or how to throw a pass for a touchdown. Fantastic. That's what they're there for. That's what I'm interested in. But who they think should be the next president could care less. Could care less. Fair point, Bob.

You've been in the communication business for decades now. What's different now as far as basic skills needed to succeed?

Well, I think the basic skills. I don't think there's anything different about the basic skills, tj what's different is there, I always have said there's no such thing as off the record. What you think is off the record and what the reporter thinks is off the record could be two different things. Today, there really is no such thing as off the record. Witness four years ago, Mitt Romney thinking that he was at a. A cozy little private reception with donors, and he mouthed off about the 47%, you know, just there to take money from the government. And it was very embarrassing for him because somebody recorded it. And we see that in this campaign as well, there's no such thing as off the record. So that's the one thing technologically that's different. Also, whatever you say, for better or for worse, can get around the world in seconds. Sometimes it's good, and sometimes if you make a faux pas, not so good. So that's different. But the basics of communication is who is the audience? What is the message you're trying to get to them? If they heard three, two or three or four messages, what would they be if they walked away with those messages? Why is that important? I think what's Also really important, TJ is that 90% of our conversation is with ourselves, and we understand ourselves perfectly. I speak, Bob fluently, but it would be a big mistake for me to think that because I understand me, that TJ has to understand me or that any other person understands me. And so I think it is incumbent upon the communicator to take the extra first step, second step, third step, fourth step, to make sure that he or she is being as clear as they possibly can be. So what I was, and by the.

Way, I just want to point out for our listeners, Bob, you have an excellent column on this very theme that people can find on LinkedIn if they search your name, Bob Berkowitz, where else can they find that column?

I think I was on Facebook as well and my Twitter account as well, too. But I'm saying though, is that you have to translate what you mean. You just can't make a statement and say, I believe in xyz. What do you mean by xyz? You have to say, here's what I mean by that, or here's an example of what I'm talking about, or here's why I think this is important, or this is why it changes things, or here's how I came to this conclusion. And I think you also have to go another step even beyond that and ask and answer your own questions. You almost have to read the mind of the audience and say, you know, if I was sitting where you're sitting, I wonder about this, or, you know, a lot of people ask me about that. So you're, you're, you're going so far to, to the best of your abilities at least to make sure that you are as clear as you possibly can be. And I think that is vitally important. And, and that that was as true today as it was 50 years ago. But I think most of us don't do that. Most of us just assume that everybody understands us. And that's a bad assumption. Business fails on bad communication assumptions. Well, I assume you understood what I was talking about. Why would you do that?

For quick follow up on the off the record, we do have a number of listeners who are in the public relations industry, either firms, agencies in house. There is a school of thought that says never go off the record with a reporter. I understand exactly what you mean, that you can't say something wildly inflammatory like 47% of the country is a bunch of leeches and expect that to stay in. But I do subscribe to the theory that there are limited situations where you do need to speak to a reporter off the record. But I want to get your take on that first.

