120 How to Sell Yourself
Examples of “agenda”
A reporter told me that her first Washington, D.C. assign-
ment for a major television network was to interview a high-level
government official who had just announced that he was resigning
his post in the Nixon administration. The assignment editor told
her, “Get him to say he’s leaving because of Watergate.” She de-
scribed the interview to me and it went something like this:
Q: Isn’t it true that you’re resigning because of Watergate?
A: I’ve been working 16-hour days. I haven’t had any time for
my wife and three young children. I decided that the time
had come to be a real husband and father.
Q: Well, but Watergate helped you reach that conclusion
didn’t it?
A: I was motivated by a need to keep my marriage together
and to get to know my kids.
Q: There’s a lot of talk that it was really Watergate. Didn’t it
influence you in the slightest?
A: My wife needs me. My kids need me. They’re the real rea-
son I’m leaving.The reporter felt defeated. She had failed. She went back with
her videotape and cried. She couldn’t force her editor’s agenda on
the subject. The interview didn’t make it on the air. But consider
this: Had the interviewee reacted in anger and said, “I’m not re-
signing because of Watergate,” the segment would have aired with
the anchor saying, “Nixon aide denies resigning over Watergate,”
then during the interview we’d have heard:
Q: Isn’t it true that you’re resigning over Watergate?
A: I am not resigning over Watergate.
We’d have heard “resigning over Watergate” three times and
that’s the weed the audience would be left with. Score one more
for the press.
- The “what if”
The hypothetical question has “disaster” written all over it. It
doesn’t require an answer. It doesn’t deserve an answer. But you
have to make it clear to the audience that it is hypothetical and be
calm and warm in response. It even helps if you can demonstrate
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