How do you respond to a question you don’t want to answer?
The former Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell he couldn’t hear her after she posed a question about spying.
Let’s say you, or an executive or politician you work for, is going on live TV for an interview about a difficult or touchy subject. After a few questions that are tough but that you’ve prepared for, the reporter asks a question you just plain don’t want to answer.
“No comment” is all but verboten in PR circles, but the path former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren chose probably wasn’t better. In a Monday appearance on MSNBC, Oren responded to a question from anchor Andrea Mitchell about whether Israeli intelligence had eavesdropped on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry with this:
“An…An…Andrea, I can’t hear you. I’m sorry.”
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