This week the Nobel Prize-winning DNA pioneer James Watson showed us the importance of key messages and selective dialogue when speaking to journalists and illustrated that even the most intelligent of use require a little media training.
Dr Watson caused international outrage following his comments this week in a national newspaper suggesting that Africans were less intelligent than Europeans.
In his Sunday Times interview, Dr Watson was quoted as saying he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really”.
Following severe criticism however, the scientist has since insisted that the way the words were presented by the journalist did not reflect his true position.
So what is to be learnt from this lesson? That no matter your intelligence, no matter your superiority, a little media training never goes amiss. Had Dr Watson participated in media training prior to his interview, and dare we say crisis management training, he would have developed key messages, learned what to say and more importantly in his case what not to. He would also know how to handle the crisis before him as he faces further fallout, including suspension from his US research institute.
But all was not lost from a media management perspective, as in a second interview published this week, Dr Watson was far more selective with his words, emphasising well formed key messages (could he have found time to attend that all important crisis management session?)
He said: “I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways they have. To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly.
“That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief.”
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