One technique for dealing with difficult questions from journalists

Bridging is a well-known technique to deal with difficult questions. But journalists are onto it. There’s a better technique that works.

Some journalists get a kick out of asking difficult questions. If you speak to journalists it’s a part of the game. Some journalists like to be deliberately provocative; some see a challenge in trying to break through a well-managed and well-trained interview subject to get the answer they need.

In either scenario, if you get a question you don’t like you need to have the tools to deal with them. One these tools is reframing. — Click to tweet

Bridging – don’t do it

If you’ve had media training before you might say, “Yes, I know how to bridge”. Bridging is a common technique, but you need to do more than that. Journalists know bridging when they see it and it annoys them.

What is bridging?

“Bridging” is a technique that gets you from the question asked to the answer you want to give (often a key message). Bridging is a crutch for politicians. The next time you find yourself infuriated with a politician avoiding the question pay close attention to the language they are using.  They’re probably bridging with phrases like:

• “What’s important to remember…”
• “Let’s not forget…”
• “Before I answer that…”
• “Let me put that in perspective…”
• “Let’s start at the beginning…”

The following video is a particularly bad example of bridging. (Stop it when you’ve had enough – it’s excruciating).

Shantanu Narayen, Adobe’s CEO, was asked a pretty simple question, but it was one he didn’t want to answer:

Mr Narayan, just a question I know my readers universally ask me to ask you — how can Adobe possibly justify charging up to $1,400 more for the exact same software delivered in Australia, delivered over the internet with no boxed copy, compared to US prices?

Narayen defaults with an answer his media trainers have drummed into him — bridge to where you want to be. His response:

Again, and I’ll answer this question when we look at the Creative Cloud and where the future of the Creative Cloud is…

You can see why relying on bridging is bad — it encourages interviewees to avoid the question. His bridging statement, “I’ll answer this question when…”, leads him into a response that no Adobe customer would be happy with. Narayen been trained to use difficult questions as an opportunity to promote products. It makes him look out of touch, uncaring and untrustworthy. It’s all too common. Too many people I hear on TV and the radio are badly trained and ill-prepared.

What the alternative? The first step is preparation.

Preparing for media interviews

Before dealing with media you have to prepare. At a minimum, you should anticipate the questions you will receive and think about how you will respond to them. Maura Angle, a former journalist and now a media trainer, recommends dividing questions into three categories:

1. questions in your interest;
2. questions not in your interest;
3. and those in the grey area.

This is a simple exercise that gets you thinking about how you will respond in the interview.

Questions in your interest

These are questions that you can easily answer. Think of the basic who, what where, when, why and how. Questions that require you to clarify e.g. “What do you mean by that?” can also be questions in your interest as it opens up an opportunity for you to expand on your previous point in more detail. Then there are the softball questions — questions that give you a free hit. This could be something like, “tell me why you are the best candidate”. Make the most of these.

Questions not in your interest

These are the most difficult questions. They might be deliberately adversarial or just something you’d prefer not to talk about. They may be hypothetical or leading.

• Hypothetical question: “What good are higher wages if it means others will lose their jobs?”
• Leading question: “How badly has your reputation been damaged because of this?”

The grey area

These are questions you’re not sure about and many depend on the journalist or the situation. They may be indirect, open or closed.

• Indirect: can be used when asking about a sensitive topic. Such as “Can you tell me how you feel about that?”
• Open: “What was the response from staff when you told them the news?”
• Closed: “Did you speak with your staff today?”

The key is to try and move as many questions as possible into the “in your interest” camp. We can do this by reframing the question or not accepting the frame of the journalist.

What’s a frame?

A frame is a structure that shapes how we see the world. It is made up of words and phrases; these words and phrases activate pre-existing frames in our brain. To understand frames I recommend you read my short primer on framing. To reframe a question you need to understand what a frame is.From my primer:

A very basic example of a frame is a restaurant. When you hear the word “restaurant” other words and images are evoked such as: food, waiter, knife, fork, kitchen, table and scenarios like ordering from a menu. We know the menu is given to us at the beginning of the meal and the bill at the end. These words and scenarios form a narrative in our brain that are known as frames.

