Dealing with prejudicial questions

Over on the IABC Media Relations Commons, my buddy Eric Bergman, ABC has written a good post, “Deliberately Avoiding Questions,” on how to answer an interviewer’s question when the question is worded to force a negative admission, like the old “Are you still beating your wife?”.  What I like most about Eric’s approach is that he doesn’t encourage falling back on canned “key messages.”  In his example, a petroleum refinery plant manager is asked the question “Do you pollute?”  Eric writes:

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.

Here, here! 

Eric’s got a new book out, Media Training with Excellence, available through the IABC Knowledge Center.