Episode 464 Scott Adams: A Lesson on How to Answer Press Questions, aka Media Training
Date: 2019-03-23 | Duration: 24:24
Topics
President Trump is an expert on branding and handling the media Here is some media training to help you sidestep interview traps Be ready when they hit you with a “gotcha” question
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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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> This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.
## Transcript
[0:05]
hey everybody come on in here I'm going to take some uh callers today in the context of teaching you a little lesson on uh how to answer questions from the Press now I'm sure that those of you who listen to my periscopes are ever so close to being famous yourself that the odds of you getting interviewed are pretty good but even if you don't want to someday get famous and get interviewed um it's always nice to have a new skill so I'm going to continue my little uh experiment of seeing if I can teach you 80% of a skill in less than 20 minutes and this will probably be well less than 20 minutes so the skill I'm going to teach you is being interviewed by the Press now I'm going to ask for some volunteers so anybody who wants to click the button the little happy face buttons at the bottom of the screen which you can only see if you're using a
[1:05]
which you can only see if you're using a mobile device I believe not on a laptop um but if you click that you can be in line to possibly go live with me and I'm going to interview you and I'll only ask one question so you you each get one question a piece and then I'll tell you what you did wrong and then I'll show you how to do it right okay so anybody who wants to be interviewed jump into the queue let me start with some background so when I first became an author and it looked like my book was going to be a number one bestseller which it was my publisher wisely said you know what you need is some media training and I'd never even heard of that what the heck is Media training and uh it was explained to me that media training is learning how to answer questions uh in front of the camera in front of a crowd um from the media and I thought well how hard could that be doesn't everybody know how to
[2:06]
that be doesn't everybody know how to answer a question wouldn't it be exactly the same as if you know you were talking to your friend and the answer is no no it isn't and and you really need to have the training if you're going to be in front of the public and I'm going to demonstrate why in a minute but one of the uh the main things you learn in media training is that you don't have to answer the question that's asked and unless you're part of the hard news uh news if you're let's say you're an author or you're a pundit of some kind who has some you know something you're trying to persuade you don't have to answer the question you can simply answer your own question and I'll give you an example let's say that you're an author and you're an expert on forest fires and and deforestation after forest fires and preventing forest fires that's your expertise you go into a live on
[3:06]
your expertise you go into a live on camera interview and the person interviewing you hasn't read the book and so they ask you the wrong question they don't even know really what your book is about and so they say when did you get interested in um in tree rings and the first thing you say to yourself as well okay I'm not here about tree rings I'm not interested in tree rings I'm an expert on Forest fires has nothing to do with tree rings directly but I got this question the the thing you shouldn't do is well actually that's not what my book's about because that then you have an awkward moment all the O all the audience wants is uh they want to uh oh damn I might have to go get that uh I'm going to ignore it all the audience wants is some entertainment so when they say tell us about tree rings and you have you didn't come to talk about tree rings you say well I'll tell you tree rings will tell
[4:06]
well I'll tell you tree rings will tell you a lot about forest fires forest fires and then you you just go into your whatever you were going to talk about anyway so rule number one you'd never have to answer a question um if you're there for political reasons or you're a lawyer on TV then you do need to answer the question factually or at least you know in some persuasive way but are the people don't really have to if you're an author you don't really need to do that um and nobody cares that the thing they teach you is that nobody cares the host will be just as happy that you answered an interesting question and they'll be happy that you ignored their actual boring question that was off topic um but there are three things you sort of have to keep in mind when you're doing an in a press interview you want you want to keep in mind the facts because you want to you know in most cases you want to be accurate so the facts you want to protect your brand so you want to answer in a way that's not only true but is good for your brand whatever your
[5:08]
but is good for your brand whatever your brand is and then there's a third level and this is the fun part the third level and you have to have all of these in your head consciously at the same time the third level is making sure you don't say something that can be construed the wrong way so you can answer something clearly and honestly but it can be done in a way that's so easy to take out a context that you're totally in trouble that's the one you really have to watch out for you can't make an answer that can be taken out a context easily and it takes a long time to get good at that all right so I want to demonstrate how difficult this is I'm going to take a guest and I'm going to interview said guest and I'm just looking at everybody here and I'm going to pick uh let's pick Jennifer Jennifer is going to give some media training
[6:09]
media training here Jennifer are you
there and um are you ready to be interviewed Mr Adams it is a joy and pleasure to speak to you and absolutely all right Jennifer uh I know you've been running for uh the senate for a while and I have one question for you um do you disavow the KKK absolutely and completely I disavow the
the KKK Jennifer you just failed media trading do you do you know what the headline tomorrow is the headline tomorrow is your competitor had a good new proposal for a policy but Jennifer is still denying that she supports the KKK I you your your answer just paired yourself with the KKK if somebody does a search for you they'll come up with she denies she's in the KKK she did she disavows them you have failed as hard as
[7:11]
disavows them you have failed as hard as you could fail on that question and and but you but you learned something right and later I'm gonna it's a it's a no win kind of situation at first but I'm sure you're gonna teach us how to win so I I will teach you how to win uh let's see if uh thank you Jennifer I'm going to pop you off here and then I'm going to take another color and we're going to ask somebody else um let's see Paul Paul's coming
