Name: Familiarity breeds favorability: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s COVID-19 local TV news interview strategy
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Familiarity breeds favorability: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s COVID-19 local TV news interview strategy

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5:30 AM on Jul 3, 2020 CDTAUSTIN — With an investment of an hour, at most 90 minutes, Gov. Greg Abbott can reach audiences in almost half of Texas’ media markets each weekday — live, in person, on local TV news.From a three-year-old studio in his campaign committee’s office, Abbott sits in front of an image of the state Capitol and takes questions from anchors or reporters from one TV station after another. Frequently, he does successive interviews for a half-hour to an hour — often, with few or no breaks.A lawyer by training — but, increasingly, a purveyor of less windy sound bites than once was the case — Abbott often does two such rounds of TV interviews a day, one at noon, another at 5 p.m.As the coronavirus outbreak upended Texans’ lives last winter, the Republican governor intensified his use of live appearances on local TV news — already his favorite media platform for reaching the public.Abbott's done more than 350 "TV hits" since the pandemic began in March, said spokesman John Wittman.While Democrats and even some Republicans have criticized Abbott’s handling of the outbreak, veteran political operatives and professors who study politics and the media agreed that his grueling schedule of local TV appearances has handed the governor a bullhorn for sending two messages: He’s minding the store. And he’s confident.“Local television news is one of the most watched and most trusted news sources, making it an effective way to reach constituents,” said , a communication professor at the University of Texas at Austin.“Seeing that the governor took the time to give an interview to a local news outlet may increase people’s favorable impressions,” said Stroud, who is director of its Center for Media Engagement, which examines the media’s role in democracy. “Familiarity and repetition can increase favorability, which may be happening here.”In February, 55% of Texans approved of the job Abbott was doing as governor, according to a poll by The Dallas Morning News and UT-Tyler’s Center for Opinion Research.By late April, a month into the pandemic, Abbott’s job rating jumped to 61%. Among those who rely on local TV news for their news, it was 71%.“The 6% increase in his job approval closely mirrors the positive evaluation of his job with the coronavirus in that first month,” noted UT-Tyler political scientist Mark Owens, co-director of the poll.A resurgence of lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, which triggered some Abbott rollbacks of reopening and , could change that.Related:Abbott’s campaign rents space in a building four blocks from the Capitol — from the Governor’s Mansion, five.In quick outings, Abbott, his security detail and Wittman, his senior communications adviser and press secretary, drive over to the studio with him. Without props or whiteboards, Abbott plows through the TV interviews. He can’t see, he can only hear the interviewer. They’re connected via satellite or a LiveU video streaming service his campaign just subscribed to three months ago.Sometimes, a technical problem will cause a quick reshuffle of the order in which the stations get a virtual visit from the state’s most popular Republican politician.Pete Sousa, anchor of morning and noon news programs at KWTX-TV in Waco, said he’s “been on the other end of five or six” of Abbott’s TV hits — and wants more.Many Texans are having to go to food banks and sign up for food stamps to get by, Sousa said. The CBS affiliate’s newsroom has been flooded with calls and emails from viewers exasperated with delays in tapping unemployment benefits, he said. The spokesman for the Texas Workforce Commission, which runs the federal program, tries to be helpful, Sousa recounted.“But if you put the governor out there and he’s talking about unemployment [compensation], it’ll stop people walking through the living room,” he said. “And he was able to give some answers. That’s comforting to people to be able to see that and hear that voice.”Related:Democratic consultant Harold Cook said Abbott likely has opted to do live TV interviews with local anchors, and few wide-open press conferences, to avoid penetrating questioning.“If he wants to stay on the surface on an issue, you would probably go with your local TV guys and if you wanted to avoid getting in the weeds on something, you would probably avoid the print guys,” Cook said.Rice University political scientist Mark Jones agreed, calling TV hits “an ideal setting” for Abbott.