Guest post: How to talk to reporters

From Alex Kohut's The North Poll newsletter, an interview with former PMO press secretary Alex Wellstead.

Welstead (light suit) at work.

Hi everyone. Paul Wells here, briefly. I’m giving the rest of this post over to Alex Kohut, who was, for nine months in 2021-2022, the Trudeau PMO’s lead pollster. I wrote about him when he wrote an interesting farewell email from that job.

Now Kohut has his own polling firm and a Substack, The North Poll, in which he’s been running a series of posts discussing best practices in political staffing. I was especially interested in his interview with Alex Wellstead, who was a press secretary in Justin Trudeau’s PMO and communications director to François-Philippe Champagne at ISED.

These two are Liberals, but nobody should assume the philosophy about media relations is wildly different in other parties.

I grumble about communications all the time. I’m conscious that I don’t often ask comms people about the choices they make. Also aware that sometimes they’re reluctant to answer even when asked. Here, Wellstead talks frankly to a friendly audience about important work. I was particularly struck by the instinct to “loop in as many people as you can” after receiving a reporter’s question. I have thoughts. But I’ll leave the rest of this post to Kohut, Wellstead — and you, in the comments. Here’s Alex Kohut. And if you want to read more from him, here’s his Substack.

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The relationship between political staffers and media can be a tough one to navigate. Few staffers in recent history have more experience building bridges across this divide than Alex Wellstead, a long-time communications staffer under the Trudeau government who served as Press Secretary for the Prime Minister and Director of Communications at Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED), among other roles.

The challenge of media relations can be a scary one when you haven’t done it before, as there’s not much margin for error when you are speaking on behalf of your political bosses. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so important for staffers to share their best practices in how to navigate these relationships.

As someone who spent more time in politics talking to spreadsheets than journalists, I learned a lot talking with Alex about his experiences. Our conversation is below:

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AK: Let’s talk media relations! I didn’t have to do much of this when I was in politics, but I remember being terrified the first time a journalist reached out to me and said they wanted to talk about something. What was your process for deciding how to deal with incoming media requests?

AW: Yeah, I mean, first thing is you pause. You pause on it, you take some time to read through it and you assess. What do they want? Why are they coming now? Who else knows about this? Is this a proactive story that they're working on that seems like this very obscure topic they're asking questions on. Or is it just something that your minister or your MP or somebody said throughout the day that you just have to have a reactionary response or quick correction of what they meant by what they said?

But that's it. You take the time to really understand the foundation so you know where you assume they're going with this and have as much information as you can. And then it's the internal triage, you want to make sure to loop in your policy colleagues. You want to make sure to talk to your regional desk, other comms leads in the office, and make sure that, “hey, we've got this… deadline is this time… I need to find out how to answer this.”

And of course, you usually want to pick from the department because a good chunk of the time a lot of the answers can be found from there because it's a very policy-laden question and you don't necessarily want to start making policy by comms.

But yeah, you want to loop in as many people as you can to make sure that you're comfortable with where you think you're gonna take the answer. Align on that message before responding. Don't have guesswork in this. Make sure that everybody's good. Make sure it's not just you lone-gunning it and just moving forward with it because frankly, if you're wrong, you're going to be on the hook with it, even if it feels right. So make sure that you've got your senior folks who are comfortable with the approach. And I get it, that can be process heavy, but it's much better when you're talking about big pieces that are going from a public communications perspective.

And look, if it's ever dicey, if it's ever an issue, figure out what your red lines are. Figure out exactly how far you can go on something before you pick up the phone because you don't want to start making policy up on the fly. You don't want to start making up new ideas while you're talking to a journalist.

And remember: it's their job to really push on you to get something. But frankly, it doesn't mean that your answer necessarily has to change to suit what the question has become. If you're confident as to what your answer is, then stick to your guns on it. Stick to what you know because journalists will expect that. They'll accept that. And they'll respect that because it's your job to be the messenger here, not to try to create new things just because questions get hard.

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AK: I think everyone has seen news stories where at the end it says “no comment” from a Minister. What’s the decision you make about saying “no comment” versus trying to have input into the narrative that’s forming around a story?

AW: It depends on a lot of different dynamics within those situations. Sometimes, if you know that the requests are coming in and it really is not a balanced request or just kind of seem to be very ulterior in their motives, sometimes not dignifying it with a response is the right approach. But I am sure I gave responses to some folks that didn't deserve the time or day or aren't actual journalists that I probably didn't have to spend the time or energy on.

You want to make sure that the responses you give are when journalists are coming to you in a true and honest and fair fashion as equals, not as a gotcha kind of thing. So if it seems to be a setup for something, it's not worth the time to put something or just bluntly even in some cases it's a no comment at this time because dynamics shift, issues change, things are happening in the moment. The moment that journalists hear something or get a lead or somebody says something in question period, things can change between when the question is asked and a day later, and sitting on a “no comment” is sometimes better than trying to give a longer answer when your own answer is going to change in 24, 36, 48 hours.

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AK: I imagine it’s a difficult balancing act to try and create a positive working relationship with media while also being careful to avoid accidentally creating stories by saying the wrong thing. What’s your advice to someone starting in a media relations role on how to manage this dynamic?

