Would you snap if you were asked the same question repeatedly in your media interviews?
Maybe not just in one interview or press conference, but in all your interviews over a certain period of time?
Well that was the excuse given for a particularly high profile PR disaster last week.
In a staggering 20 minute press conference Rory McIlroy swapped his golf clubs for a self-destruct button and appeared to be on a mission to create as many negative headlines as possible for himself and his sport.
Having already pulled out of the Olympics because of fears about the Zika virus, he claimed he would not be keeping an eye on how his fellow players fared in the tournament because he would be ‘watching the stuff that matters’.
Asked about whether he was doing enough to grow the sport – one of the motivations for golf becoming an Olympic sport - he replied that he did not go into golf to ‘grow the game, I got in it to win’.
And to finish it all off he questioned the sport’s attitude to drug-testing saying ‘I could be using HGH (human growth hormone) and getting away with it’.
Journalists attending the press conference expecting a rather routine preview story ahead of the start of the Open Championship probably did not know where to start writing such was the volume of material McIlroy produced. Hold the back page.
Meanwhile, the sport’s officials buried their heads in their hands.
Asked the following day if he was happy with his comments the Northern Ireland golfer said: “Look, it’s my opinion. I think it’s shared by a few people, but some may think it is wrong and that’s fine. It was seven years of trying to give the PC answer and I just cracked.”
It is undoubtedly irritating to be asked the same questions repeatedly, but it is something spokespeople will often face in a crisis media management situation or when they have positioned themselves as a thought leader within their industry.
For example, you answer a difficult question with a line you have decided to take only for the journalist to look quizzical and ask the same question in a different form. Or, perhaps you go on to be asked a couple of other questions and then the reporter goes back to the original difficult question.
It is a trick journalists often use because they know that when people are asked the same question again and again they may eventually give a different answer.
The key to avoiding the often repeated question trap, as we refer to it on our media training courses, is not to get frustrated, flustered or bored into moving away from your message.
If journalists ask you the same question, five, six, seven or more times then smile, be polite and give the same answer.
Better still, try to move the conversation on to something more positive from your point of view.
McIlroy did later admit he wished he had expanded on his answer about growing the game but the damage had been done and the often repeated question trap was one bunker he spectacularly failed to avoid.
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