Every so often there’s a frightening epidemic of inept media performances by prominent people who fail to realise – or refuse to accept – the importance of telling the truth.
Alas as a media interview response trainer, it’s my solemn duty to point this out to the world – as a warning to all.
My aspiration is that everyone who I seek to guide towards media interview success realises the importance of knowing that everything they say in front of cameras and microphones must pass “the truth test”.
Ideally this vital message will eventually get through to everyone who is ever likely to do a media interview – especially you!
One of the reasons I get so concerned about a minority of public figures blatantly disregarding truth in their media performances, is that there’s a danger others might be tempted to follow.
I fear that viewers and listeners exposed to these misguided truth-ignoring high-profile figures could mistakenly conclude that overlooking the truth must be OK.
However, overlooking the truth is never OK for anyone talking to the news media.
One person who is hopefully in the process of belatedly realising this this is the newest member of the British Parliament.
She’s Sarah Pochin who represents the relatively new right-wing party called “Reform UK”.
Sarah Pochin has come to Westminster after winning a by-election in the north of England by just six votes.
Like many of her colleagues in the Reform Party, Sarah Pochin speaks frequently about illegal immigrants in the UK doing bad things.
Of course she’s entitled to say this, but she has a tendency to get carried away with her views about the alleged bad behaviour of some immigrants without having proof of what she’s claiming.
She doesn’t always manage to distinguish between one immigrant doing bad things – and others who might not.
In an interview with the Radio Station LBC, Sarah Pochin has been spectacularly caught out making false claims about immigrants without supporting evidence.
While being quizzed by LBC’s Nick Ferrari, Ms Pochin stated that when it came to sexual attacks by immigrants UK on women, these are always carried out against WHITE British women.
Really? – thought Nick Ferarri – as he instantly moved into what’s known in Australia as “blowtorch-on-the-belly” interviewing mode.
The first question we hear Nick Ferarri asking in the following video recording concerns how we can know – as Sarah Pochin claims – that sexual attacks by migrants are exclusively carried out against white British women?
This question forces a rare outburst of truth – amidst all the Sarah Pochin untruths – because she immediately admits: “Well, we don’t”.
So it’s a complete backdown on what she had just claimed to be true seconds earlier.
At the rocky beginning of the interview, the score is Ferarri 1 Pochin 0 – but she makes it a lot worse for herself as the interview continues!
Watch here how quickly Sarah Pochin’s unsubstantiated claims fall further apart as Nick Ferarri asks more simple, obvious questions…
TRAINING PEOPLE TO PASS THE TRUTH TEST – FOR THEIR OWN GOOD
Alas it’s not just in politics where you can sometimes come across people who are not wedded to truth-telling.
One of my media interview training sessions in London that I ran with members of a charitable organisation uncovered what seemed to be a way less obvious and far more charming non-truth teller.
The organisation employed people who worked to improve public health by helping addicts give up their reliance on a legal but deadly drug.
The plan was to train many of these employees so they could be interviewed on media shows to publicly spread the word about how to give up using this drug.
One day I was training a group from the organisation where one participant stood out early as being a potential star interviewee.
She was the oldest in the group – a friendly grandmotherly figure who had countless colourful stories about how she had helped younger people give up this particular drug.
Her stories were enchanting and full of what seemed to be meticulous detail.
Part of my role in such sessions is to make sure that what interviewees are saying can stand up to the most rigorous of questioning – and pass the truth test.
During one of the practice interviews with the grandmotherly employee, I asked her questions about a couple of apparent loose threads in one of her examples which didn’t seem to sit comfortably with other things she was saying.
In the middle of my questioning, she suddenly stopped and stepped out of the interviewee role.
With what seemed to be total surprise, she asked something along the lines of: “Oh do all the examples I give have to be true?”
This question alarmed everyone in the session – including me.
When I explained that truth was essential – for the credibility of both herself and her organisation – she was a bit shocked.
Fortunately, we were able to get her on the right path before she went on to be interviewed on TV and radio shows and thereby avoided getting her organisation into massive trouble.
Ever since, I’ve learned to emphasise the importance of passing the truth test early on in every training session even more than I had before!
You may be less surprised when I draw attention to the lack of commitment to truth regularly shown by United States President Donald Trump.
When he doesn’t like someone who is getting in the way of his political aims, the president often sets out to besmirch them – regardless of the truth.
One such person in the Trump firing line is Jerome Powell – head of the U.S. central bank, The Federal Reserve.
President Trump is upset with Mr Powell because he’s reluctant to lower interest rates due to his important national responsibility to keep American inflation under control.
Because this doesn’t suit Donald Trump’s short-term political outlook, the president has called Mr Powell a “moron,” a “numbskull,” a “disaster”, “terrible” and more.
As part of his character assassination campaign, President Trump has tried to blame Mr Powell for cost overruns on ongoing building work at the Federal Reserve headquarters.
When the president tried to prove this in a bungled attempted ambush Mr Powell in front of the TV cameras, his plan dramatically came unstuck.
Mr Trump tried to skewer the chief central banker with the use of what proved to be a dodgy document he pulled from his pocket.
But for an alleged “moron”, Mr Powell proved himself to be a lot sharper on attention to detail than was the president.
The banker successfully “fact-checked” the president by pointing out that the dodgy document included the cost of a building which had been completed five years back and so was not involved in the current renovation costs.
In the televised encounter, watch for a particularly awkward interaction for Donald Trump when Mr Powell identifies where the president’s figures about the cost over-run are based on a misconception.
Powell: “You just added in a third building.”
Trump: “It’s a building that’s being built.”
Powell: “No, it was built five years ago.”
Here’s the video showing how “The Trump Trap” for the banker left metaphorical egg all over the presidential face.
Donald Trump’s ability to catch himself out through his failure to admit the truth, backfired so disastrously that he’s become a perfect target for the comedy writer Michael Spicer in his hilarious “Room Next Door” video series.
In the series, Spicer plays the role of a fictitious frustrated adviser who fails to persuade inept leaders to do the right thing.
Spicer makes out that he’s advising leaders through an earpiece while they’re performing live in the public spotlight.
You can see in the following video how – when leaders like Donald Trump damage themselves by playing dastardly games bending the truth – they can attract just the kind of attention from comedians that their public image could do without.
Meanwhile here is some free video guidance for anyone who could find themselves being interviewed by the media one day.
It’s the latest episode of a podcast for marketeers – and others in business – called “Giraffes Don’t Eat Steak”.
The interviewers – Erica Mackay and Alex Bilney – are known as “the marketing detectives”.
Here they’re conducting an interview about what to do when you need to give great answers to tough questions – on the media or anywhere else:
If you need a keynote presentation at your next company conference on “Giving Great Answers To Your Business’s Tough Questions’, there’s details here:
https://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/speaking-at-your-event/
And if you – or members of your team – need to be fully prepared for future interviews with journalists, there’s information about media interview response training sessions at:
https://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/media-master-classes/
Be warned that participants on every Michael Dodd Communications media interview training course will discover the importance of giving effective – and truthful – answers every time!