Just when I began to wonder what I was going to write about today I stumbled across a truly calamitous media interview.
In fact such was the awkward nature of the interview that it instantly brought back memories of the infamous exchange between Jeremy Paxman and Michael Howard.
In this new encounter the reporter essentially asked the same question no less than 13 times as he desperately sought some clarity, while the spokesperson tied himself in verbal knots with contradictory answers.
It happened on the Irish channel RTE when the Garda Representative Association gave an interview after rank and file officers rejected findings in a recent report into alcohol testing checkpoints that they falsified alcohol breath tests.
The full version: GRA spokesperson John O'Keeffe's interview with RTÉ Crime Correspondent Paul Reynolds over breathalyser data controversy pic.twitter.com/74XKy5157C
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) September 14, 2017
Its spokesperson John O’Keeffe was keen to show that no blame could be attributed to ‘ordinary gardaí’ but struggled to deal with the question on whether they falsified the results.
He managed to claim both that they did not falsify the results and that they did so under pressure from senior management, before denying he said they had falsified results.
Here’s an example of how he handled the question:
“They did not falsify the figure. The falsification came from the pressure and the pressure came from senior and middle management.
“They knew if they didn’t go back with elevated figures or if they didn’t change them on behalf of middle and senior management then there would be repercussions.”
STOP what you're doing and watch this - it's going to become the precedent primary example of a total car crash of an interview. WOW. https://t.co/xX3fP9HqmS
— David Cochrane (@davidcochrane) September 15, 2017
They didn't falsify the figures, they ELEVATED them. Lol. John O'Keeffe
— John Finn (@carrigman) September 14, 2017
- Ireland's Comical Ali https://t.co/8IncEPRCOJ
John O'Keeffe using the reasoning of Homer, that is Homer Simpson. https://t.co/O8BSfkY6Cg
— Ron Portnoir (@ronportnoir) September 14, 2017
RTE’s crime correspondent Paul Reynolds tried desperately to get some much needed clarity on the issue, at one stage asking Mr O’Keefe to ‘take it step by step’.
But that one clarity was not forthcoming and at one point he told Mr O’Keefe his line was ‘ludicrous’ and that ‘it’s like saying black is not black, black is white’.
Mr O’Keefe, who appeared to be getting increasingly frustrated with the interview, replied ‘I’m just going to say the same thing again’.
This looks set to be an interview which will become part of media training folklore and will regularly by used as an example of how ‘not to do it’.
So what should he have done differently?
Well for a start there needed to be much more thorough preparation and that prep needed to look at how he would handle the ‘falsification’ question. Surely any decent amount of preparation would have shown that to the public there is no difference between figures being ‘elevated’ or ‘falsified’.
Sticking rigidly to a pre-approved line in a media interview can often cause issues for spokespeople, but if it is unravelling in front of you, as it did here, you need to be able to adapt and move away from it quickly.
The most frustrating thing is that he did actually come up with a much stronger response right at the end of the interview.
He said: “The GRA membership were (SIC) put under enormous pressure by Garda management to elevate their breathalyser statistics. This was done in weekly meetings, in bi-weekly meetings from Chief Superintendent, from Assistant Commissioner level all the way down to the sergeant and the ordinary Garda on the street. They were left in no doubt that if they did not elevate these figures that there could be implications for them and their work.”
A pretty good response. Unfortunately, he then went back to denying they had falsified the figures.
But at least that meant I had a subject for today’s media training blog.
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