Would you like your team to present your organisation’s message as well as U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris at her best?
And would you like your team to avoid atrocious media interview responses that resemble the worst habits of former U.S. President, Donald Trump?
As ever, this issue focuses on elevating the communication performances of you and your team.
If you’re a citizen of the United States of America, it seeks to do so without trying to influence your personal voting choice in the November election.
The aim is to foster better communication by zooming in on the dramatically changing complexion of the American 2024 presidential contest.
The situation has turned around rapidly since the decision of President Joe Biden to abandon his quest for re-election and to pave the way for Kamala Harris to top the Democratic Party ticket.
This has suddenly re-energised their party’s election prospects.
The abrupt switch of candidates has flummoxed Donald Trump’s campaign on behalf of the Republican Party.
Suddenly facing a younger more vibrant contestant, Donald Trump has been wrong-footed.
He appears to be struggling to work out how to deal with his new and very different opponent – and how to communicate persuasively with black American voters.
This might help explain one of the most appalling Trump media appearances ever when he appeared on stage facing questions from black American journalists.
Mercifully it’s unlikely that you or anyone on your team has the full collection of bad Trump communication characteristics displayed in this interview.
But it’s statistically possible that there may be a few people in your team who might be displaying one or more of these bad Trump-like traits demonstrated when he was facing tough questions from America’s National Association of Black Journalists.
Fortunately, there are learning points for all in examining the appalling Trump media interview responses featured in the video below.
Before watching any of it – or as much as you can stand – be warned that, even when you’ve become hardened to seeing the worst of the Trump-style communication approach, his behaviour in this interview is extreme, even by his standards.
It would be easy to label it “racist”.
To watch Donald Trump interacting with three journalists at the convention of the National Association Of Black Journalists, brace yourself and click below!
Things To Avoid In Your Media Interviews
The learning points arising from this Trump media performance include:
+ While you can always exercise your right to politely take issue with any statement or question from a journalist, you need to choose how to portray your attitude and approach with care
+ It’s generally unwise to go into an interview with a pre-meditated plan of verbally attacking media outlets in general – or berating the journalists questioning you in particular
+ It’s less than fruitful for your audience – and for your own image – to seek to smear a media outlet that’s asking you a challenging question
+ So claiming that a journalist is working for a “fake news” organisation, without giving any supporting evidence, can look like an obvious attempt to dodge their questions
+ Never blame a journalist for technical problems in a live TV broadcast which are typically out of their control
+ Avoid exaggerations such as “Inflation is absolutely destroying this country and the people in our country” and
“Inflation is a country-buster. It breaks every country” where the statements, if taken literally, are impossible to prove
+ Never make up untrue stories about other people, such as: “She (Kamala Harris) became a black person”
+ Make sure everything you say passes the “Truth Test”
+ Don’t go on TV to complain about media ‘fact checkers’ – as Donald Trump does – as it makes you look afraid to face the truth
+ Avoid over-inflating what you see as your achievements – especially if your questioners and audience members are likely to perceive your claims very differently from the way you like to think they are
+ So making a contentious claim such as “I have been the best president for the black population since Abraham Lincoln” is something for others to judge rather than for you to trumpet.
This is far from a complete list of the blemishes on display in the interview.
But overall, anything which makes it easy for viewers to conclude that you’re acting in a way that’s disrespectful to questioners and audience members is generally a very bad thing.
When it comes to giving great answers to tough questions, a lot of it comes down to planning your positive approach in advance.
Here’s a video to explain how you can achieve this:
Click on the image to open in a new browser window
Details of programmes available to help you get things right in media interviews are at:
https://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/media-master-classes/
The toughest question for a communications commentator to face about the most shocking of Trump performances is typically: “If he’s really performing is so badly, then how come he scores relatively well in many American public opinion polls?”
Despite the faults listed above, the key to the answering this question is to focus on one thing that Donald Trump does very effectively – communication-wise – which helps explain why he managed to get elected president once.
It’s his ability to do what communications experts call “hitting a resonant chord”.
This means that when he is professing anger about something in a highly emotional way, he tends to spark a feeling of “That’s exactly how I feel!” amongst those who share this outlook.
So while his comments appear to tap into views that many may not share, he scores remarkably well with those who hold the same sets of prejudices.
In some ways this says as much about Donald Trump supporters as it does about the man who energises them.
It also helps explain why many people living outside America are often perplexed by the support Donald Trump manages to whip up inside his country.
Those most perplexed are often those who are used to running into affable American tourists who we meet in so many parts of the world.
Bear in mind that well-educated travelling Americans are often very different from so many U.S. citizens who rarely, if ever, leave their own land and often don’t even have passports.
This latter grouping often contains the large numbers who turn out for the Trump ‘Make America Great Again’ rallies across the U.S.A.
For all his faults, Donald Trump is highly skilled at hitting those resonant chords with so many of them.
So let’s now focus on a someone with a profoundly different personal communication style from both Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.
This is Kamala Harris who – as you can see in the video below – gave a big speech later on the same day as the Trump interview above was recorded above.
The American Vice-President was addressing female members of one of the sororities – or friendship organisations – which flourish in and beyond North American colleges and universities.
Kamala Harris interacts with tremendous warmth and affection for her audience members in the room – and demonstrates strong potential to influence those watching on TV.
As she often does, the Vice-President takes a very friendly approach towards her audiences – radiating positivity and joy.
Her speech is full of smiles and, at times, features the Kamala laugh that’s becoming evermore familiar as memes about it which are being pinged around the world.
In a profoundly positive and very different way from Donald Trump, Kamala Harris hits resonant chords with her audience in and beyond the room.
Her selected theme in this performance is “building up, not tearing down”.
Check out her speech by clicking on this image below:
You can sense that Kamala Harris is very comfortable on stage and delighted to be there.
And, after she stops gripping the lectern with both hands at the start (not recommended), she utilises her arms, her full body and her profound energy into everything she has to convey.
She makes plenty of criticisms of Donald Trump, but they’re delivered in a very different manner from the snarling way he complains about her.
Kamala Harris not only fully respects her audience, she adores her supporters, something you can detect from their enthusiastic responses.
While no one gives speeches in quite the same way as Kamala Harris does, there are certain things she achieves – in content, structure and delivery style – which are very learnable within communication-boosting sessions and repeatable beyond them.
To find out more about speaking with confidence, impact and pizzazz, check out this link here:
https://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/presenting-with-confidence-impact-and-pizzazz/
And if you’d like yourself and your team to convey a message like the best of smiling Kamala Harris – while avoiding the worst aspects of a scowling Donald Trump – send an email to line up a phone call to discuss your challenges and aspirations.