Reframing difficult questions and answering them

To move questions “into your interest” you need to quickly reframe the question in your mind before you answer. By doing this you can turn a negative question, or a challenge, into something you want to say.

The first step is to avoid repeating the negative and evoking the journalist’s frame. — Click to tweet

The next step is to deal with the challenge the interviewer has laid down and answer.

Let’s revisit the Adobe example. The original question Shantanu Narayen received was:

Mr Narayan, just a question I know my readers universally ask me to ask you — how can Adobe possibly justify charging up to $1,400 more for the exact same software delivered in Australia, delivered over the internet with no boxed copy, compared to US prices?

The frame the journalist is using is that Adobe rips Australians off.  This is how he could have reframed the question before answering:

Mr Narayan, why is your product worth buying even if it is more expensive here than in the United States.

This rejects the rip-off frame and creates a new one: Adobe makes great software. He could have answered this question in the following way:

Adobe makes the best software in the world and we think it helps our customers better at what they do whether it’s for work or personal projects. One thing we’ve done is reduce the price drastically for students because we know they struggle to make ends meet — so they get a 70 per cent discount. At the other end we have professionals using our products – it improves their work, pushes them creatively and helps them to deliver better results — whether it’s for clients or their own projects. But we know there are the people in between who don’t qualify for the student discount and don’t make large profits. This is why we introduced Creative Cloud where people can pay a monthly fee instead of paying up front and we’re working to drive our prices down even further to make products like Photoshop more affordable for everyone. In response to the feedback we’ve had from customers we’re looking at ways to make our software even better and more affordable.

To simulate an interview-like environment I gave myself just a few seconds to reframe the question before answering. My answer is a bit long, but here’s what I did:

• No bridging statement – I responded to the challenge in the very first line in the positive – I talked about the value of the product
  Effect: show that Adobe makes products that help people
• I talked about the discount already available to students
  Effect: Go some way to inoculating the challenge that Adobe doesn’t care about its customers and has done nothing to make their software cheaper
• I talked about the people who could afford it in a respectful way
  Effect: Reminded those customers about the value the product adds to their work
• I acknowledged the people in between students and professionals by mentioning Creative Cloud — something that’s more affordable to them if they can’t pay the money upfront. Narayen used Creative Cloud in his answer too, but mine doesn’t sound like a sales pitch
  Effect: Like the example with the student discount this is intended to inoculate some of the pricing accusations
• I acknowledged the response to customer feedback
  Effect: Show empathy
• I announced the plan to make the product better and more affordable
  Effect: Reinforce the idea that Adobe make the best products and they looking at ways of bringing the cost down

This answer is better than Narayan’s. It takes the sting out of the question and goes some way to illustrating why Adobe’s products are so good.  It shows that Adobe have already done things to make the product more affordable and gives a hint there may be more to come. I am sure the journalist would have found this response less frustrating.

Two hypothetical examples

Reframing can work in a variety of situations. Here are two examples: one for those who work in the environment movement; one for politicians.

• Environmental organisation
  • Original question: “What good is tackling global warming if unemployment goes up through coal power station closures?”
    Frame: economic vandals
  • Reframed, positive question: “What job creation opportunities are there in a clean energy economy?”
    New frame: economic opportunity
• Politician
  • Original question: “Why have you backed down on your promise to add more police?”
    Frame: liar, weak
  • Reframed, positive question: “What better ways have you found to reduce crime and make people safer?”
    New frame: making people safer

Let me know how you go

If you get tough questions from journalists, or advise someone who does, you need to be prepared. Bridging isn’t enough. You’re not doing yourself any favours if you’re annoying the journalist and  infuriating the audience by avoiding questions. Think about how you can replace your bridging phrases with reframed questions that are in your interest.

Let me know how you go. I’d love to hear examples of readers using it in practice.