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

Finally, someone has turned Ted Cruz into a sympathetic media figure. And it was done by a member of the so called liberal news media. So Ted Cruz was being interviewed on Bloomberg Television the other day, seen by most as a fairly non ideological media outlet, one of its top two political reporters and host Mark Alpern was conducting the interview. And I guess you have to say he was just trying to be too cute. He started asking lots and lots of questions about Ted Cruz's ethnicity, wondering if Cubans are supposed to like him. And then he asked Ted Cruz to speak in Spanish to another politician. Now, some critics said that Mark Halpern did everything but ask him to play the bongos and sip coffee con leche and sing like Desi Arnaz from I Love Lucy. I don't know if I go that far, but it did seem like an odd interview and violated one basic core principle that I have. Now, those of you who know me know that I mostly coach and train politicians, CEOs, executives on how to be interviewed. But I also do train journalists on how to interview people and how to be on camera. And one of the cardinal rules I have is journalists shouldn't tell executives and politicians how to answer questions, and politicians shouldn't tell journalists how to ask questions. This cuts both ways. Rand Paul has famously violated this rule. He's constantly trying to nitpick reporters and tell them how they should ask questions. Well, that's a huge blunder. But what Mark Halpern is doing, I think, is also a blunder. And I'm also not a fan of political reporters. During political debates, telling politicians you must give yes or no answer. You must answer in five words or two words or less. I think that's phony, contrived in a violation of the basic tenets of interviews. If you want to ask questions, ask them any way you want. Don't tell the person how to answer. If you're answering questions, answer any way you want. Don't tell the person how to ask you questions.