YPFP: Media & Foreign Policy-A Discussion with Price Floyd

By Debie Waggoner

“Julian Assange should be arrested for espionage, but there’s no turning back to a time before websites likes Wikileaks.” ~ Price Floyd

Floyd gave a brief overview of his career path; he began working at the Department of State in 1989 and eventually became Director of Media Affairs. He recounted his first experience working with the media and how it made him realize how someone like him could work behind the scenes to craft a message. It all began with his involvement in Secretary Albright’s first trip to Israel; Floyd was responsible for ensuring the media and the Secretary were in the proper places for her to be photographed paying respects at the grave of revered former Prime Minister, Itzak Rabin. The next day, Israeli newspapers had her photo on every front page in the country; and Floyd was hooked.

During the G.W. Bush years, Floyd said his department did everything in its power to communicate with Americans about the Administrations' policies. He granted 1,000 interviews a year (3 a day) for mid and top level officials, but the polls kept dropping. Finally, someone told him that if you are trying television, radio, newspaper, and internet to sell a product and no one buys it, then you need to take a look at your product. Floyd says this concept was life changing; he went back to his superiors and acknowledged that the Bush Administration may need to change some of its policies. Naturally, that did not go over very well and Floyd resigned. “No matter where you are, you have a voice. Don’t be afraid to stand up for what you believe.”

Five Communication Questions to Ask:

1. What is the message?

2. Who is the audience?

3. How can I reach them?

4. Who is going to do the speaking?

5. How am I going to measure the result or impact of the message?

If there is bad news about to be leaked about your organization, your communications team should put it out into the media first and acknowledge its mistakes and note improvements. Pretending bad news is not a big deal to consumers and constituents only makes the matter worse.

His analysis of Republicans: Historically very disciplined about staying on message and during the GWB years, “the Administration stayed on message regardless of reality.”

Democrats: “Historically horrible at discipline and staying on message, but good at communicating in general. The Obama Administration has done a pretty good job of balancing staying on message and adapting to realities.”

In light of WikiLeaks:

Floyd stated that the way the government communicates will need to change, but he is not sure how. He said, “Most likely, the government will not do a lot to change the policies and just hope it does not happen again.”

Best Point of the Night: The State Department documents revealed on WikiLeaks only proves the strength of our public diplomacy efforts. Instead of damaging the relationship of the United States, most of our friends and allies were understanding and even commented that they said even worse things about the U.S. and its representatives. True-and I would add that if it happened to the U.S., it could happen to any government-it could be China or Germany’s turn next to have documents leaked, so don’t be too harsh.