Xenophon Strategies

The mic is always on

Matt Meenan

I can’t pass by the opportunity to comment on one of my all-time favorite PR blunders – the open mic gaffe. You may remember a few months back, President Obama learned the hard way that the press won’t even “cut the President some slack” on this one. When the microphone is on, everything’s fair game.

The latest offender is California Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina. While preparing in-studio for an interview with an ABC News affiliate in Sacramento, Fiorina had some choice words about Sean Hannity’s radio show and her opponent Sen. Barbara Boxer’s hair, among other topics. CNN has the full clip here.

Particulars aside, what’s incredible to me is that this still happens as often as it does. Especially in today’s YouTube-savvy culture, where this type of video can be so quickly and widely disseminated, you’d assume a candidate for the Senate would be media-savvy enough to avoid making this mistake.

I get it – everyone’s human. But this is media interview 101 kind of stuff. One of the first things we tell clients in our media trainings is to always assume everything you say is on the record from the time you see the news van drive up until you watch it drive away.

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