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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

John Van Mol

by John Van Mol

Answering questions vs. responding to issues

The dynamic between spokespersons and reporters is as old as journalism itself, and is likely to continue as long as reporters are gathering information for stories, and organizations have messages they’d like to get to the public.

There are two distinct and sometimes conflicting objectives in play:  the reporter’s job is to “get the story;” the spokesperson’s job is to “get my organization’s message out.”

So how should this dynamic work in an interview situation?

You can best serve your organization’s interests as spokesperson by responding to issues rather than simply answering questions.

It is a difficult task.  All of our lives we have been conditioned to “answer the question,” and sometimes the more fully we answer, the better the result.  This applied to our parents, our teachers, our colleagues and our bosses.  Answering the question correctly kept us out of trouble, got us a higher grade, or gained additional respect or compensation in the workplace.  Not so in the back-and-forth between reporter and spokesperson.  Less is more in most cases.

When any question is posed, there’s an issue in there somewhere, and more often than not, a message that needs to be delivered about that issue.  For example:

Q:  A supervisor in your Jonesville plant has been accused of sexual harassment.  What are you going to do about it?

If you simply “answer the question,” you’d probably say something along the lines of “whenever any allegation of this type is made, we fully investigate and take appropriate action.”  An acceptable answer—it’s the truth, and the organization is doing the right thing in the circumstances—but a good spokesperson might take it a step further:

First, identify the issue (conditions in the workplace) and then the message (what do we want to say about that?) and formulate a response instead of an answer.

Response:  Our goal is to provide a workplace that our associates are proud to come to, so we can continue to provide our customers with great products (service).  We have strict policies regarding appropriate behavior in the workplace, and those policies will be enforced in every case.

Remember that the reporter has a job to do, and so do you—but they are different jobs.  You may find that responding instead of answering will serve you and your organization well.


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