on Paul are you there Paul can I interview you Paul um have you ever danced I have but I'm terrible at it yeah have you ever tried like do you ever have a few drinks and tried to moonwalk
I prefer not to say well um I'm sorry Paul but you failed media training oh darn because
[8:11]
failed media training oh darn because when I asked you if you're a drinker you you said I declin to answer probably an alcoholic he declines to talk about his drinking see see how tricky this is oh I I am chagrined it gets worse so um did you say that you've tried to moonwalk before uh actually no I haven't because well I'm a white guy I can't do it do well okay you just you just failed Med to your training twice so don't say that don't say that what you just said less of that um so have you ever um have you ever heard the the song uh Billy Jean yes I have do you like it do you like that song uh yes I do wow you've got a lot in common with the pedophile oh man Weezer just covered it weer files so
[9:14]
man Weezer just covered it weer files so so that one was a little exaggerated you nobody would nobody would make the accusation I made but they could easily say well you seem quite friendly with a famous pedophile is that a coincidence so you can see how easily simply introducing a topic is the mistake so you think to yourself no I'll say I'll say I don't like that person I'll say I disavow that person and and and your one level thinking that would work perfectly in your regular life doesn't work because by disavowing it you you made that the headline and now that's your brand so you ruined your brand and you didn't think ahead um I'm gonna I'm G to uh take another caller Paul thanks for playing I have been
schooled all right so we're going to turn it around now and I'm going to let somebody interview me all right and I want you ask me the
[10:17]
me all right and I want you ask me the tough question let's see if we can get oh let's say uh uh I got to pick somebody good here uh I'm going to say Jill
you're all good but I was looking at your profile pictures and trying to get a good mix of people here so um yeah I was curious um your relationship with your uh your girlfriend we're all interested and do that back together again and uh what made you break up there in the first place for a day or I well I don't talk about my personal life but I want you to ask me a specific question and then I want you uh then so you if you'd like to play along can can you take I do I do I'm sorry I just I just was uh stabbing and seeing if I could get you off balance there oh well well that was very good but uh let me give you the question the question is do you disavow the KKK so you're the you're the press and I'm
[11:18]
so you're the you're the press and I'm the politician ask me the question um Mr Adams how long have you um known members of the KKK no you have to ask it the right way ask ask do I disavow do you disavow the KKK Mr Adams that might be the dumbest question I've ever heard of course I do and you should be ashamed of yourself to think that's even a reasonable question to ask you know the country has much bigger things to worry about than these little gotcha questions I think it's time for you to take the training wheels off and and see if you can join us at the big table now let me tell you what I did did right and why that's a good answer did you hear me say KKK in my answer I I can feel the attack back in my gut you know but did you did you hear did you hear me say KKK in my answer I did not no so you'll never have a clip of me
[12:19]
no so you'll never have a clip of me saying those words so I made sure that the clip had to be shown the question and the answer together and I made sure that the first part of my answer was an insult to the asker because if they're going to run it if they're going to run it they have to they have to run the the insult then I shamed them for asking the question and I and I TR and then I uh but I did say I do disavow them of course but without using the word I just made a clear statement but without using the word and it wasn't the first thing I said first I insulted him very quickly so you don't want to spend a lot of time on that you just you just say that might be the dumbest question I've ever heard of course I disavow them and you should be ashamed of yourself for asking these these Bush League gotcha questions now I think perfect now hold on when when the when the Press runs that clip what what is the interesting part about it the interesting part about it
[13:19]
about it the interesting part about it is that I went all primitive on the Asar that's now the story the story is how I how I uh attacked the person who asked the question so so the idea is to be merciless in your response the idea is to be interesting in your response in a way that takes attention from the question so you want to take attention away from the question and put it on the answer that does not include the question and make sure that people have changed the frame to God what a dick who would ask such a stupid question and you want that to be the clip and I'm sorry for being a Dick Scott all right thanks thanks for playing I'm going to thank you very much click off now having seen this context think back to Jake Tapper asking president Trump do you disavow the KKK and try to understand it with the new filter that I just gave you if the president had said I disavow them in
[14:21]
president had said I disavow them in just clean language that would be compatible with things he said in the past and it was certainly incompatible with things he said subsequently so it would have been accurate it would have been consistent and it would have been a giant mistake Trump is one of the most Savvy media people of all time probably I think that's fair to say probably one of the most Savvy media people of all time and when he heard that question here's what he knew that you did not get until you had me media training simply answering the question with the truth yes of course I I disavow them becomes a headline the next day that looks like this Hillary Clinton has some ideas for healthc care candidate Trump is still dis is still uh trying to explain why he's not a fan of the
[15:21]
he's not a fan of the KKK those are your headlines the next day he had no success Vector with being as clever as I was in my example now I had the advantage that I was prepared for the exact question and and I actually told the caller to use the question on me so I was ready with exactly the right uh response you saw Trump stalling to answer the question so when Jake said just to be clear I'm asking you to disavow the KKK and you could tell the Jake was not quite knowing what was happening because it was such a simple question and he wasn't and Trump was not giving a simple answer now Trump's answer was I would say possibly true which is that he didn't hear it through the headpiece I've done hundreds and hundreds of interviews involving earpieces and I can
