A TJ Walker YouTube livestream segment (The Habit Influencer) teaching media-training techniques focused on avoiding repetition of negatives during interviews. Using Melania Trump’s response to a question comparing Donald Trump to Hitler ("he's not Hitler") and historical examples (Richard Nixon: "I am not a crook"), Walker shows how repeating negatives lets media headlines reinforce the negative. He provides alternative phrasing strategies: answer the question briefly without repeating the negative, reframe to state positive facts or values, and keep responses quote-resistant while remaining honest and responsive.
Chapters
Melania Trump defends her husband by saying he's not Hitler. Was that a good defense?
Speaking the show about effective speaking in public to the media, at work and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker.
So, folks, if you are watching or listening to this program, chances are this isn't your first go around in the media training world. And you've heard the old axiom, don't repeat the negatives in a question. Well, I just couldn't resist because this is the absolute perfect textbook example of why you don't want to do this. And folks, we're not wading into presidential politics as far as trying to advocate for or against a particular candidate. And folks, at this point, if you don't have a firm decision on what you like or don't like about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, I kind of feel sorry for you. And you're beyond the scope of what we try to do in this program. Let's dive right in. Here is exactly what happened. A well known comedian, Louis CK Made an impassioned argument that Donald Trump was essentially just like Adolf Hitler. You can say you like it, don't like it. That's not the point of this commentary. A reporter went up to Donald Trump's wife and asked her what she thought about this. Is your husband essentially like Hitler? Here's what she said. No, we know the truth. He's not Hitler. He wants to help America. He wants to unite people. They think he doesn't, but he does. Even with the Muslims, it's temporary. Maybe he needs to say it in a softer way. He doesn't go after religions. He feels like we need to know who's coming to this country. If not, we don't have a country. That's how he feels. We see how he is. And he wants to unite the country and bring people together and bring jobs back. Now, regardless of your feelings about Donald Trump or his wife, anyone who hears that whole couple of sentences, that whole longer thought would say, okay, well, that's basically positive. That's a good defense. Here's the problem. When you're in politics or you're doing anything with a major spotlight, what was the only quote? Melania Trump, he's not Hitler. That's the quote everywhere. In fact, I did a Google search. This is a couple of weeks after the quote came out, or actually just a little more than one week. When I'm recording this, there were 77,300 Google citations that had the phrase that had Melania Trump her name. Plus, he's not Hitler. So you had Newspaper after newspaper, website after website, where the headline in many cases was Melania Trump saying her husband isn't like Hitler. So what's the net impact of that? People are hearing, trump, Hitler, Trump, Hitler, Trump, not Hitler. And it's just the classic case of repeating negatives and therefore reinforcing the negative. So viewers, listeners, readers, just see Trump, Hitler, Trump, Hitler, Hitler, Trump. Those of you who follow politics regularly and have done so since the 70s may well remember Richard Nixon saying, the president is not a crook. So what were quotes that come out even today? Nixon, I am not a crook. Not a crook. Nixon, crook. Thus reinforcing the axiom that Trump, excuse me, that Nixon in fact was a crook. So how do you get around this and still answer questions in a way that's intellectually honest, fair and rational? More on that in a moment.
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So here's the debate I hear from people, I hear from clients. Well, T.J. you know, that's just the media taking things out of context. Well, guess what? Every quote in every newspaper, TV broadcast, radio broadcast is a quote out of context. It's out of the context of an entire conversation you have. It's not the reporter's job to make you look good. It's the reporter's job to present information in the most interesting, engaging way to the audience. And Melania Trump is saying, my husband isn't Hitler. That is inherently interesting. Whether you agree with it or not, or you think that's good journalism, that's just always going to be quoted. And that's why it is a horrible idea to repeat the negative? So let's go back. How could she have answered that and not dodged the question, but answered it in a way that was still intellectually honest, was still responsive to the reporter, and got her point across. She could have just said absolutely everything the same and just said, you know, when asked, is your husband like Hitler? She could have said, no, we know the truth. He wants to help America. And folks, believe me, I'm not a Trump advisor. I'm not giving her advice. If she had just left out three he's not Hitler, everyone could have deduced that she doesn't believe her husband is Hitler. So no one would have accused her of dodging questions because a lot of politicians, and Trump included, they just completely dodged questions. And ultimately, that's very unsatisfying to reporters and the public. So I'm not advocating that you dodge questions and this is a contentious part of media training because a lot of people who really don't know much about media training think that people like me just coach politicians, executives to be sneaky, shady, duplicitous, and to simply ignore questions and say whatever you want. Well, no, that is not what I advocate. It's not what anyone good media trainer advocates. You have to answer the question, but you have to answer it in your own terms. And you have to do it in a way where you're not repeating all the negative words. So the example I often give in my courses of how to do this, not repeat negative words, reframe the question so you're not dodging the question is this. Sometimes I go to foreign countries where I'm coaching a president or prime minister, and political reporters have come to me and said, TJ don't you feel guilty and ashamed about teaching people how to lie and spin and obfuscate? Now, I don't teach people to lie, but I don't want to say I don't teach people to lie because that would be the quote. And that sounds very defensive and it's reinforcing the perception of media trainers teach people to lie. Here's one defensively saying, claiming he doesn't lie. So people hear, lie, lie. So I don't want to say that I don't feel guilty about my profession, but I don't want to say I don't feel guilty about my profession. That kind of sounds like I have something to feel guilty about. And again, it's negative and it's reinforcing these negative impressions. Guilty, not guilty. People just hear guilt. And yet I do want to answer question, how do I do that? Well, I have to dissect the question first and figure out what part of it can I answer in a way that is intellectually honest but doesn't reinforce negative. So I'm going to. When I hear that question, I don't agree with lying. I don't agree with feeling guilty. Really, all the reporters asking me is, T.J. how do you feel about being in your profession? Well, I can say I feel great to be in a profession where I teach leaders how to communicate effectively to the world about what they're doing. Now, the reporter might not love my answer, but they can't claim that I dodged the question. And no part of that can be quoted out of context in a way that makes me look bad, negative, or stupid. Now, some of you may say, well, T.J. you're still dodging the question. Do you feel guilty? And ashamed about teaching people how to lie and spin and obfuscate. I'll give you another answer that's quite effective. No. By being that short, by being that brief, and by not repeating the words liar, feeling guilty, I make it virtually impossible for the reporter to quote me. Therefore, I have protected myself. So that's the real lesson here, folks, is we can't control questions. The solution is not to tell reporters these topics are off, out of bounds, off topic. You can't ask that. That's not the solution. Reporters hate that. But the reporter gets to pick the words he or she wants to use. You get to pick your words. Someone says, tj, why are you still beating your spouse? I'm not going to say, well, I'm not still beating my spouse. That implies I was beating them. I would answer that. My spouse and I continue to have a wonderful, loving, mutually respectful relationship. There's no way they can quote me talking about beating or not beating my spouse. So that's the real lesson here. Reporters get to pick the words they want. You get to pick the words you want. When you are being interviewed, you focus on that. You will be in great shape. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me today. As always, may all of your presentations and media interviews in life be a huge success. See you next time. I hope that's tomorrow.
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