Category: Teachable Moments



By George Merlis

Two subjects this time: a Teachable Moment on notes in an interview and a sarcastic State of the Fourth Estate observation.

When Are Notes Appropriate?
Former Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s appearance before the Tea Party convention in Memphis brings this question to mind. Gov. Palin had written three message points on the palm of her hand and, during a Q & A session, was photographed referring to those notes before she answered a question.


Former Gov. Palin using notes on her hand at Tea Party convention

The fact that she used notes in the first place and wrote them on her hand in the second subjected her to a cascade of ridicule. Personally, I remembered a Geology 101 final in college during which I noticed the center of our football team copying the names of the geological eras off his palm. (Somehow he failed the test anyway!)

In media training workshops I urge participants to use notes when doing a phone interview but to avoid them in a face-to-face interview. Using notes in front of a reporter just invites him to write that you were dependent on notes. I recommend against using notes during television interviews, because they can undermine your credibility and credentials. However, notes are a legitimate aid in two isolated and unique circumstances: To get quotes right and to convey complex concepts or statistics.

For instance, if you want to highlight a point with an historical quote, there’s nothing wrong with saying, “I’m quoting Thomas Jefferson, who had it right, but I want to read his words exactly as he wrote them.....”

Similarly, it’s okay to say, “There is a lot of room for error here, so I want to read you these numbers.....” In other words, if you are going to use notes, explain why you are using them. And have a good explanation.

Your notes should be on an index card and after reading them put the card aside -- otherwise you may keep glancing down at them or fidgeting with them.

In no case do interview notes belong on the palm of your hand -- to most people they evoke the same cheating-on-the-test image they did for me. And certainly, if you need notes they ought to be about complex matters or exact wording, not about general themes. Ms. Palin’s notes were “Energy,” “Tax,” “Lift American Spirits,” general themes she makes all the time, not specific details that she might need to drive home those themes.

****

Follow-Up Questions
At a recent gathering, I -- along with many others -- was asked to deliver a two-mintue proposal in my area of expertise that I would impose if I had the authority. I elected to address the state of the fourth estate. The remarks could be serious or unserious and I elected to made a serious point unseriously. Since my proposal was well-received, I share it here:

To understand this proposal, you have to know about Facemelter, a free iPhone application extremely popular with children four and up. With Facemelter, you take a photo on your phone and then use your fingers to distort the image by smearing the subject’s features all over the screen. Here is Illinois ex-governor Rod Blagojevich unmelted and Facemelted:



Now to the problem: Back in October, the balloon boy's family appeared on CNN, right after the nation heaved a collective sigh of relief that little Falcon had not, in fact, been in the gondola of the "escaped" balloon. Wolf Blitzer asked Falcon why he had run away and hidden. “You said we did it for the TV show,” Falcon said to his father. Blitzer ignored that bombshell and calmly asked the next entry on his list of questions.

No follow-up.

Flash forward to January 8 of this year. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is on ABC’s Good Morning America, discussing the recent underwear bomber attempt. He tells GMA’s new host, George Stephanopoulos, “We had no domestic attacks under Bush; we’ve had one under Obama.” Did the GMA host challenge Giuliani’s convenient memory with a mention of the 2001 anthrax mailings -- which included envelopes going to several of Stephanopoulos’ fellow journalists? No. Did Stephanopoulos cite the Washington, DC sniper incidents which terrorized the area where the host then worked? No. Did he cite the July 5, 2002 shooting incident at the El Al counter at Los Angeles International Airport? No. Did Stephanopoulos recall for the former mayor that transcendant day of infamy, September 11, 2001 in which Giuliani played a major, even heroic, role? No.

No follow-up.

So, my proposal is this: everyone who conducts interviews on television must attend the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism class conducted by the only broadcaster who understands and regularly asks follow-up questions: Jon Stewart.



Professor Stewart

Since, alas, there is no such course, my fallback proposition is that software engineers create a version of Facemelter for TV that will distort the image of any on-camera liar, evader or exaggerator and that the visual distortion be in direct ratio to the severity of the lie, evasion or exaggeration.

Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

****

For more on Experience Media Consulting's services, click here.WWW.MasterTheMedia.com

To order "How to Master the Media," click on the image of the book.