Apologies – or the lack of them – never seem to drift too far from the top of the media agenda.
Accountability matters whether it is a business or an individual. But all too often, ‘sorry’ seems to be the hardest word to say.
The latest evidence of this is provided by Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, who created a media training case study on how not to handle an interview when under scrutiny.
The politician finds himself in the media spotlight for his role in the Horizon Post Office scandal.
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The story has come to the fore in recent weeks following the excellent Mr Bates vs the Post Office drama. The TV programme highlighted how hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted privately and publicly for theft, false accounting or fraud due to a faulty computer system called Horizon.
Sir Ed was Postal Affairs minister from 2010 to 2012 and has been accused of having “fobbed off” victims.
During an interview with ITV last week, he was asked if he would like to apologise.
In fact, he was pushed to apologise 10 times.
Here’s the key exchange:
Paul Brand (reporter): Why not draw a line under it and just apologise to sub-postmasters?
Davey: Of course, I regret…
Brand: That’s not an apology.
Davey: I’ve said, of course, I think it really is…
Brand: Why don’t you say, ‘I am sorry’?
Davey: I’ve said time and time again that I deeply regret that I was lied to…
Brand: That’s not an apology.
Davey: I was lied to on an industrial scale, and, of course, I’m sure every other post office minister who was lied to regrets they were part of this huge conspiracy the Post Office perpetrated.
Brand: Why can’t you say ‘sorry’?
Davey: Well, of course, I feel I am right to express regret for not getting to the bottom…
Brand: Why don’t you say ‘sorry’? It’s the least they deserve. Look what they have been through. Just say sorry for your part in not having got to the answers.
Davey: My heart goes out to the hundreds of people who were hit. And I deeply regret that we didn’t get to the bottom of the lies that were told, and I deeply regret it took until 2019 and the court case until people got the truth. And what we absolutely need to focus on now is getting that compensation quickly.”
The reporter offered Sir Ed ‘one more chance to say sorry’, but he spoke again about his “regret”, which isn’t the same.
It is a painful exchange, reminiscent of the infamous Jeremy Paxman interview with Michael Howard, where the same question was asked 12 times. Here is what some of the other media made of it:
TV journalist Michael Crick, part of our roster of expert media training tutors, called the interview “truly dreadful.”
And it is hard to disagree with that assessment.
He comes across as a robot, repeating the same ‘deeply regret’ line while talking all around any real apology.
Where is the human warmth?
If he said ‘sorry’, he would have avoided the spectacle of the question being asked repeatedly and would have come across as more caring to those watching.
Remember, this is an election year, and people have watched this ITV drama in their millions.
How does refusing to say ‘sorry’ look to them?
There are many reasons spokespeople may be reluctant to say that word. Legal advice, career protection and fear are some of the main ones.
But almost always, the best approach is to apologise and sound like you mean it. It shows you care, displays accountability, and is what people expect.
It also helps to move the story on, whereas Sir Ed’s refusal to apologise results in negative headlines and ensures he will continue to be asked to say sorry.
Imagine if he’d said something like, “I’m desperately sorry I didn’t do more”.
The non-apology apology approach is such a flawed media strategy. Would headlines saying ‘Ed Davey apologises’, which he seemed so desperate to avoid, be worse than “Ed Davey refuses to apologise’? I don’t think so.
Of course, it is possible to think that this was a terrible, ill-advised media interview approach with plenty of media training failings and feel that Sir Ed is a bit of an easy target as the leader of a small party.
Yes, he has questions to answer. But this is a two-decade-long scandal. No less than 17 ministers have been responsible for the postal service brief since the Horizon system was rolled out to Post Office branches.
There are many others with questions to answer, including Conservative and Labour politicians, as well as bosses of the Post Office and Fujitsu.
But someone who likes to hold others to account – Sir Ed has used his Twitter account to call for other public figures to resign 31 times since becoming leader of the Lib Dems in 2019 – must show more accountability for his failings.
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