Faced by an array of cameras and journalists at a press conference called to reveal the findings of his report into the UK banking sector, Sir John Vickers knew that he would be front page news the following day. But the FT headline ”Sir John denies he ‘bottled’ it” is probably not the way in which he wanted to appear.Sir John fell foul of a golden rule of media training : never repeat a negative word or assertion contained within a reporter’s question. When asked by a journalist whether he had “bottled it”, his response was “we have certainly not bottled it”. A more categoric dismissal of the allegation is hard to imagine, but it still allowed the media to write that he “denied that he had bottled it”.
The net effect is to leave Sir John associated with the idea of “bottling it” even through his denial. Had he benefited from media training, he would have known that a better response to the question was “I refute that categorically or “That’s absolutely not the case”.
It’s the same answer, but without allowing reporters to put Sir John and “bottling it” in the same quote. Had he taken this approach, he would still have made the front page of the FT, but with a headline that he might have preferred.
