Jeff Saturday, future NFL Hall of Fame center, of the Indianapolis Colts, is passionate about football.  He is also very adamant about about eliminating the commercial sex trade. And he speaks publicly about what he is doing.

I was recently invited to Jeff’s Celebrate the City Super Bowl party. Jeff talked to me about his fund raising efforts to prevent the exploitation of children in the sex trade industry throughout the world. Jeff and his wife are co-chairing an event on March 2 at the Indiana Football Center (Colts complex), hoping to raise $100,000 to build a children’s home in Cambodia to keep kids safe from human trafficking.

Additionally, Jeff joined the Indiana Attorney General in signing a pledge to put an end to  public tolerance for human trafficking. This was part of our conversation.

Lessons about public speaking from this Jeff Saturday conversation:

• Be ready for a quick response when someone asks you about your involvement in a cause. Jeff did not hesitate at all, despite the fact that there was a party taking place all around us.

• Don’t drone on and on about your topic. Jeff gave me a succinct 36 second answer, which is the perfect length.  30 second answers tend to be more conversational than longer ones.  Long answers make the person who asked the question wonder when you will stop talking.

• Have a great 10 – 15 second sound-bite.  Here was Jeff’s:

“This should be everybody’s human nature to understand this is sick and it needs to stop. It needs to be changed. American men are the ones supplying the money. We need to fix the problem here and end human trafficking.”

Thanks, Jeff, for all you do in Indianapolis and abroad.

Here are excerpts from her article. The link for the full report is below.

“Research suggests that it does not. According to data from Nielsen, viewership of the three evening network news programs has steadily declined over the past 25 years, falling by more than 1 million viewers each year — translating into millions of dollars in lost annual revenue. The 2009 Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism’s State of the News Media annual report says that local news staffs, already too small to adequately cover their communities, are being cut at unprecedented rates. As a result, this caused local revenues to fall by a surprising 7 percent in a single election year— and ratings continue to drop. Only cable news is flourishing.”

“Rick Williams, executive producer at WPVI-ABC TV in Philadelphia, … says that because younger viewers find most of their information on the Internet, it is critical to cross-promote news between the TV and Web platforms.”

“For example, stations are now streaming news events live and carrying breaking stories on their Web sites. Viewers no longer have to wait until the evening news programs. To do this, many stations have hired producers who only create Web content, update stories online, produce video for Web sites and generate breaking-news alerts that are sent to subscribers’ cell phones and e-mail.”

“TV news, especially local news, will remain relevant to people who want to know what’s happening in their communities. Despite the steady decline of viewers, Pew reports that approximately two-thirds of Americans say that they still get their news from their local TV stations.”

“TV news must strive to remain relevant by continuing to increase Web presence and attract younger viewers. …TV news must consistently differentiate itself from other mediums by doing what it does best: broadcasting world events and live breaking news in a way that only TV cameras can capture.”

You can read the full article at http://www.karenfriedman.com/articles/tv_news_matter.php

Thanks for your insights, Karen.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should know that by now.  But she has egg on her face. And her communications have turned into a crisis communications case study.   Media relations experts are thrilled that she has given a fine example of what NOT to say or do.  

Want to learn from her communication no-no’s?  Here’s an article written by a media relations guru whose work I admire.

Nancy Pelosi’s Three Classic Mistakes

By Jerry Brown, APR

www.pr-impact.com

Nancy Pelosi has made three classic mistakes in telling what she knew about waterboarding and when she knew it as a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

·         She didn’t tell the whole story.  Crisis Communications 101:  When you’re in a crisis communication situation, tell the whole story at the beginning.  If you don’t, all those ugly facts you want to hide are fodder for keeping a bad story alive.  And each new forced disclosure will hurt your credibility.  Pelosi has been telling her story in stages.  And the news conference she called last week in an apparent effort to put the story to rest didn’t work because her words were so carefully parsed that she still doesn’t appear to have told all she knows.  This is a politically charged story.  So, Pelosi’s political opponents will do all they can to keep the story alive.  She’s helping them do that.

·         She’s relying on the “rules” to excuse her own behavior.  In a crisis situation, saying you met regulatory or legal requirements is a useless defense (except in court).  If your actions contributed to the problem, the rest of us don’t care whether you met whatever legal or regulatory rules applied.  We don’t trust the rules to protect us.  In Pelosi’s case, she uses this defense to explain why she didn’t complain about waterboarding of prisoners even after a member of her staff told her the CIA had told him they were doing it.

·         She picked a fight while trying to shut down the story.  Pelosi accused the CIA of routinely lying to members of Congress.  That kind of accusation wasn’t going to go unanswered.  Not a good strategy when you want a story to go away.

None of us like to own up to mistakes or misdeeds.  That’s why so many companies make the same classic mistakes Pelosi has made with her current predicament.

It’s not easy to come clean when you’ve screwed up and the world is watching.  But, if you want the story to go away quickly, it’s the only chance you have at making that happen.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?