I think you better know and trust that reporter. And two, if it did leak, would it really be an awful thing for you? You can say on background. Let me give you the. To the reporter, which means off the right end of the trooper. Off the record, let me explain, you know, the context of this. You can do that. But if it got out, would it really be that badly, that bad? That embarrassing answer is, no, it wouldn't be. But don't say, I'll give you an example, what I'm talking about. Good friend of mine was a White House official when I was covering the White House ever since. And he was talking to a reporter. And he was a top political guy at the Reagan White House. And the political reporter who was interviewing him, he knew the reporter, trusted. And this guy was a great reporter, you know, a no BS kind of guy. He really wasn't out to fool anybody or pull tricks on anybody. And so the topic was there was a rumor that Maureen Reagan, President Reagan's oldest daughter, was going to run for the Senate seat in California. And Ed Rollins, because Ed has talked about this publicly, so I'm not saying anything behind his back. Ed thought, he honestly thought he was off the record. And Leo, the reporter thought it was on the record. And they were both honorable guys, both honest, honorable guys, just understanding. And Ed said, Jesus, she's the dumbest SOB in the world. She doesn't know what the hell she's doing. She doesn't know the issues, blah, blah. And he's trashing her. And Leo's dutifully reporting it. And it gets into his newspaper the next day, which happened to be a California newspaper. And Ronald Reagan not only being President of the United States, but he's the father. And he calls Ed into the office and gives him what for because there was a miscommunication about this. I have, I have a client who was one of the top lawyers in New York City. He's a top litigator, really. He, he is in some of the biggest cases in the city, really in the country as well. And Ed has a deal with a reporter from the New York Post paper here in New York. But he's known this report for 40 years. So the reporter calls him up and says, Ed, what's the deal about xyz? He says, you know, he says, I want to go off the record. He says, charlie, usual rules. Yes, Ed, usual rules. Well, they have a decades old relationship of trust where they trust each other. But the other thing also is that forget talking to a reporter. Don't put anything in an email that you would be worried about or embarrassed if it got on the front page of the New York Times, the Washington Post. Look what happened at Democratic National Committee when I believe the Russians hacked the DNC's database and these terribly embarrassing emails were leaked. At the time that somebody wrote that email, they didn't have any knowledge that it was going to be public. It was a private email and it was. But it was embarrassing when it came out into the public. Privately, fine. Publicly, not so fine. So don't write anything in an email, don't say anything to anybody that you worry about being made public.

Bob, I want to leave on an upward positive note. I mean the whole interview has been positive from my perspective. But I want to know what advice do you have? If you had a 20 year old niece, nephew, family member come to you and say, I want to be in the media, I want to be a journalist, however that's defined. What is your advice to someone like them? It used to be go to journalism school, get a job at the local paper, make the jump to the wire services, those rules. First of all, try getting a job at a local newspaper anymore. Good luck. What is your advice to someone who really wants to be a full time communicator in the journalism world?

Funny you should ask that question. Two days from now I'm having lunch with a young cousin of mine who wants to know the answer to that very question. And you're right. Traditionally those are the answers that you give. Go to your, go to a small town newspaper, learn your craft, work your way up, radio, tv, whatever it is. But it's hard to do that now. There aren't a lot of those opportunities that there were when I was young. I was very fortunate I could do that. I can make a fool of myself in a small environment before I made a fool of myself, a larger environment.

So.

But you can't do that anymore. But there are blogging opportunities, number one, that we didn't have in those days. And it gives you a chance to hone your abilities as a writer, as a thinker, as a reporter. And I think that's great. You've got to love to write if you want to be a journalist. You just can't wait to get up in the morning and do it. Number two is that you have to be a gigantic consumer of news. You have to love going online or reading a paper, if they still have those when you're, by the time you become a reporter. But going online and just being a voracious consumer of journalism, it's like something, you just love to do it, you can't wait to do it. And number three is. And we also want to love to write about it too. I'm not sure I would suggest going to J school Journalism school. I think you should take some journalism courses to be sure. But I think a good journalist is either one of two things. A He has a great broad education, a broad understanding of the world and the way things work, or he is he or she are specialists in science or the economy or the law, and they're both viable ways. But to be a journalism major, I'm not so sure. That's do take some courses in journalism, but get a good education, a good broad general education or a very focused education. And then connect your knowledge of science to journalism.

For more information about Bob's trainings, his workshops, his seminars, go to bobberkowitz.com that's three W's B O B E R K O W I T Z. We'll include that in the show notes. You can also reach out to him on Twitter oberkowitz. Bob, thank you for being our guest today.

My great pleasure. DJ.

Speaking with TJ Walker is the number one rated daily streaming TV and radio show devoted to all aspects of speaking and communication. If you receive the value from this show, then please subscribe to it@mediatrainingworldwide.com Please review the show, leave comments and share it with your friends and colleagues Today.