Читать книгу Speak Out With Clout - Charles Boyle - Страница 6

Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.” Meaning, I suppose, that television was where it was at when he said it. A lot of people believed this, and some companies even went so far as to put their entire advertising budget into television. These experiments sometimes failed, and the advertising budget for the next year was spread out disproportionately among other media. Times have progressed now, and companies’ marketing and advertising budgets are skewed more toward online advertising.

Suppose, however, that whenever you wanted to reach the public, you would be in a position to command not only television, but every radio, newspaper, wire service, news magazine, and news website to record and report everything you say. Wouldn’t that be the supreme communication network? No need to go out and talk to audiences of 50, 100, or 1,000 people. With the flick of a wrist, the entire news media would come to you, and your words would be heard instantaneously by millions worldwide on radio and television, read in newspaper and news magazines, and read by millions more on the Internet. Who would need to make speeches if they had that ultimate communication power? There are, of course, some people who have that power — for instance, the President of the United States.

In order to summon the combined resources of all the networks to the Oval Office (or wherever they are going to set up the cameras) the President must first have something to say — and must say it in a speech. Furthermore, the President theoretically cannot command any interest in his or her speech unless it is a nonpartisan address of national concern. If the goal is to help raise money or support for a congressional candidate in an off-year election, he or she usually speaks at a $100-a-plate fundraiser in the ballroom of the biggest hotel in the congressman or congresswoman’s city. And, if he or she wants to raise some dough and drum up support for his or her own candidacy for re-election, even though he or she is the President, preparation must be made to make hundreds of speeches in hundreds of places. Obviously, the medium is not the whole message. It’s only one part.

Years ago I worked for the president of a large television and radio broadcasting company. For years, this man sat down every day and recorded an editorial which was played back the following day on television and radio. His face was the most recognized face in his city. He could say almost anything he wanted to say, as long as he could say it in a minute or so. One day he was asked to speak to a small convention and he asked me to write a speech. We sat down together, and while he told me what he wanted to say in his speech, I took notes. With the help of research to support his arguments and pleas, I drafted a script and my boss was ready to make a live appearance before the convention.

An amazing chain of events resulted from that invitation. To begin with, he was very happy to receive the applause and cheers of the 100 or so people who heard him give his speech. He was also happy to receive some immediate invitations to give his speech to other organizations to which those attending the convention at hand belonged. As the months wore on, he was happy to see his speech published — sometimes in toto in regional or specialized magazines, or in part as the thrust of a story in the local newspapers. He was particularly happy when his speech won a national Freedoms Foundation Award.

As the months stretched into years, the original speech kept changing — a paragraph would be taken out and replaced with updated material. A new thought would be developed and added in place of an older thought. The speech grew and lived, and my boss’ fame also spread from one city into adjacent states. Occasionally he gave speeches on other subjects, but mostly he stuck to that one theme about advocacy journalism. When he first started to give his speech, he accepted invitations from almost any group. But, as time went by, he would only speak to large or prestigious audiences, turning the smaller or less prestigious audiences over to a vice-president or the TV anchors at his station. Once in a while he would ask me to deliver his speech. When I left his employ three years later, he was still giving that same speech, although there was hardly a word left in it from the original script.

During all of this time, he had a television and radio station at his command, and he continued to editorialize every day, expressing his opinions on every subject conceivable. In some of his editorials, if the subject was appropriate, he would lift out sentences or paragraphs from his speech and use them to make a point. But he never gave the exact speech itself on television or radio. Why? For the same reason a president of the United States will give one kind of message to a national television audience and another kind to a gathering of the party faithful. To the television audience encompassing philosophies stretching from the far left to the far right and everything in between, punches have to be pulled, qualifications made, and feelings taken into consideration if there is to be any hope of general receptivity from a mass-media audience. Speeches are aimed at specific audiences.

The more closely a message is geared to specific audiences, the more likely it is to be accepted. Without ever saying it, my boss and I knew that his speech — in spite of the standing ovations he received whenever he gave it, in spite of its national award, in spite of its being printed in certain publications — would never be delivered on the air for the consumption of a television and radio audience. We never said so, but we knew empirically that his speech was meant for specific audiences and not for the vast spectrum of thoughts, prejudices, and intelligences that make up the mass, diversified TV audience. If a speech is to gain the maximum benefit for a speaker, his or her company, or his or her cause, it must be geared to specific audiences.

This doesn’t mean a conservative must only speak to conservative audiences, a liberal to liberal audiences, an environmentalist to conservationists, or a businessperson to businesspeople. On the contrary, by omitting inflammatory words and phrases and stressing points of agreement, a speech is the best way for a labor leader to reach businessmen or a Republican to reach Democrats without alienating base support and without compromising his or her principles. I can’t say there is no other way, but a speech is the most effective way to reach those with different opinions, convince those with no opinions, and reinforce those who subscribe to your opinion.

Let’s break down the title of this section into specific examples of how speeches satisfy according to what they can do for you, your cause, or your company.