Deliberately Avoiding Questions
9th December 2006 by Eric Bergman, ABC, APR
There may be situations in which an organization or its spokesperson would choose to deliberately avoid answering a question from a reporter. Quite often, the test for this is to determine whether answering the question would result in some form of significant moral loss for the spokesperson or the organization.
For example, suppose the plant manager at a petroleum refinery is engaged in an interview and a reporter asks, “Do you pollute?” This is a closed question, which technically requires either a yes or no. The obvious answer is yes. After all, it is a petroleum refinery. If it doesn’t pollute in some way, its products definitely do.
However, if the plant manager answers truthfully, there may be a significant moral loss. For the plant manager, that moral loss is personal; loss of credibility within the organization or the loss of a job. If the plant manager does not answer the question directly, we can’t fault that person for choosing to put his or her financial well-being ahead of the need to answer one question directly in an interview. It could potentially be a career-limiting move to answer such a question truthfully and say “yes.”
We have all seen situations in which the plant manager reverts to a predetermined message. He or she may respond by saying something like: “The emissions from this refinery have never exceeded strict environmental regulations.”
As public relations practitioners, this is how we have all been taught to answer such questions (and how we have all taught our clients to answer). However, there are other alternatives that may be better options to pursue.
One alternative is for the plant manager to challenge what is known in philosophical circles as prejudicial language by asking the reporter: “What do you mean by pollute?” The word “pollute” can be applied broadly. Technically, people who do not turn off the tap when brushing their teeth (or a reporter driving a vehicle to an interview) can be accused of polluting. Answering the question without having better understanding of how the word is used is dangerous.
Another alternative is to turn the initial question into a series of questions and answer them: “Do we have emissions? Yes. Do those emissions ever exceed strict federal guidelines? No. Do we have systems in place to do our best to ensure that they never exceed those guidelines? Yes. Would we tell you if we had? Absolutely.”
So the next time you’re counseling clients to answer questions — whether to internal audiences, external audiences or both — teach them to go beyond key messages and play an active role in the process. They have the right to understand what it is they’re answering. They have the right to probe, question and clarify.
And yes, if the reporter refuses to clarify or rephrase the question, the spokesperson does have the right, at that point certainly, to revert to message and keep repeating it if necessary. Therefore, as one of a number of defensive strategies, staying on message is acceptable.
However, from the perspective of creating an environment in which two-way symmetrical communication can thrive, reverting to message should be a last resort, not a first. As a defensive strategy, staying on message can be acceptable, but as an offensive strategy, most of the time it’s downright irritating.
January 24th, 2007 at 7:08 am
A quick addition to Eric Bergman’s thoughtful and thorough note on avoiding, or reclarifying, tough, potentially self-damaging questions. Rephrasing the leading or one-sided question is an excellent technique for putting the question in a way that you can respond, which is always preferred over avoiding or sidestepping.
A key to figuring out when to do that, and even more importantly how to re-state, is thinking beyond the superficial and trying to get at what’s behind the question itself. What’s the “real” question being posed? What’s the reporter really trying to get me to say that’s “news-breaking” and/or embarrassing?” What’s the media’s agenda at this moment, in light of recent history, issues and trends? In other words, put yourself in the reporter’s shoes and mindset and ask you the questions you, the reporter, would ask you — knowing what you know about your organization and its situation.
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Often, the real question is the question that is asked. As a reporter for more than twenty years, I can tell you that people often dug their own graves so to speak because they over thought the question or read into it a different agenda or something that never occured to me. So while they tried to figure out what the “real” question was, they went off on tangents and talked about something else which then became the story. For example, I once said to an executive, ” Can you tell me a little bit about your future plans?” He replied, ” It is not our policy to disclose financials.” That is not what I asked him and it didn’t even cross my mind. While media trainers (myself included) will teach you to re-state, re-frame and move toward delivering one of your key messages, it is important to acknowledge the question, address it or at least appear to address it and then move on. While I appreciate what David is saying and don’t mean to contradict, you should not put yourself in the reporters shoes because you are not really talking to the reporter. You are talking to the reporter’s audience–so think reader, listener and viewer. The reporter will ask you the questions they think their audience would ask. You want to wear your audience’s shoes.