A brief video commentary by TJ Walker discussing whether lying to the media during a career crisis can succeed. Walker examines cases (Bill O’Reilly, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump) showing that bold-faced lies, dodging questions, and shifting topics can sometimes neutralize accountability and even increase popularity or ratings, though he does not ethically endorse lying.
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If you're facing a career crisis in the media, should you lie to the media? The answer may surprise you. Look, folks, if there are two things that most media trainers and PR experts would agree on, it's that you should not lie to the media. If you do lie to the media, you will be destroyed. The second thing is that you must answer tough, unpleasant questions in a crisis. If you don't, that will destroy you. And I think both of those things are important to do from an ethical, moral point of view. But it isn't simply true that those things always work out that way. Case in point, Bill O'Reilly over at the FOX News Channel. Now you've probably been following this, but like Brian Williams, Bill O'Reilly has been accused of making numerous, numerous factual misstatements, specifically things like hearing someone shoot himself to death while knocking on his front door in Florida in 1977. This was someone who knew Oswald, President Kennedy's assassin. In fact, numerous, numerous eyewitness accounts have Bill O'Reilly hundreds and hundreds of miles away, a different state. He was in Texas the day that individual shot and killed himself in Florida. This is just one of numerous examples where it is absolutely clear cut proven that Bill O'Reilly just flat out lied. So it's interesting to see how he's handling himself in this controversy. And by the way, folks, this isn't a video on why Bill O'Reilly should be fired. It is specifically just about the basic principle of what if you lie during a crisis and the basic premise that you should never do so. Well, earlier this week, Bill O'Reilly was on the David Letterman show. David Letterman said, is there a difference between what you did and what Brian Williams did? Here is exactly what Bill O'Reilly said. Only if I did something that wasn't true, what I said was accurate and it worked out okay for me because I have even more viewers. That is exactly what Bill O'Reilly said. Now here's the problem with that, problem with it, but also why it in fact worked. Bill O'Reilly is simply lying. But he's smart enough to realize if he just keeps a straight face, stays on message, the news media have to report this as a he said, he said it's just these allegations. Say this. Bill O'Reilly says this. It's different. Make up your own mind. Well, to anyone who actually cares about the facts, Bill O'Reilly has categorically lied. And you could say, well, you know, this was brought up by Media matters and his political enemies and Nation Progressive doesn't matter if they have their facts straight. They have their facts straight. Bill O'Reilly doesn't bear with me. This is the real point. It's working for Bill O'Reilly because he's muddied the waters and people can say, well, there's two sides to this. I like Bill anyway. I'll stick with him. The other thing he's done is dodged the question and quickly shifted to other topics. In all of his interviews and in all the positions put out by the Fox News Channel, they quickly go to the fact that his numbers are up, ratings are up, more people are viewing him than ever before. All true. Completely irrelevant to the issue of whether or not he lied. So in my view, he has very successfully dealt with a crisis, just told bold faced lies, switched to a different topic to divert attention, and guess what? It worked. He's not going to be fired, ladies and gentlemen, if anything happens to him during this crisis, it's going to be that he's going to get a promotion and a raise because in fact, his numbers are up. Now some of you are saying, well, T.J. you're being partisan. You're on the other team. You're on the other side. Let me point out this is not specific to Bill O'Reilly or those with his political orientation. You can make a very strong case that the exact same thing happened in the late 1990s when Bill Clinton was mired in his own controversies in the White House. When the whole Monica Lewinsky story initially came out, the president did in fact, lie. By almost any standard definition of the term, he lied. And it created a mixed viewpoint. And in the view of many voters, it was, well, he says this, she says this, who do we trust? Let's give the president a pass. It was only many, many, many months later where categorical truth came out and the president was proven to be a liar. And at that point, Americans were so disgusted by the prosecutors of the president that that became the issue, not whether the president had lied, but this has worked for other people. I would also argue this is something Donald Trump does regularly. He lies and lies, whether it's his net worth, his positions on issues. He lies. But he knows if you just keep a straight face and you're adamant and you say it with enough energy, reporters are not able to really call you out on it. And they just present a he said, she said, and you're able to win hearts and minds. So I say this not to recommend to you that you should start lying all the time, but I do think if you want to have a serious and intelligent understanding of the news and what happens during crises. You have to understand there are various scenarios that go on and sometimes in fact is a wildly successful strategy to just lie and dodge questions. Not happy about it, but that's the way it is.
