It is the most wonderful time of the year.
No, not Christmas. Our look back at the interviews of the past year that have stuck in the memory for all the wrong reasons.
As ever, there have been plenty of foot-in-mouth moments over the past 12 months.
But we’ve narrowed our selection down. Some you will have seen highlighted during the year in our media training blogs. Others you might not have seen and may want to watch from behind your hands.
Each one comes with some media training tips to help you and your spokesperson avoid making similar mistakes.
The spokesperson who failed the interview test
Let’s be honest, there are plenty of politicians who could have featured this year.
But if I had to choose just one – and I don’t want the blog to become too political – it would have to be Gavin Williamson.
We are about spoilt for choice when it comes to media interview mishaps featuring the former Education Secretary.
But there was one that stood out above the others.
Back in August, when Mr Williamson was still in the job, he appeared on LBC in the middle of exam results season.
Having waxed lyrical about how it felt to go to his sixth form college in Scarborough and get his results, the politician was unable, or unwilling, to reveal what grades he achieved.
After serval attempts to ignore questions on this point, Mr Williamson finally claimed he could not remember those results because it was 27 years ago.
“I have forgotten,” he said. “It is so long ago. It is 27 years ago.
“You probably can’t remember what was happening last weekend.”
It was an answer that lacked plausibility given how vividly Mr Williamson could remember the rest of that day.
This was the moment Education Secretary Gavin Williamson 'forgot' his own A-Level results live on LBC @NickFerrariLBC | #alevelresults2021 https://t.co/yICE4yZPAO
— LBC (@LBC) August 10, 2021
Earlier in the interview, he had said: “I remember walking up to those college doors, going into my college at sixth form, getting that envelope, opening it and seeing the grades on there and feeling absolute delight.
“The was a sudden realisation that all my dreams of that next step of doing social science at Bradford opened up. And, for a lad growing up in Scarborough, Bradford was the most exotic and exciting place in the whole world.”
This strange response, where he could recall everything about the day apart from the crucial bit, propelled the interview to a much wider audience, with a series of damming headlines and opinion pieces.
The most vicious came from The Independent, which said: “The rest of us have always known that Gavin Williamson is a joke – now even he accepts it.”
While Mr Williamson should be congratulated for wanting to share personal stories in interviews – something we stress on our media training courses - you can’t brush over the crucial detail.
If Mr Williamson wasn’t keen to discuss his grades, maybe he should have avoided launching into a detailed account of his recollections of results day.
The other media training lesson here is you cannot ignore questions you don’t want to answer or find inconvenient.
Presenter Nick Ferrari had to ask this question five times before Mr Williamson acknowledged it.
If a reporter believes a spokesperson is trying to dodge a particular issue, they will ask the question repeatedly. And it becomes a distraction, as it did here.
People will not remember anything else Mr Williamson said in this interview.
They will only recall his attempts to ignore the question and the believability of his eventual answer.
Gerrit Cole
Who? That’s an understandable question.
But while Gerrit Cole may be largely unknown over here, he is a big deal in baseball in the US.
And the New York Yankees star produced a memorable example of what can go wrong when you don’t prepare for an interview.
The pitcher – the one who throws the ball – was appearing at a press conference when he faced a question asking whether he ever used Spider Tack.
That’s the name of an illegal substance that puts more spin on the ball and makes it harder to hit.
And Mr Cole had been named a few days earlier by another player as one of those using it.
Despite this, he seemed to be caught completely off-guard when asked about it by a journalist.
He stayed silent for around six seconds before saying: “I don't know if... I don't quite know how to answer that, to be honest.”
He then went into a meandering, evasive response about “customs and practices that have been passed down from older players to younger players”.
here's gerrit cole's response when asked point blank if he has ever used spider tack, one of the sticky substances baseball is looking to crack down on pic.twitter.com/rKFOksIDoW
— Matthew Roberson (@mroberson22) June 8, 2021
But his answer neither confirmed nor denied the allegations. That said, many thought it made him look guilty. It also propelled the story to a larger audience.
Of course, it was a difficult question. But difficult questions are asked by journalists. They can often, however, be anticipated.
As soon as he was named by a rival player, Mr Cole and his advisers should have anticipated he would face questions on the subject. And they should have devised a way he could handle those questions.
Preparation, as we so often stress during our media training courses, is crucial.
Perhaps it is time for Mr Cole to invest some of his $324 million contract in some.
Croydon Council
A lot has happened this year, with the world seemingly remaining in a constant state of flux.
But cast your minds back to March, and you should recall a series of ITV report about the horrendous conditions experienced in some council accommodation.
If you saw it, you won’t forget it. Leaking ceilings, walls covered in black mould, and soaking floors were just some of the disturbing scenes revealed in the reports.
The conditions were so grim the story led the national 10pm news.
Croydon Council initially ‘denied’ requests for an interview and issued a statement instead.
Council leader Hamida Ali did eventually step forward and was interviewed for the report the following day. Not surprisingly, it was a challenging interview, where she faced many uncomfortable questions.
News at Ten viewers saw a clip of her stumbling over a question asking why she had not yet been to see the flats before claiming that she had “not yet had the opportunity”.
