It is not the first time that when the consumer affairs minister, Alberto Garzón, speaks, the bread rises. His statements have on more than one occasion generated enormous controversy, from which he has defended himself by arguing that he was misinterpreted or, as in the most recent case, that his words were wrongly or incompletely transcribed. Giving him the benefit of the doubt that this was the case, one wonders how such a lack of professionalism in communication can occur. In Formula 1, Minister Garzón could have learned some valuable lessons. There, the disinformation of which he claims to be a victim would have been literally impossible, because the methodology and systems used prevent or seek to prevent it from occurring.
Beware of being blacklisted
First of all, if you look at the scenes of journalists and pilots, you will see that every time they are interviewed, they always, absolutely always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always. always, there is a team leader with a tape recorder in hand to make sure that the pilot has said what he or she has actually said.not what the media wanted to interpret. Woe betide the journalist who happens to misinterpret the statements, because if they are compared with his own recording and it turns out that they have been transcribed incorrectly, he runs the risk of receiving a yellow card, if not a straight red card.
Teams have many methods to punish a journalist who through lack of rigour, professionalism or maliciousness has published an erroneous or false message. The 'sanctions' can range from not being admitted to invited events or being placed on a media 'blacklist', which will not be granted an exclusive interview during the year. Unfortunately, sometimes the punishment does not come to the person but to the environment.It is not the first time that a journalist has been 'vetoed' by a driver or team because of the clumsiness or malpractice of his or her predecessor in the media.
You reflect accurately, or not at all
It's not about censoring some awkward paragraph (although sometimes some jumper in the team's communications department tries to do that). It's about the interview reflecting exactly what the team member meant to say, sticking to the official recording. The excuse that the Guardian journalist did not include the full story for reasons of space does not apply. Either you reflect exactly and completely what was said, or there is no interview. Full stop.
There may be media or journalists who try to be clever and ignore the demands under which the interviews were agreed. But if these are reflected, they are playing with fire because they can even be legally prosecuted. Not all legal systems work in the same way, but in countries that take these matters very seriously, such as the UK, former FIA president Max Mosley won a lawsuit against the tabloid newspaper that revealed his S&M orgy. In any case, legal issues aside, for a generalist media to go to war with a team is a bad idea, but for a specialist media it is an unbearable burden.
Left hand and rigour
Because it is not about the team vetoing the journalist.. As long as a media representative is officially accredited, nothing can prevent him/her from attending official press conferences or meetings (known as canutazos) in the paddock. However, when you want to access hospitality areas or content where the teams are free to restrict access, only those media who, in their opinion, have always been rigorous with the truth, can do so. Of course, there are always media directors tempted to confuse journalistic rigour with the fact that the information they publish is always kind to them, but here they must be careful, because ignoring the critic is also something that can turn against them.
As in life, there is a bit of everything in the teams' communication departments. There is no comparison between managing the communication of Aston Martin, Red Bull or McLaren and a team like Ferrari, where even the smallest trifle becomes a matter of state in Italy. However, they also know that vetoing 'uncomfortable' journalists without proving that they have been lax can also cost them dearly. Left-handedness and rigour in equal measure.
Learning the lesson
The Formula 1 teams insist on the training and preparation that the drivers receive within the teams, where before being subjected to an interview, a preliminary rehearsal is carried out in order to have studied what to answer on current issues that may generate more controversy. Although every day we see more and more in politics the bad practice of questions known in advance or the selection of subjects to talk about, we are talking about serious journalism and that, even with the lack of knowledge of the questions, it is possible to go with the lesson well learnt on the subjects that generate the most controversy.
But beware, it is not a question of generating 'parrots', because it is easy to detect when a speech is not genuine. In Formula 1, it is often seen that inconveniences can be as bad as never saying anything relevant at all. There was a pilot from the quarry of Toyota in Formula 1, Ryan Briscoe, who was insufferable in the face of his constant political correctness and cloying in interviews. Such was the amount of birds that had been put into the poor boy's training, that all his answers always seemed to be programmed by the coldness of a machine and not by the real feelings of a racing driver. Spontaneity and authenticity are highly valued and in the end it means more media presence.
The value of Marc Gené
Of course some innate communication skills help, but teams leave nothing to chance. They know that good communication from drivers and spokespersons depends to a large extent on the ROI (return on investment) of sponsors. Therefore, the level of the key team members in front of the microphones has to be in line with excellence on the track. One of the The most notorious cases of excellent work is Marc Gené at Ferrari.where he has become an irreplaceable figure. Alongside his versatility as a test driver for both racing and road cars, he is the best and most reliable technical spokesman the Scuderia has ever had.
As an example of the value of a communicator such as Gené, in 2014 the very Luca de Montezemolo demanded that someone he trusted, such as the Catalan driver, should be the technical commentator for the recently launched Formula 1 pay channel in Italy. As a result, Banco Santander complained to Ferrari for depriving them of such a valuable communication asset in an important market. The Bank suggested they use their other test driver, Italian Giancarlo Fisichella. Ferrari's response was as laconic as it was revealing: Marc speaks better Italian than Fisichella!!!. Although Gené speaks the transalpine language better than many Italians, in 'petit comité' they also recognised a second cause: with Marc they could rest assured that he would always give relevant information without going off the deep end by revealing technical secrets or getting into unnecessary polemical gardens.
So perhaps a good idea would be for Minister Garzón to call Marc Gené to advise him on how to ride at a high level in communication and above all, not to 'skid' in interviews, especially if they are so critical.
Our Director of Sports Sponsorship, Pablo de VillotaThe text is published in the newspaper El Confidencial. Access here