AW: You put it earlier. I think people get very sweaty, very, “oh God, what do I do” the first moment the call or the email or the DM comes in asking a question or introducing themselves. But look, I mean, overall, be respectful, be responsive, but also be a person. You don't want to say dumb things, of course, on or off the record, but this is about building relationships with trust. And so I think finding that balance of them doing their job, you doing your job, but come to them as a person and with trust and respect. And frankly, you'll find a lot of space to play within all of that.

It's not your job to win an interview. It's to land your point and avoid unforced errors. But build relationships when the stakes are low with reporters and media. And you do it when those off moments happen. And thankfully, they do happen a lot more now rather than during the pandemic when every moment was everything. But make time so that these people aren't strangers, so that it's not just always purely transactional.

It is the standard to “go out for a coffee and introduce yourself” and have time to understand where they're coming from - not just the topics that they're covering, but also the people that they are. Make sure that they understand you. I have a number of reporters that I would consider friends that I still keep in touch with.

Being an authentic person and being willing to be a human with the media is often lacking. People just slap out the statement: “That's it. No, I’ve got no time for this”.

Make the time. Find the time. Because when the going gets tough, when there's moments where you need to say “what you just wrote was incorrect.” They’ll say, “OK, tell me why.” Then you've built up that relationship so they know you're coming at it honestly, not just as a spinner from PMO or from a MinO or from an MP’s Office. And they'll give you space to explain yourself.

It's a tough dynamic. It's a tough kind of balancing act. But they recognize that you've got information, you've got understanding out of this and just be a person. But also don't wing it. Just because you're buddy-buddy doesn't mean that you can shoot the shit with people. Prep like your boss's job depends on it. Because usually it does. A misplaced quote or misplaced statement can misplace somebody from cabinet at times.

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AK: It's good for me to hear when there's advantages to being a decent person in politics, which I think is broadly quite true over the long term. It's such a small world that being good to people or being bad to people is something that people hear about. But I think a lot of people who are new to politics might be more more cynical about that sort of stuff, so it’s a good reminder to have that that being a good person does pay off down the road.

AW: And be good to the opposition, to journalists, to everybody... as long as they're not complete assholes. Even if you know that they're very much biased, being a decent person, grabbing a beer, grabbing a coffee, just talking to them. It goes farther than not and vilifying people.

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AK: Sometimes the media isn’t talking about something good the government has done and we need to be more proactive in getting our message out about policy successes.

I remember back in 2019, we were revisiting a lot of the election promises we made in 2015 to see if people felt like we had completed them or not. There were some that we hadn't completed, but a lot of things we had and people still largely didn't know that we had done any of these promises because they hadn't been paying attention to when new legislation comes out or been watching CPAC. We needed to find ways to proactively get the message in front of people where they were.

How do you go about planning an offensive to get a story you want into the news cycle?

AW: I'll look at this purely - you can call me old, I guess - I'm looking at this from the lens of traditional media because I think social media offers a hugely new dynamic that people can get a message out there in a way that can be done very differently than traditional media. But I think probably pieces of this will fit into social media too.

But how do you break into a news cycle? You start with your audience. And even if you think the audience, say for the 2019 looking back at promises, whether it's long-term water advisories or child care or XYZ, whatever, who needs to actually hear this? And why do they need to hear it now? You need to contextualize it in something that's happening right now. Because four years is a long time. Things change, priorities change. It falls out of people's heads. We're all busy. Four days is long in people's minds these days. So I think you just have to figure out where this really will resonate, who needs to hear it and why, and why now.

So you go there and then you build it backwards from the headline that you want. You know, like “government is awesome”. That's great. How do you get there? Maybe you need to pare it down a bit. But you work from the headline and then you fill in the pieces. This is similar to, I think, what a lot of people in any industry can see now. You need to have third-party experts who can kind of come to it. You need to see where it hits people, where they actually are. And then you bring in the voice of a corporation, an organization, a government. And once you have all that, then you go to media. You say, “hey, look, I've got something here. I've got something real.” But you make sure that they see the value in it for themselves.

Is this an exclusive? Is this access to information that is unknown? Is this data? Everybody wants to have a few pieces of good data in their stories. Ask yourself: Why do we read headlines? What makes headlines? What gets to the heartstring? It's the human angle. You want to see how this really impacts somebody right on the ground. How do you put yourself in their own shoes?

And in the industry I'm in now, the pharmaceutical industry. It usually means what does that mean for a patient who got this life-saving treatment? What does it mean for this patient or the parent whose kid just got this treatment that is curing them of a disease? And that really kind of carries something. It brings that emotional realness to it. So I think those are the things you want to go to media with and say, “hey, we've got this…” And they'll do their own work on this. They'll do their own research. But frankly, they'll find that human angle. It always helps to have these pieces here to say, “hey, look, this is a success story of what we've been able to accomplish. Here are the pieces. Build it however you want. And when you've got it, great, we've got a quote from the minister, we've got an interview with the minister or your MP.”

