Antoni Lee’s blog

The following post is from the Dec ‘06 edition of my Message Matters newsletter. Sadly, ignorance of the topic is a regular cause of interview failure leading to poorer than necessary publicity.

Not long ago, a top company launched its new line of audio equipment to Australian media. The product was impressive. The spokespeople looked good. Presentations started. Before long, a reporter interrupted: What format does it copy music in? The reply: We don’t know − maybe MP3. Further questions followed, and so did the we don’t knows. We don’t know is valid sometimes − even for CEOs − but not to predictable, reasonable and easy questions.

The result was a conspicuous story lampooning the product launch. What should have been a company high became a low. (Any publicity is not good publicity.) The problem was not media error, misreporting or bias, but poor planning.

Some planning tips:

1. See an interview as one of many options. If you decide to do one, WRITE DOWN WHY. For example: to correct a misperception, to announce an initiative, or to raise an issue. Keep it that simple. This gives you focus.

2. Distill and jot down the essence of what you want to say in a few (no more than seven) points. Running without your own agenda is ill-advised. Dumping a set of lengthy briefing papers on a spokesperson doesn’t go far enough; help the spokesperson cut the content down to one page. Make the information manageable.

3. Pick your rhetorical tools. Assign a concise example or illustration to each assertion or claim. Align your logical, emotional and ethical tones. Present any radical ideas conservatively.

4. Order your messages. Beginners and experts alike can enumerate to offer cognitive and audio cues.

5. Write key words for brief opening and closing statements to start and end the interview. These may be as simple as a context-setting and a summary line.

6. Practice saying your messages out loud. Even for print interviews, compress each main point to a 10 or 15 second statement. You can then embellish to suit available time. As Mark Twain said, Use the best words, not their second cousins. This is first a matter of substance, then style. Cut out clichés, jargon and abstractions. Turning abstract nouns into concrete ones, or even verbs will give your message more zip.

7. Practice again, but this time, frame your answers in response to predictable media questions. Remember, the media don’t need to know everything, but effective issues managers will give them something.

Preparing well is the key to tackling information needs thoughtfully, advisedly and professionally. You may say, I don’t have time! I agree that it’s a bit late once the reporters are already in your foyer. If they’re not, feel free to contact me about programs to prepare spokespeople in advance.

For some time I’ve been receiving CMOS’s monthly Q&A style alert. I don’t always read it, but when I do, I either learn something or at least enjoy the writing’s brevity, accuracy and humour. A case in point:

Q. About two spaces after a period. As a U.S. Marine, I know that what’s right is right and you are wrong. I declare it once and for all aesthetically more appealing to have two spaces after a period. If you refuse to alter your bullheadedness, I will petition the commandant to allow me to take one Marine detail to conquer your organization and impose my rule. Thou shalt place two spaces after a period. Period. Semper Fidelis.

A. As a U.S. Marine, you’re probably an expert at something, but I’m afraid it’s not this. Status quo.

Here’s a longer, but no less useful and clever entry:

For some reason, questions about periods have dominated the Q&A mail lately. Why the sudden confusion? Why, after a lifetime (I trust) of never encountering two periods in a row, do readers suddenly think this might be a good idea? In any case, here are some answers: Don’t ever put two periods in a row. Put one period at the end of a declarative sentence, even if it ends with an abbreviation or a URL. (Questions and exclamations use question marks and exclamation points instead of a period, not in addition to one, even in quotations.) A sentence that stands alone within parentheses needs a period inside the parentheses with it. (Here’s an example.) A sentence in parentheses within another sentence does not take a period, because the period is reserved for the main sentence (questions and exclamations, however, must have their respective marks!). An abbreviation that ends with a period must not be left hanging without it (in parentheses, e.g.), and a sentence containing a parenthesis must itself have terminal punctuation (are we almost done?). Finally, an abbreviation ending with a period that is immediately followed by a question mark or exclamation point requires both marks (Q.E.D.!).

See the CMOS Online Q&As for more useful and clever entries.

This wouldn’t be news to Philip K. Dick (author of the books Hollywood made into Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly), but in Adelaide (S.A.) on Tue 27 May, the hologram of a guy in Melbourne (Vic.) addressed a business conference. It’s only a few years away from ubiquity.

Part 2
How long is a good news quote?

Between four and fifteen seconds. Shakespeare knew that the number of syllables English speakers use in a single breath is about ten, leaving space for gaps between words. Hence the most common line (or metrical) length in our poetry, theatre and speech is pentameter (viz. five ‘feet’ of two syllables each). Armstrong’s lunar landing quote is a snug thirteen syllables long, with a chance to breathe after the first six.

Try squeezing a message into a ten syllable chunk. If this sounds hard, try shorter words. Some say this is ‘dumbing down’, but if it helps normal people understand a message, maybe it’s ‘smartening up’. The process helps reveal and cut unhelpful and duplicate content. String three or four pentameter lines together and you have a 10 to 15 second sound-bite.

In closing: be careful with superlatives (best, most, longest, first, etc.). If audiences suspect overstatement, they will put less trust in the spokesperson and his or her message.

Part 1
Is there a place for creativity in quotes for the news media?

Yes, when creativity is not about fabrication. Creativity can help with accuracy, brevity and clarity—as well as memorability, likeability and quotability. Creativity goes past what’s obvious and clichéd. It suits the purpose, audience and occasion. It may look or sound casual, but it is not sloppy. If it includes repetition, it is not clumsy and inadvertent.

Imagine if Neil Armstrong’s first words as he stepped onto the lunar surface had been, “We are delighted to
announce this landing today. It positions America as the world’s leading provider of people-in-space solutions.” Such words would have faded out of memory and into space. Thankfully, Armstrong said something insightful, memorable and quotable: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Unfortunately, many quotes are uninformative, predictable and unusable as news copy. Quotes should be one of the most usable parts of any news release. A good quote is brief and significant and sounds right to the ear. Journalists look and listen for them and place them high in their stories.

Tip: after the quote is written, read it aloud, and as detective-fiction writer Elmore Leonard says, “If it sounds like writing, re-write it.” One way to make words sound more like they were spoken is to use a contraction here and there. Too often the use of contractions in business writing is random: one here and one there, and then amazingly, none at all in the quote.