Kelly O’Dwyer’s Insiders appearance was textbook bad media training
Peter Wilkinson spotted one key mistake made by Kelly O’Dwyer during her recent Insiders interview - something that will be used as an example of ‘what not to do’ by media trainers for months.
Very occasionally you want to throw shoes at the television. Kelly O’Dywer’s interview on Insiders yesterday was one of those.
Ms. O’Dwyer is financial services minister. She was on Insiders talking about the disastrous revelations coming out of the Financial Services Royal Commission, which is investigating the banks and other financial institutions.
There is a basic first step in media interviews: answer the question. It’s dead simple. If you answer the question, viewer trust goes up, more so if your argument makes sense to the listener, and even if he/she doesn’t completely agree with you. If you don’t answer the question trust goes down.
O’Dwyer simply refused to answer the questions that must have been on a lot of the audience’s minds:
“Were you wrong to delay the calling of a royal commission for as long as you did?”
·“Another thing you said at the time – this would be of no benefit to consumers… were you right or wrong about that?”
“Are you embarrassed … given you described it as a talk-fest and it turns out it’s a whole lot more than that?”
“But you took so long to set up. Were you wrong to do that?”
All O’Dwyer had to do was agree with the patently obvious. She didn’t and, for many people, listening stopped. The interview will be used as an example of ‘what not to do’ by media trainers for months.
Compare O’Dwyer’s approach to Barnaby Joyce’s comments with Patricia Karvelas on ABC Radio National (Joyce was also against the Royal Commission):
BJ: Some of the evidence coming out is saying it was a systemic problem. It wasn’t a case of a couple of rogue employees… It seems to be coming to light, PK, there was a culture of, well if we can get away with it we get away with it.
PK: The government had to be taken kicking and screaming to this Royal Commission…
BJ: And I’m part of the reason for that.
Joyce is a controversial figure, but love him or hate him, his plain talking would have connected to many people.
There is a very simple formula for difficult interviews. At is most basic it’s Q=A+M. Listen carefully to the Question: Answer the question directly and honestly, then get to your Message. Under the spotlight it’s more complex than that, but that’s the most critical beginning. And it’s where O’Dwyer failed.
I’m also assuming O’Dwyer consulted with a media minder, and did a practice interview, knowing Cassidy would be tough. That’s an obvious part of the preparation. And it was clearly a fail.
Honesty is not that tough.
This kind of misstep changes governments when margins are narrow. With every revelation, the Royal Commission is now going to be an ongoing embarrassment for the government.
Ms. O’Dwyer and the Liberals had everything to gain, by admitting vulnerability on this issue, by simply saying they got it wrong. Then more people would have listened to the measures they are taking, which seem significant, to fix the problem.
But the water-cooler talk in many C-suites and among communications professionals today will be stuck on the Minister’s refusal to acknowledge the obvious. We live in an extremely complex communications era, and there is little tolerance for these basic blunders.
Peter Wilkinson is chair of WilkinsonButler. This piece first appeared on his LinkedIn.
She might have played it badly, but O’Dwyer had a losing hand going into the interview.
The difference between the context in which Joyce (no longer in Cabinet and free to speak his mind) and O’Dwyer (in Cabinet and expected to toe the line) spoke to the media made the difference more than their style.
The mistake was made when Cabinet decided that their communication strategy didn’t involve an apology. Interviews like O’Dwyer’s and others are the consequence of that strategic choice.
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“Kelly O’Dwyer’s Insiders appearance was textbook bad media training” … Nonsense. It was textbook bad media performance. Two quite different things. One lays the blame at the feet of the media advisor and the other at the feet of the interview subject. How on earth could the author of this know whether or not the media training was bad? Maybe it was excellent & she still performed poorly.
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Maybe, just maybe, he offers media training.
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I suspect Kelly O’Dwyer was told by a media minder in the PMO to hold the line and not admit anything. Given the result, her Cabinet colleagues took a different tack and the result is poor Kelly was hung out to dry.
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Both sides of politics are plagued by the modern phenomenon of the “media advisor”. In most cases the so-called advisor has less experience than the politician they are advising. To have reached the point where they are a minister, or shadow, most pollies have run the gauntlet of local media and the more exacting breed in Canberra for a decent period. On the other hand, most media advisors have never held a proper job in the media, or anywhere else except politics. Most have nothing more than a communications degree and a sense of certainty that they know best.Once upon a time media advisors were called press secretaries. This was arguably a better description of the role. And, what’s more, they all came from the media and knew the game from having been on the other side of the scrum.
User ID not verified.
Both sides of politics are plagued by the modern phenomenon of the “media advisor”. In most cases the so-called advisor has less experience than the politician they are advising. To have reached the point where they are a minister, or shadow, most pollies have run the gauntlet of local media and the more exacting breed in Canberra for a decent period. On the other hand, most media advisors have never held a proper job in the media, or anywhere else except politics. Most have nothing more than a communications degree and a sense of certainty that they know best. Once upon a time media advisors were called press secretaries. This was arguably a better description of the role. And, what’s more, they all came from the media and knew the game from having been on the other side of the scrum.
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