The Talking Point is Dead. What Comes Next?

By Michael Levine, writing for CommPro…

Traditional talking points are losing effectiveness in crisis communications, media training and executive communications. Michael Levine argues that today’s leaders must replace overly scripted messaging with fact-based authenticity, answering questions directly, acknowledging complexity and communicating naturally across interviews, podcasts, livestreams and social media, where audiences increasingly scrutinize credibility and trust.

For decades, public relations operated like a small, exceedingly nervous nation-state. Every word required clearance. Every answer was inspected for ideological impurities. Spokespeople entered interviews armed with approved talking points, practiced transitions, and the emotional spontaneity of a parking meter.

The objective was message discipline. The result was frequently message anesthesia.

Consistency was once considered synonymous with credibility. If an executive repeated the same polished phrase often enough, preferably while staring earnestly into the middle distance, the public was expected to accept it as truth. This worked reasonably well when Americans had three television networks, two daily newspapers, and no immediate way to publicly declare, “That answer was complete baloney.”

That world is dead.

We now inhabit an age of podcasts, livestreams, social media, long-form interviews and citizen commentary. Audiences can study every pause, contradiction and verbal pirouette. They do not merely hear what a spokesperson says; they assess whether the speaker appears to believe it.

This is why authenticity has become the new credibility.

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Photo Credit: Gemini