Last modified on October 26, 2014 by Brad Phillips

The "Secret" Media Training School For Republicans

CNN.com recently ran a fascinating piece about the “GOP’s secret school,” in which candidates learn how to interact with the media. The school is a reaction to the high-profile crises the GOP has inflicted upon itself in recent years—from Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment to Christine O’Donnell’s “I am not a witch” ad—and party officials are determined not to repeat past mistakes. According to the article:

“Since the beginning of 2014, the RNC says it has graduated over 200 operatives and placed many of them as communications directors and press secretaries in Capitol Hill offices and federal campaigns nationwide…[Instructor] Rob Lockwood has also conducted media training boot camps with nearly 1,000 candidates, staff and local political figures in a dozen states.”

It appears that this GOP training class is doing everything right in its effort to improve external communications. There’s good advice here for everyone involved in politics, regardless of party or cause. In this post, I’ll highlight the excerpts that caught my attention most.

 

Media training instructor Rob Lockwood

Media training instructor Rob Lockwood

 

1. Don’t Treat Reporters As Your Enemy

Tim Miller, the executive director of America Rising, says:

“‘If you treat reporters with hostility, there will be blood….As recently as 2008 and 2010, you would sit in these rooms and it would be somebody from the Lee Atwater era, talking about how the media is your enemy…My talk was about talking the ways to use the 24/7 news cycle and Twitter and social media to your advantage, as well as recognizing the pitfalls.’”

2. Think Twice Before Holding Press Conferences

“’Doing a press conference just to do a press conference doesn’t work anymore,’ Lockwood tells students. ‘It’s an antiquated way of thinking. If you don’t know what you want your headline to be, and think you can go out there and say what you want in five points, and answer none of the questions, that the news reports are going to be about your five points. Nope. The reports will probably be about the five things you didn’t answer.’”

Republican-National-Committee-Logo.jpg

3. Remember That Dull Can Be Good

Lockwood tells his audiences that being a bit dull may be preferable:

“’Don’t use jokes that you’ve never told before … Jay Carney showed everyday that it’s better to be dull than offensive,’ referring to the former White House press secretary who is now a CNN political commentator. ‘Don’t introduce new phrases, like Etch-a-sketch.’”

4. Maintain a Bit of Healthy Paranoia

“’I’d rather have candidates being careful to a fault than, you know, having a fountain of blabber coming out of their mouth that’s not disciplined,’ [RNC Chairman Reince] Priebus says.‘ We are training candidates, training state parties, training operatives to appreciate that communicating isn’t just a free-for-all, natural-born type of activity. People need to be trained and disciplined.’”

5. Don’t Chase Every Story

Although “rapid response” is key to every political communications shop, it doesn’t mean you have to respond to everything:

“As much as the classes focus on the capacity of the web to drive a message, students are urged not to chase every shiny object or micro-story that pops on Twitter.”

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