“He’s not going to get any tough questions, there’s no time and anchors are not going to grill him,” Jones said.Wittman, asked if Abbott grants access to TV stations to keep encounters superficial, replied, “I haven’t seen that. But I’ll say that local TV remains the best way to get your message out to various markets throughout the state. Using this studio gives him an opportunity to talk to 19 different media markets each week [and] reach all Texans.”The interviews usually last 5 minutes, sometimes as much as 8 or 9 minutes. His favorite expressions are words Abbott punches, for emphasis:“Know this.”“Let me help you understand.”And his favorite segue, when attempting to explain conflicting facts: “That said.”Usually, as he signs off, he tells anchors, “Stay safe.”Increasingly, though, some of the interviews have grown at least politely confrontational.In the past two months, Abbott clashed with local elected officials in the state’s biggest, Democratic-controlled counties over the pace of business reopenings, the availability of diagnostic tests and whether masks should be required. In recent weeks, he had several testy exchanges with local anchors, especially in the Dallas market.Related:Early last month, for example, WFAA-TV’s Chris Lawrence asked Abbott repeatedly if he were going to George Floyd’s funeral in Houston.“Listen, we will learn later what the plans are,” Abbott said.“I don’t believe the governor wanted to answer a yes or no question,” observed Cynthia Izaguirre, Lawrence’s co-anchor on the Dallas ABC affiliate.If Abbott ever displays anger, though, it’s rare.“People from his own party, which is my party, are attacking him,” noted , a Republican political consultant and national analyst for Telemundo, Univision and CNN en Español. She referred to staunch conservatives who call Abbott’s executive orders overreach.But while safety and prosperity often are at odds, Abbott has remained steady, Aldeen said.“He has done the best that he can to provide the best advice,” she said.Nearly a decade ago, when then-Gov. Rick Perry and then-Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst were Texas’ top GOP state officials, they did something resembling Abbott’s current TV hits — if only occasionally.For as much as $10,000 of campaign money per two-hour session, they rented out TV studios to do “satellite tours,” or rapid-fire appearances on state and national TV news programs, according to Austin-based public relations consultants Ray Sullivan, who served Perry as a press aide, and Matt Hirsch, who served Dewhurst and then Abbott.“These satellite tours can be tricky particularly when you’re dealing with a very narrow window” and the interviews are flowing “back to back to back,” said Sullivan, who also served as a communications adviser to former President George W. Bush when he was governor.“You want to avoid a ‘Spinal Tap’-type moment where you say, ‘Hello, Cleveland,’ instead of ‘Hello, Amarillo,’” he said, referring to Rob Reiner’s 1984 film “This Is Spinal Tap,” a comedy about a fictional heavy-metal band. “He’s going to be expected to know the facts on the ground in each community he connects with” via satellite, Sullivan said.Wittman, the Abbott spokesman, said that when the governor “dials in” to stations, a news director or producer often “will say, ‘Governor, you’re talking to Danny today.’ So it keeps it in his mind.”If there was a hot topic, Abbott in the pre-COVID days generally did prep sessions before a round of TV hits, Wittman said. But the pandemic has brought a maelstrom that makes them rare, he said. Each day, the governor is continuously engaged with his public health advisers, information from news outlets and other state and local officials.“By the time it comes around for his interviews, he’s pretty well briefed,” Wittman said.As airtime approaches, and Abbott checks on cases and hospitalizations in the regions of the day’s interviewers, “he’s able to simply read something and keep it in his mind and then go over and repeat these data facts,” Wittman said. “It’s pretty incredible.”Related:Get the latest coronavirus updates delivered to your inbox by signing up for our exclusive newsletter.By signing up you agree to our

5:30 AM on Jul 3, 2020 CDTAUSTIN — With an investment of an hour, at most 90 minutes, Gov. Greg Abbott can reach audiences in almost half of Texas’ media markets each weekday — live, in person, on local TV news.From a three-year-old studio in his campaign committee’s office, Abbott sits in front of an image of the state Capitol and takes questions from anchors or reporters from one TV station after another. Frequently, he does successive interviews for a half-hour to an hour — often, with few or no breaks.A lawyer by training — but, increasingly, a purveyor of less windy sound bites than...

Familiarity breeds favorability: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s COVID-19 local TV news interview strategy

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