Another clip of the interview saw her face a question five times about whether she felt “personal shame” over the living conditions in the flats. She ended up saying that she did, which made you wonder why it took so many attempts.
And she said she “couldn’t answer” the question of whether similar living conditions were experienced in the borough’s other tower blocks.
ITV later put the full recording of the virtual video on YouTube, and the theme of Cllr Ali struggling with the personal questions continued. The councillor had particular difficulties with questions on why she had not been in touch with one of the residents who had moved to a hotel.
The appalling housing conditions we found in Croydon ask many, many serious questions of the council.
— Daniel Hewitt (@DanielHewittITV) March 24, 2021
Last night, Croydon’s council leader finally agreed to an interview with us.
Here is the full 17 minute exchange: https://t.co/xyv1Z43mM2
When she said she had not yet “had the opportunity”, reporter Daniel Hewitt asked: “What have you been doing that is more important than contacting the woman living in the worst housing conditions in Britain?”
The questions were always going to be tough. And perhaps if the council had not initially tried to hide behind a statement, the journalists would have been a little more forgiving.
But there should have also been more understanding that questions could get personal.
Often in interviews like this, spokespeople will have the message their organisation wants to get across clear in their heads.
But they struggle when the questions ask about their involvement or their opinions.
Personal questions, however, can usually be anticipated and responses planned.
‘We’re not a racist family’
Negative language has been a regular stumbling block for spokespeople this year.
Boris Johnson managed to divert focus from COP26 with his “I genuinely believe that the UK is not remotely a corrupt country”, statement.
But the Prime Minister has featured in our blogs quite a bit recently.
So, let’s remind ourselves of how it caught out Prince William instead.
One of the golden rules we discuss during almost every media training course is the importance of spokespeople not repeating the journalist’s negative language.
And the prince provided the perfect example of why this is so vital.
Speaking for the first time since the well-documented Harry and Meghan interview with Oprah, during a school visit in London, the future king responded to a question asking whether the royal family “was a racist family” by saying “we are very much not a racist family.”
After all that work on that statement, Prince William says: "We're very much not a racist family”
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) March 11, 2021
pic.twitter.com/BsFFHkOF1h
Oh, dear.
As media interview gaffes go, it is right up there.
The careless comment created countless headlines, all containing the word ‘racist’.
In addition to creating a headline writer’s dream, the comment was repeatedly aired during just about every TV and radio news bulletin. And it is still being used now, more than nine months on I recently saw it again in the BBC documentary about the relationship between William, Harry and the press.
Journalists regularly ask questions like this. You will often hear them say something like, “This is very disappointing, isn’t it? Aren’t you disappointed?”
And the natural temptation is to say something like, “I wouldn’t say it’s disappointing…”
The problem with this is you just have. The journalist’s negative language can now be attributed to you.
And repeating the negativity can reinforce the strength of the accusation in the audience’s minds.
The Metaverse
Ok, this one isn’t an interview. But the video created to launch Meta and explain whatever the Metaverse is has to be one of the worst things I have seen this year. Or any other.
The whole thing felt incredibly false, scripted and artificial, and Mark Zuckerberg seemed to go to extraordinary lengths to prove the theory he may not be human.
But what stood out for me was the incredible arm movements of “Deb from the studio’s team” as she embarked on a toe-curling conversation with the boss about the “exciting” games available on the Metaverse.
Now, we know some people talk with their hands and arms. And there is nothing wrong with that as long as it does not become a distraction.
In this video, however, it was more than distracting. I’m not saying they are all robots at Facebook or Meta or whatever it is called now, but it felt like Deb had only just discovered she had arms and was still trying to work out how to control them.
They just killed the biker jacket. pic.twitter.com/VN5JOtIEzf
— John Harris (@johnharris1969) October 30, 2021
The crucial lesson to remember from this is that corporate videos don’t have to be like this. Speak to us about how our training ensures your people come across as natural and human on screen.
And finally
Let’s finish our look back at the infamous interviews of 2021 with something more light-hearted.
Despite restrictions easing this year, remote interviews carried out on Zoom or Teams have remained part of the media landscape – and a training option for our clients.
This format occasionally leads to interviews being interrupted by children.
But of all the kids who have crashed a TV appearance, few have done it with the swagger of Jacob Funk Kirkegaard’s son.
The senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, was speaking to Bloomberg TV about the departure of German Federal Bank chief Jens Weidmann.
And as he discussed the US dollar and euro rate, his son appeared in the background, pulling faces, waving and laughing.
Mr Kirkegaard appeared unconcerned – or unaware - until the host laughed and said: “Does your son work for the Greek government?”
Impressive job by this young man on @BloombergTV this morning. Proves what I've always said: Every report about the Bundesbank should include goofy dancing kids in the background! pic.twitter.com/q28ljEvSJE
— Daniel McDowell (@daniel_mcdowell) October 20, 2021
He later put out a social media post saying: “If you promise to play Pokémon cards and forget to lock your door... you risk paying a price."
And with that crucial media training lesson, we will bring our annual round-up to a close.
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