Expert Spokespersons

Likewise, when John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette and her sister Lauren Bessette were feared dead after debris from their small plane was found off Martha's Vineyard on July 17, 1999, it was only a matter of hours before CNN, the TV networks, radio stations and other media had tracked down dozens of experts.

All day Saturday and Sunday of that weekend, they not only commented on the crash but ventured guesses as to what had happened. They came from the military, the U.S. Weather Service, the Coast Guard, and from the ranks of flight instructors and expert pilots who had thousands of hours of flight time and were willing to predict what the investigators would find.

Kennedy, they said, was a relative novice pilot flying a high-performance aircraft over the ocean on a nearly moonless night as a summer haze hung over the Northeast. They called that a dangerous combination of factors. Some said he was likely flying into what pilots call a "black hole" while searching through the haze for the first pinpoints of light on Martha's Vineyard. It was clear, they said, that Kennedy was flying into conditions that have lured many other pilots to their deaths.

Some of those who ventured guesses as to what happened had media training, and others did not. The common thread, however, was their ability to predict what investigators would find--and do so convincingly even if they thought they might be wrong. That's the key difference between a media spokesperson, who is supposed to stick to just the facts, and the expert spokesperson, who shouldn't be afraid to look into the crystal ball.

Such is the life of an expert spokesperson. You get to reap the rewards of all that free publicity. But you will be asked to make predictions from time to time, so you often run the risk of being wrong.

Even so, Rothstein still believes that serving as an expert spokesperson is well worth the time and effort. The media do thousands of interviews each day and are always looking for new sources to keep their reports fresh and balanced. Those expert spokespersons must be accessible. They must know how to use sound bites. They also must know how to sound authoritative and unwavering in their opinion, even when they know deep down that they too could be wrong--in front of tens of thousands of people.

Al Rothstein, a media coach who trains experts on how to be media magnets, was Joan Stewart's guest during a recent telephone seminar and shared dozens of tips on how to position yourself as the type of expert who the media go to again and again for background, commentary and predictions. He also explained what expert spokespersons should do when they're wrong, plus lots more advice on how to play this key role with the press.

If you who wants to be an expert spokesperson, or need to have on on your staff, you can learn all the inside tactics from the one-hour tele-seminar "How to be an Expert Spokesperson the Media Love." It's available on Audio CD.

Tags: Spokesperson