But also remember, you're going to get nos. You think you’ve got this great story and you go to the lead journalist at Canadian Press or Globe and Mail or CBC because you want to get those national headlines because it means your boss is in the media, but it's not always going to happen. You swing for the fences every time. You're going to get it a few times, but not all the time.

So look to see, is there another angle? Is there another outlet? Is there something new that you can bring to get back into it? I mean, local headlines still count for something and they can kind of cycle into big things too.

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AK: Yeah, it reminds me of something we used to say a lot from the polling side in government, which is to focus on the outcomes, not necessarily the inputs, right? Because you might be making a $3 billion announcement or putting forward this big bill or whatever, but the average Canadian doesn't necessarily know what that means. And there's some cynicism about that. It's still seen as kind of more of a promise than a deliverable. Whereas talking about those human stories or really tangible examples can sometimes make things more real for people.

For instance, with the Oceans Protection Plan we spent $1.5 billion and in focus groups, no one would really react to that. They didn't know what that meant. But you would say we have a new tugboat in the port in your city, or whatever, And people would be like, “oh, that's really real, that's going to make a big difference.” I think that's an easy trap to fall into for government because you've got these big dollar figures and things that are exciting at the policy creation stage where we operate, but you're a little more distanced from what these policies actually look like to Canadians when they experience them on the other side. You have to be disciplined to find those success stories, those outcomes.

That leads into the next thing I was going to ask, which is if you have a good example of a success story you've had working with media and maybe something that you or your team did a little bit differently to manage to get that success?

AW: I think the local stories really do tell that human element, and trust me, I get it, it's a slog to get those because you've got to do the Halifax, you've got to do the Windsor, you've got to do the Quebec City, you have to do all these communities to really tell it, and you hope it all lands. But I think that's a good way to do it.

I'll use one example, and this is oddly enough, it's a local story, but it's actually in a South Korean newspaper. We were in Korea for the 65th anniversary of the Korean War and I was working for Seamus O’Regan at the time as Veterans Affairs Minister, and we did this interview with a local paper there talking about memorial events, but also veteran services.

And the story that Seamus told was about how these services that are available to veterans are something as simple as “we will shovel your driveway.” We had heard at a town hall in Canada about a very grateful son of a veteran who said “hey this is great, they came to mow my dad's lawn.” They said it was a huge thing for him, and he was shocked that just because he's a veteran, just because he served, this was available to him. And I have it somewhere in the house, but there’s this picture of Seamus and in Korean it says “they'll mow your lawn.” It's totally an international story, but it was about the most local thing. So that's one example.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, we were announcing high-speed internet, one of the big billion-dollar investments to make sure that everybody gets access to high-speed internet. And we put out a news release with Minister O’Regan's quote in it, and because it was one of the first news stories, like January 3rd or January 4th of the year, we had that running on CBC National News for the better part of the day, being like “$10 million invested into Newfoundland for high-speed internet.” And it was a success because there wasn't any other news, so that was kind of luck of the draw.

Another one is EVs. When we were doing the big push on EV battery plants there was really good success in showing what it means for the workers in Windsor. Whatever the topic might be, find the human angle, find out what it means or get lucky with timing that nobody else is talking about anything, so they'll just run you on repeat!

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AK: Zooming out from just media relations, what is the most important thing that should be done to improve the workplace culture on Parliament Hill?

AW: You know, you were talking [earlier] about the benefit of mental health support or burnout support or whatever you want to call it. That's one thing for sure. But I think what we also need is more structured mentorship to really help.

I get it, these are careers that are usually for most people a blip in the big experience of things. You're there for a mandate, a couple years, a decade or however long it might be. But frankly, it is just such a go, go, go, you're working for the next 24 hours, the next four years, whatever it might be. But too many people figure out the hard way of mentoring and doing things properly. What I'm seeing now in a lot of other careers is there are resources to actually set people up for success.

I tried to be as accessible as a person when I was on the Hill to every other press secretary or comms staff, while at PMO or otherwise, because there is no handbook for this. There's no understanding of the workplace side of things or the jobs themselves. But, you know, I was one person, and anybody else who tries to do the same thing is only just one person. So structured mentorships could really help people go along. And with how busy these jobs are, taking the time to make sure that people are set up for success pays dividends in the long run.

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AK: Do you have any other advice for staffers?

Learn how to write fast.

Learn how to write well.

You know, this is from the perspective of comms, but it's the currency of the job. Words matter, context matters. Know the audience. Know all these things. Most importantly, know the politician whose voice you're trying to put it in. I'm biased in this because I spent my career in politics in the comms side of things. But being able to effectively communicate, I think, pays dividends in policy, in desk work, in operations, everything. The more clear, the more concise, the more to the point you are, the better it is for everybody.

Be willing to be able to go into those long explainers of it. Know your stuff, but know how to take that 20,000-foot perspective and do it in a detailed but concise way that helps people.

Also, be kind. Be a decent human being. We talked about that earlier. You never know where these relationships go. So just be a decent person. I get that the world exists in social media and the hatred, fear, and all that crap that happens on there. And I also know what happens in question period, too. I've stopped watching that, thankfully. But play nice because these are other human beings just trying to do the same thing that you are.