Death to Talking Points

We need to ditch talking points. I can feel Amy Friedman (Profiles PR) side-eying me as she reads this. I have, on more than one occasion, diva texted her the morning of a televised interview asking simply “what are my talking points?” I crave the safety of having them floating around in my brain somewhere (in fairness to her, they’re almost always floating around my inbox in an email that I previously read and disposed of). I suspect by now that she knows the contents of the message before opening it and that her first thought is probably, “why do I even bother?” She then sends me some on-brand, thoughtfully crafted, easy-to-digest bullets to guardrail the conversation, not to limit me, more to establish a perimeter. Then I get on camera and immediately hop the fence. I’m the worst. But, so far, it hasn’t ruined us. Not yet, at least.