COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy? Instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?
PALIN: That’s why I say, I like ever American I’m speaking with were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the tax payers looking to bailout. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up the economy– Helping the — Oh, it’s got to be about job creation too. Shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation.
It’s even worse when you watch it!
I’ve mentioned before that I am a PR flack, and part of my job involves media training, writing “talking points” or “sound bites” for executives giving interviews and making sure people clearly communicate what they want people to hear in 100 words or less. Because of this, I am bookmarking Sarah Palin’s interview as a classic example of what not to do when you’re dealing with the media.
It was clear coming out of the Republican Convention that McCain was going to rally the troops by declaring war on the media, specifically the left-leaning New York Times. It’s a tried-and-true approach, especially for a campaign that doesn’t seem to have a central theme (a serious problem). The media is regarded by the public somewhere between child molesters and personal injury lawyers on its best days. But there’s another old saying: Never get into an argument with someone who buys ink by the barrel.
If you’re being interviewed by the media, you better have your act together. At the very least, you have to give the appearance that you have command of whatever it is you’re talking about. To drill the point home, there are a few talking points you need to hit on and make sure the interviewer and (most importantly) the viewer can chew on. And most importantly, it’s gotta look authentic and believable. People see through staged events like photo ops but remember people who wowed them (Obama six months ago) or made them cringe (see above).
So the McCain team faces a very tricky task of excoriating the media while trying to acquiesce to it at the same time by granting limited interviews where they can control the situation as much as possible. By shielding both candidates from the media, they could give the appearance of scorning an often reviled establishment. But ignoring the media won’t stop it from reporting about you, and absence can lead to speculation – particularly with an unknown commodity like Palin. “Why does she ignore us?” the media speculates. Is she not press-savvy? Does she have something to hide?
The truth now appears to be she (a) was being media trained by someone far worse than I am, or (b) is an utter nitwit. I think it could be both. First, look at how many times she repeats the buzzwords that someone told her to rattle off. Health care reform, shoring up the economy and job creation all appear twice in one paragraph. Even weirder was this sentence:
So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans.
Wow, that’s an entire platform right there! But review it to see how carefully this has to be done to be effective. Would anyone here argue that health care reform, reducing taxes, reining in spending, tax reductions (same as reducing taxes, actually) and tax relief (ditto) are bad things? Of course not. But does it make sense in the realm of that amazing answer? Does it make sense at all? No way. This is why so many people dislike politicians and don’t watch Meet the Press and similar shows. The politicians get asked questions and never answer the question. They stick to their message, although most do it much better than the moose hunter here.
When I media train anyone, we go over and over potential questions and rehearse the answers until I’m satisfied the person can authentically speak without sounding like a robot. Some people, however, are just not good at it. Some freeze under the pressure, while others have a bad habit of turning a short answer into a long story. But I’ve never had someone just randomly spout out the talking points without at least sorta answering the question, and I’m proud to say none of my students has ever come across that badly on television.
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