The results are in and we can announce that the winner of our poll to identify the most overused word or phrase in media interviews is ‘moving forwards’.
With 19 per cent of the vote.
This completely pointless expression has sadly made its way from the corporate boardroom to media interviews with infuriating regularity in recent years, where it is boringly used to pad-out answers. Politicians and sports stars are also regular culprits.
Sometimes it is bizarrely used at the end of a sentence, in the same way a teenager uses ‘like’ as punctuation and on other occasions it is used instead of the much more preferable ‘in the future’ or ‘looking ahead’.
‘Moving forwards’ had been nominated for the poll by some of our current working journalist tutors, who deliver our media training courses, and it was a comfortable winner, although personally I wanted ‘touched points’ to emerge victorious.
‘Excited’, ‘Robust’ and ‘Solutions’ also proved to be words that readers have had quite enough of lately.
They were, however, some way off the pace.
But what was really interesting, were the additions to the list put forward by readers in the comments section of the blog and through our Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.
One word that kept appearing over and over again in comments was ‘narrative’ and it really should have appeared on the list. It seems recently that it has become compulsory for spokespeople to talk about ‘controlling the narrative’. If anything though, they need to control their use of this ubiquitous term. Instead of ‘reflects a narrative’ why not say ‘reflects a sentiment’? Replace ‘strong narrative’ with ‘strong case’.
Here are some of the other suggestions which were put forward.
Passionate – This falls into the same category as ‘excited’ and ‘delighted’ as it is simply used far too often to convey enthusiasm. Its use usually stems from poorly written press releases – and, as we know, bad press releases make terrible spokespeople.
So – We’ve noticed it has become increasingly popular for people to start responses to questions by saying ‘so’ (usually delivered with a lot of emphasis that means ‘okay – here goes…’). This seems to particularly happen when they are providing a detailed explanation. It sounds unnatural, obviously adds nothing to the response and could irritate the audience.
Absolutely – Why does everyone now say ‘absolutely’ instead of saying ‘yes’? Apart from sounding contrived it also seems to often be said without really listening to what the other person has just said. Remember, you don’t want to fall into the trap of accidentally agreeing with the negative connotations in a journalist’s question or statement.
Honestly – Spokespeople seem to have got into the habit of using this word a lot recently to show they are being open. But if anything it only serves to create a needless air of suspicion. If you are being honest in this response, what about the times when you don’t preface your answer with that word?
Broad cross section – Another vogue expression and while there is little wrong with it, the more widely it is used the duller it becomes. You also have to question whether it really adds anything other than simply padding out answers.
Innovative – It seems to have become acceptable to use ‘innovative’ to describe anything, regardless of whether it is actually innovative.
These are all great additions which really highlight the language which makes audiences switch-off.
Our advice is to avoid using these phrases and other examples of jargon and to keep language as simple as possible in media interviews so that a 10-year-old can understand what you are saying.
Media First are media and communications training specialists with over 30 years of experience. We have a team of trainers, each with decades of experience working as journalists, presenters, communications coaches and media trainers.
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