Just a few short years ago, explaining my job as a media trainer frequently prompted puzzled looks.  My standard elevator-pitch synopsis of how we coach people to excel in television and print interviews was often met with, “You mean, there’s a profession dedicated just to that?”   Funny though, I haven’t been getting that reaction lately.  Clearly I have Sarah Palin to thank.  Now everybody seems to know exactly what I do (although not for her, I must add).  Regardless of what you think of her politically, the fact that she’s been media coached to within an inch of her life is now about the worst-kept secret in America. 

At dinner parties, people no longer ask what I thought of Palin’s performance; rather, they ask my appraisal of how she was coached.  In-laws e-mail me to find out if I media trained her between the Katie Couric debacle and last Thursday night’s debate.  Even my mailman (a.k.a. Joe Six-Pack) seems to know about “key messages” as well as the difference between “deflecting” a question and “bridging” off one. Was her winking scripted? Why did she always start scribbling notes when her opponent was on the attack?  Is she leaving the “g” off the ends of her gerunds on purpose?  Perhaps because we’re all focused on the execution of the content, rather than the content itself, candidate misinformation has become so pervasive that it’s difficult for even a fact checker to sort out what’s true or not. Face it, the style scorecard has become far easier for most of us to keep track of than the one for substance.

But just because the public is now aware of media training’s role in communications doesn’t mean its implementation needs to be clumsy and obvious.  The goal of good media training is not about scripting a set of talking points for trainees and getting them to memorize them like lines in a school play.  To bring an authentic and organic feel to the content, an accomplished media trainer needs to listen extensively to his/her client, constantly on the lookout for conversational material that can serve as the cornerstone of that person’s talking points as well as the visual anecdotes that help illustrate them.  If a person sounds media trained in the wake of the coaching, then the session has been a failure.  The fact that Sarah Palin emerged from her Sedona spin class sounding coached may say more about her limitations as a knowledgeable candidate than the caliber of her training.  After all, it would be nearly impossible to tutor someone to pass the bar exam when all they’ve ever taken is the LSAT’s.

Until Sarah Palin’s emergence, we media trainers have primarily existed in the background, allowing our clients to bask in the spotlight of our eloquence.. um.. I mean their eloquence.  In a modern-day media sense, we are like Cyrano de Bergerac, whispering the profound and poignant lines from behind the bushes so our clients can get the girl.  But for those coaching Sarah Palin, there’s no shrub big enough to hide behind.  The Charlie Gibson, and, to a much greater extent, Katie Couric interviews exposed the Alaska governor as a political tabula rasa, who over the course of five weeks had time to cover only part of the Vice Presidential 101 syllabus.  The Bush Doctrine, Supreme Court decisions, McCain regulatory crusades and the names of newspapers she reads must have been slated for future lesson plans.  The dramatic disparity between her convention and debate performances with her network interviews has revealed a simple and obvious truth: when the rules of engagement do not allow her to be totally in control, she’s completely out of control.

Palin’s convention speech was scripted, telepromptered and did not hold any room for error.  The public was impressed and she rose to overnight political stardom.  The rigid structure of last week’s debate was also kind to her.  More than 50% of the moderator’s questions were asked well before Palin was required to answer them, allowing her plenty of time to recall the messaging from the coaching session.  A good media training session teaches the trainee how to listen to the question in such a way as to identify the topic of the question 7-10 seconds before they must begin their answer.  Thursday night, Palin often had a full 1-2 minutes of time to prepare her answer, which the moderator could not follow up on.  This allowed her to frequently give a stump speech that masqueraded as an answer. In her network news interviews, however, vague and disjointed answers were challenged.  It wasn’t long before Couric found Palin’s Achilles’ Heel: specifics.  With all the time in the world and plenty of videotape to burn, Couric kept asking for the name of that one Supreme Court case, that one McCain regulatory effort, that one newspaper she reads.  None was offered.  No wonder the McCain camp tried to keep her shielded from those “gotcha journalists.”

If Sarah Palin’s is perplexed by the short duration of her honeymoon with the American people, she need not blame the media.  She has robotically held firm to a half dozen message points like a novice swimmer clings to the sides of a swimming pool.  She has failed to demonstrate what ultimately resonates with viewers: spontaneity, authenticity and thoughtfulness.  It’s painfully obvious that others have been telling her what to say from behind the bushes.  Now with that illusion shattered, her quest for acceptance and approval could end up unrequited.