Richard Edelman Quotes

The thing that I try to remember is that in the briefing room it's not a debate. I'm not supposed to go in there and win a debate with the press corps. If that's what I try to do, then I'm going to lose.

The bully pulpit is not an open microphone. You have to target it very carefully.

Talking to the press, you say things a little differently.

Communication and communication strategy is not just part of the game - it is the game.

I've always been a believer that if you're not interested in talking to the media, you shouldn't be running for Senate in the first place, or you're kind of missing out on one of the key components is to get your message out of what you want to do.

I think it's so important that the spokesperson for the president can adequately speak to his policies and get his message out there.

Feeding the media is like training a dog. You can't throw an entire steak at a dog to train it to sit. You have to give it little bits of steak over and over again until it learns.

By the way, I have had zero press training.

I think for more than half of my career, I have refrained from talking to the media.

I'll be one of the spokespeople, one of the people who sells the Administration's plans.

Nobody has a magic lamp which can tell you in advance whether what you say will be effective in persuading an audience.

Being a press secretary is like learning to type: You're hunting and pecking for a while and then you find yourself doing the touch system and don't realize it. You're speaking for the president without ever having to go to him.

My view is different. Public relations are a key component of any operation in this day of instant communications and rightly inquisitive citizens.

Like ministers of information, consultants condense the message, smooth out the dissonances, unify the rhetoric, and then repeat and amplify it ad nauseam through the client's rank and file.

During my years as a press secretary, I developed a powerful internal filter, which worked to strip all things 'off message' from my thoughts before they came out of my mouth. It didn't always work, of course, and I said more than a few things I regretted.

Corporate communications will become a high-tech art, just as political communication is for Obama.

Long speeches work if they’re filled with substance.

Part of politics is redundancy. You’ve got to say the same thing over and over even if you get tired of it…not everyone has heard it.

In 1977, when I became Speaker, I started meeting with TV reporters each morning when I arrived at work. Later in the morning, I would hold a news conference before the House opened. I always told the truth and almost never answered with 'no comment.'

Obama has proved to be particularly adept at using the media to disseminate his administration's messages, but he is a masterful orator. Bill Clinton, too.

If you don't have a good case, and you don't have a good message, then shining a light on it is not going to get you very far.

In politics, you're safest when you're saying as little as possible. You're safest when you've got your talking points and you stick to them like glue, even if it means repeating yourself over and over.

I personally have a pretty open philosophy about trying to talk to the press, and so does Dan Bartlett.

PR is premised on truth, trust, and transparency.

Press conferences aren't the best thing to do, but it's part of the job.