Leaders' destiny: communicating with media
By Lee Bo-hyoung
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. It is the media which functions vigilantly in a liberal democracy. Like the hyenas in the Disney movie “The Lion King,” lingering around the lion in power to seize the opportunity to attack, the media is not submissive but rather exploits the weaknesses and shortcomings of power, and financial forces.
For those having power, the media is an effective means of spreading their message to the targeted public, but at the same time the power group is the best target for the media. So the leaders of the world, including political leaders, learn how to deal with the media. Learning these methods and techniques is media training.
President Moon Jae-in touched on many controversial and politically delicate issues, for which the political stance can be vividly divided, in his New Year press conference Jan. 10.
Moon himself likely prepared a lot for the conference and received advice from many sources. From the perspective of media training, the conference was a living textbook. I offer three main principles when I provide a media training program for various leaders.
The first principle is, “You have your own answer regardless of the question asked.” Despite various questions by the media, they cannot quote anything that an interviewee did not answer. Unless completely irrelevant, an answer avoiding sharp issues is rather a sign of political skill.
As such, interviewers use a variety of techniques to extract the answers they are interested in and the real intention of their interviewees. Such textual methods include asking questions by assuming negative views, causing confusion with multiple questions at the same time, emphasizing a choice, and repeatedly asking on the same subject. As a matter of fact, these methods were also used in the New Year press conference.
In spite of the diverse interviewing tricks many journalists used, President Moon strategically created frames and effectively conveyed his messages. For example, an ABC News reporter asked which side South Korea would take in a conflict between North Korea and the United States. This kind of question forcing a choice is a common question asked by journalists.
When asked this type of question, an interviewee feels a strong desire to present a correct answer. President Moon explained the situation rather than answering the question, and framed the uncomfortable question in his own way by talking about the future. In light of the first principle, the conference was a very successful one.
The second principle is, “Content, 20 percent, and delivery 80 percent.” When we communicate, the way and manner of delivery is more important than the content of a message itself. High-performance broadcast cameras show a small space that is focused, so the blinking of eyes, hand gestures, voices and lights are felt very big. These nonverbal factors stand out as much as the message the interviewee is talking about.
Therefore, leaders who are skilled in communication design not only messages but also clothing and gestures according to their personal characteristics. Steve Jobs is said to even pay attention to the lighting of space.
In the case of President Moon, since his pronunciation is not clear, by speaking more slowly his clear meaning may be conveyed. During his presentation at the New Year press conference, his lips-smacking sound was heard very audibly. A little more noticeable were his gestures. His hand movements were small and rapid, which could have led to misunderstandings as an unstable psychological state.
Looking at the leaders of the West such as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, most of them use very broad hand gestures. This not only expresses self-confidence, but also energizes the interviews so people are more interested in the next story. President Moon should have used hand movements a little more.
If not comfortable with large gestures, he could have created a more relaxed atmosphere by just holding a pen without hand movements at all. These nonverbal elements can make an interview much more comfortable and focused if you pay just a little more attention. In light of the second principle, the New Year conference was not so effective in my opinion.
The third principle is, “Post-interview communication can make the news as desired.” This means that compared to sales of products, after-sales service is important. According to newspaper editorials that appeared the next day of the press conference, there were a lot of gaps between the president’s stories and reality.
Even though Moon spoke in a future-focused way, including the direction of the government in 2018, a high number of responses showed that communication was not enough after the conference. The presidential secretariat could have only swiftly summarized the issues of the economy, diplomacy and a constitutional amendment at the conference if they had been expecting the news to come out as needed, from a strategic point of view.
Interviews with media and press conferences are the destiny of leaders. Just as a good actor must learn to act from a director, various leaders including political leaders must also learn how to respond to media through regular training. It is also in a leader’s interest to achieve competitiveness in creating an interview style tailored to his or her true colors.
Lee Bo-hyoung (juho.lee@macoll.com) is CEO of Macoll Consulting Group.