Remember Rule #5

When U.S. Rep. Joe Barton of Texas began his opening statement to the House subcommittee hearing testimony from BP CEO Tony Hayward by saying, “I’m speaking totally for myself,” I thought, “You should know better.”

After he apologized to BP for their forced funding of a $20 billion oil-spill fund, he did know better. What Barton did violated one of our ten rules of media relations: 

5. You cannot speak only for yourself

It’s one of the rules we teach in our Executive Media Training Seminars.

Everybody in news reporting tends to be identified as representative of a group. It’s easy to see how an apology to BP from Barton, as ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, became “Republicans apologize to BP” in the headlines.

It’s just as easy to see that contemptuous remarks about President Obama’s administration by some members of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s staff to a Rolling Stone reporter could be interpreted as representing the attitude of the entire military leadership in Afghanistan. (Those comments, by the way, violated Rule 6: Reporters are not your friends).

Journalism loves to use quotes from members of groups as representative of the general sentiment of the group. Say my next-door neighbor turned out to be a serial killer. If I said to a reporter, “Gee, I thought she was really nice,” it wouldn’t be long before everyone on my block was assumed to be friendly to the maniac.

It’s not fair that a clerk in a retail store could be turned into a spokesman for an international corporation. It can happen. When it’s a Congressman in a leadership position, it always will happen. Barton should have known.

Tags: media relations, BP, oil spill