[16:22]
interviews involving earpieces and I can confirm that they more often than you would think don't work it doesn't mean it's the head the earpiece that's back had just the connection so what are the odds that really he couldn't hear the question maybe I wouldn't rule it out but it's not my personal um it's not my personal speculation my speculation goes like this Trump is not like the rest of you were an hour ago he's an expert at the media he's an expert at branding he can see around corners a little bit better than you and when that question was asked he recognized it as a trap it wasn't quite as obvious to you as you know do you still beat your spouse right there's no right answer to that if you say you do beat your spouse then you're a spouse beat her if you say you don't still beat your spouse it indicates you used to beat your spouse there's no right answer there is no right answer to as you're running for
[17:24]
right answer to as you're running for the presidency do you disavow the KKK he can't to the question without making that the headline tomorrow and he doesn't want that to be the headline so the right answer would have been closer to what I did and I don't think he was prepared for it you could see his his gears turning and I also don't think you know look how much explanation it took for me to just explain the difference between somebody who's media trained and someone who's not it's pretty big difference and so when I watched it I had a different filter than most of you did because of media trading I said to myself oh that's a that's a trick question it looks like it's not and that's what makes it tricky right I would say 99.99% of all the people who watched it said to themselves good Lord man could there be an easier question this is 2+ 2 is 4 do you running for president
[18:27]
is 4 do you running for president disavow the KKK how is that a trick question that's just I disavow them right nope not if you have training if you have training you know that that question is designed to associate you with the KKK because brains do not hear not they don't hear disavow they they kind of hear them in in in a technical sense yes but you you end up associating the target of your trick question with that bad that bad thing so Trump could see I'm sure that this didn't smell right and that there wasn't an easy way out of the question because he kind of had to answer it but he kind of wanted not to answer it because he didn't want to make that the headline in the association there was no winning winning path so let me take you to an example where Trump did better do you remember when um Chris
[19:27]
better do you remember when um Chris Cuomo back back in 2015 or 16 I can't remember interviewed candidate Trump and the pope had just said that there were some problems with capitalism so Chris Cuomo asked candidate Trump the following trick question he says the pope had some criticisms of capitalism what do you say candidate Trump now the trick is that for Trump to disagree with the Pope puts him at odds with the Pope you don't want to be at odds with the Pope but you can't agree with the Pope because agreeing with the Pope would say capitalism is bad and you can't be Donald Trump and say that capitalism is bad so there was no way you could agree with the Pope and there was no way you could disagree with the Pope it was a great trick question do you remember how candidate Trump answered the question and by the way it was one of the most brilliant answers of all interview
[20:29]
brilliant answers of all interview questions it should be this should be the media training clip that everybody learns how to do this if you remember he looked at Chris Cuomo and he said I would tell the pope to worry about Isis because they want to take over the
Vatican you see [Laughter] it do you see the genius in that answer remember I told you that media training teaches you you don't have to answer the question it's optional you do not have to answer the question so he did not answer the question because it was a trap question instead he moved our minds to Isis Conquering the Vatican you can't get that out of your head so what was the headline the headline was Trump says the pope better watch out because Isis might take over the Vatican that was the headline so he turned the trick question into a headline that makes him look like
[21:30]
into a headline that makes him look like you know the strongest player on the field because he was tough on Isis and he's you know bringing bringing Isis up again that was exactly the right way to answer the question the KKK thing he screwed up right so there there's no nice way to say it you know U he he flubbed the trick question now if one of you had flubbed the trick question I would not come down hard you because at least until now you had no media training so if if a civilian flubs a test a trick question like that you say well they were civilians they're not really they're not really trained on talking on camera and stuff you can kind of see why they do that but if somebody as experienced As Trump who smells a trick question and still flubs it that's just a mistake all right that's you know I'm not going to put a spin on that that's just mistake at his level he should be able
[22:32]
mistake at his level he should be able to do the Isis uh Isis taking over the Vatican move every time all right he should have been able to do that with that question as well that was the right way to play it but well there is a difference let let me call out the difference with with the capitalism and and I um Pope question nobody really cared about the actual answer and I think everybody knows that nobody really cared about the answer so when he changed it to a different answer about Isis in the Vatican everybody was happy well something to talk about but the question about does he disavow the KKK he couldn't really not answer that question and you also couldn't answer it without hurting yourself so that's why the the uh approach that I told you earlier in the Periscope was the only way to go all right was this useful did you learn anything and did I keep to 20 minutes probably not all right um
[23:35]
not all right um good well media training is exactly the kind of stuff you could learn if you wanted to get a personal consult from somebody um on the interface by whenhub app so I don't know if we have any Experts of that type but it's exactly the right kind of EXP expert to have on the interface by whenhub app so if you were one of those experts and you do media training consider load loading down loading downloading the free app it's called interface by whenhub and then you can set your own price and people will pay you for the phone call it's a video call actually um by the minutes um that is all for today and I will talk to you later