Liz Truss may have only been in power for 44 days.
But during her short tenure, she produced a masterclass in calamity comms with her series of regional radio interviews.
And her time in the hot seat included one of the most memorable examples of the damage caused by repeating negative language.
A week is a long time in politics as former Prime Minister Harold Wilson once quipped.
But let’s take you back to the start of last week before the Conservatives stopped trusting Truss and another leadership race began.
Penny Mordaunt was in the House of Commons facing questions about the whereabouts of the Prime Minister.
Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow, said: “All we know right now is, unless she tells us otherwise, the Prime Minister is cowering under her desk and asking for it all to go away.
“Isn’t it about time she did and let somebody else who can make decisions in the British national interest get in charge instead?”
And Ms Mordaunt replied: “Well, the prime minister is not under a desk, as the honourable lady says…”
The result of this exchange? A headline writer’s dream, some powerful clips for broadcast media, and a visual image that is hard to unsee.
Not the coverage you need when you are already under intense scrutiny.
Of course, politics is a murky world at times. And we can’t rule out the idea Ms Mourdant, who has her own leadership ambitions, knew what she was doing.
Jessica Elgot, the deputy political editor of the Guardian said on Twitter: “Penny Mordaunt knew exactly how that desk line would land, this is not her first rodeo.”
With friends like this, who needs enemies?
But whether or not it was deliberate, it is another reminder of why spokespeople must avoid repeating the negative language in a question – something we stress during our media training. And how easily it creates news stories.
Prince William produced an unforgettable example of this last year.
During a London school visit - a few days after the Harry and Meghan Oprah interview – the future king was asked whether the royal family “was a racist family.
“We are very much not a racist family,” he replied.
A response that was instantly turned into headlines – all containing the word ‘racist.
Another example we’ve previously covered in our media training blogs saw Amanda Staveley face questions about the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia after a £305m takeover of Newcastle United.
Asked by the BBC’s Dan Roan whether the deal was an example of “sportwashing”, Ms Staverley replied: “No, not at all. It’s not about sportswashing at all.”
And earlier this year, John Bercow, the former Speaker of the House of Commons, was asked by LBC’s Iain Dale if he was a “nasty piece of work”.
“No, I’m not a nasty piece of work at all,” he responded.
It is also worth pointing out that some spokespeople introduce their own negatives. You may recall that at COP26 press conference, Boris Johnson denied the UK was a “corrupt country”.
He told reporters: “I genuinely believe that the UK is not remotely a corrupt country, nor do I believe that our institutions are corrupt.
“It is very important to say that.”
The vital media training lesson from these mishaps for spokespeople is to avoid getting drawn into repeating the negative language used by journalists.
This can take practice. If a journalist’s question says, ‘you must be disappointed’, ‘this is embarrassing, isn’t it’ or “isn’t this heavy-handed”, the natural temptation is to say something like “I wouldn’t say it was embarrassing/disappointing/heavy-handed.”
It is how we would respond to those accusations in normal conversation.
But the problem is the journalist now has a neat soundbite of you saying whether or not you are “embarrassed” or “disappointed”, if your family is “racist”, or if the person supposed to be running the country is hiding “under a desk.”
Rather than providing reassurance, the audience just hears the negative language.
But you don’t need to repeat negative language to rebut or deny it.
Instead of saying you are ‘disappointed’, ‘embarrassed’ or heavy-handed’, you could say something like “no, that’s not right”, “that’s not how I see it” or “they are your words, not mine” and then use the bridging media training technique to steer the conversation back to your message.
As the UK now appoints its third Prime Minister of the year, maybe some of these media training and communication lessons will be taken on board.
Media First are media and communications training specialists with more than 35 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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