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Thursday, July 23, 2009

John Van Mol

by John Van Mol

No facts? Respond Accordingly.

Given his usual skill and experience in dealing with the news media, it was surprising to see President Obama make a “rookie mistake” in his July 22 news conference. When asked about the now widely-publicized incident in which a Boston-area friend of the President’s was arrested at his home after a confrontation with police…

Mr. Obama said words to the effect of “I really don’t have all the facts of the matter,” and then proceeded to say that the police involved acted “stupidly.”  As it turns out, the officer involved is widely respected as a “good cop,” and is even an instructor to other officers on avoiding racial or ethnic profiling (which is what the citizen involved accused him of).

Whoever was “right” about what happened, Mr. Obama’s comments created such a media firestorm that it totally distracted attention from his main messages related to health care reform.  And the President found it necessary to take the rare step of injecting himself into the daily White House press briefing on July 24 to backtrack and report on a telephone conversation he had with the police officer.  He “almost” apologized, but may have actually compounded the earlier error by continuing to react to the incident.

In these kinds of circumstances, the correct response, to the media or anyone else, of course, is:  “I really don’t have all the facts of that matter,” and then SAY NO MORE, or in the case of a corporate person being interviewed, “that’s not really part of my responsibility, but I can certainly put you in touch with someone who can help,” and then SAY NO MORE.

A good rule of thumb:  talk about your job, your area of responsibility, or corporate policies you would be expected to know by virtue of your position.  And then SAY NO MORE.


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