Dealing with Brushfire Topics

Sometimes a special speaker service is set up to deal with a very limited public relations situation. When the state legislature is considering a hill that would limit duck hunting, sportsmen's organizations may set up a special task force to go around the state speaking on "Our American Heritage: The Sport of Duck Hunting." Whenever First Amendment guarantees are threatened, journalism and public relations groups usu­ally field speakers to address civic and school groups about "Our Amer­ican Heritage: Freedom of the Press."

When the speakers' bureau is set up on a "brushfire" basis, phone contacts with school administrators and civic groups listed in the telephone directory can be used to arrange several quick bookings for speakers.

Given the choice between speaking to five hundred Rotarians or just half a dozen reporters, most managers would choose the vast audience of five hundred. There may be an awful lot of them, but at least you know they won't bite.

As awesome as a major speaking engagement may seem, the speaker has a great deal of control over the situation. The press, on the other hand, insists on making its own rules. And, the impact of speaking to a half-dozen reporters is potentially much greater than addressing a huge hall full of people. It can be even riskier than a formal debate, because the rules seem to be made up as the interview or press conference goes along.

Frederick Knapp, president of a consulting firm that specializes in preparing executives to appear in public, calls the media interview the most challenging of speaking appearances because of the probing ques­tions and the necessity of thinking clearly under pressure. Keeping the main point in mind and avoiding getting sidetracked takes concentration.

Another key problem is the fact that most managers can't visualize what a story will look like in print or sound like on the air. The PR prac­titioner should keep clips showing the results of interviews where the spokesperson for an organization understood the task and provided quotes that worked well for the organization, along with other articles that illustrate how the speaker's ineptitude led to embarrassing cover­age in the press.

After reviewing the clips, you can stage a mock interview or press conference for your manager, using PR department personnel as re­porters. Throw a little of everything at the speaker: rudeness, interrup­tions, hostile questions, no-win questions ("When is your company going to stop polluting the river?"), and incessantly returning to previ­ous topics the speaker feels have already been addressed. If you try ev­erything imaginable on the speaker in practice, the actual interview may seem more tolerable and manageable.

Before and after the mock interview, try to impress the following guidelines upon your spokesperson:

1. Be brief. Print reporters who take longhand notes will choose quotes that are succinct and to-the-point. Broadcast reporters need to tape only a few sharp sentences for use. Interviewees who ramble on will be "paraphrased" instead of quoted directly, if they are quoted at all.

2. Avoid being "cagey" about information. Don't ask that some­thing be "off the record"—nobody can guarantee it. "No com­ment" makes the speaker look evasive. Better to say, "I am not at liberty to release that information at this time," giving the reason, if possible. If you don't know something, instead of pre­tending to be secretive, tell the reporters you aren't sure of the facts or figures, but you'll have your PR staff check it out and get in touch with the press as soon as possible. Most important of all, don't get caught telling a half-truth. An enterprising re­porter may check it out and find that you were revealing only part of the story.

3. Maintain a firm but cordial stance. If the reporters are on a first-name basis with you, address them by first name, too. Otherwise use Mr. or Ms. Don't show favoritism to one reporter who is a friend or who represents a "friendly" news medium; the other reporters may unconsciously or consciously retaliate for being put on less-favored status. Above all, don't lose your temper, no matter how boorish a reporter may become. If you threaten a member of the press in any way, that fact will proba­bly become the lead of the news story, not the information about your organization that you hoped to present.

4. When asked a negative question, don't give a knee-jerk, defensive response. Think quickly about the topic raised by the question. What relevant facts can you discuss about your organization's performance in this area? As we have stressed, in the symmetric model it is important to answer negative questions honestly, truthfully, and fully. If your organization has done something wrong, explain what happened and tell what is being done to rec­tify the situation. Without ignoring the substance of the question, try to turn the main substance of the reply into a "plus" for your point of view.

5. Keep calm and try to manage a smile. You're only doing your job, and the reporters are only doing theirs.

Some of the shortest and most effective speeches ever made may not ap­pear to be speeches at all. They're the responses given by the leader of your organization to an interviewer like Robert MacNeil of the "MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour" on public broadcasting. These "answers" should not be ad-libbed. You can anticipate the question, craft a tidy statement, and rehearse your spokesperson to deliver the set speech at the proper time.

Newsman MacNeil, quoted by noted press relations expert Jack Hilton, even expects his interview subjects to take the ball and run with it: "Know what you want to say, and use whatever questions you are asked to say it. Just don't get so fixated by the questions you are asked that you forget to make your points."

Hilton explains why he prepares speakers very carefully to present the points they want to get across no matter the forum or the question: "Only a consultant with an IQ lower than room temperature would permit you to ad-lib in front of an important audience, particu­larly a TV audience."