Justin Trudeau's Media Moments

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his upcoming resignation a week ago today. Since we last saw him at that news conference, he's only done US media appearances.

Let's take a look back at some of Trudeau's best and worst media moments and talk about why they happened.

Ahh...Err....Umm...

When I look back at the news conferences and media scrums done by Trudeau over the years, the single biggest memory will be the hesitation in his voice that we saw so often.

There’s no doubt he was well spoken in both of Canada’s official languages. However there often was hesitation in his voice. There seemed to be uncertainty that led to him using to the “ahh” sound to start so many thoughts and sentences. He often used other sounds like “err” and “umm” as he was trying to navigate from one phrase to another.

Some of this is natural. We all do it. Trudeau however seemed to fall into a habit of using sounds like this as he spoke to reporters. Many sentences started with “ahh” instead of a real word.

It’s just not me who has felt this way. During several media training workshops, when I talked about the need to know what you’re going to say before you say it, people have pointed out this seemed to be one of Trudeau’s problems. He isn’t sure what he’s going to say next, they said. They were right.  

At other times, especially during longer sit down interviews, he did much better. An example of that was the interview he did last week on CNN with Jake Tapper. He was excellent.

On other occasions though, he had problems. I’m still not sure what happened when he got this question and froze for a full 21 seconds before answering.

Sound Bite of the Year

It also seems to me that Trudeau was better at news conferences in his first few years as Prime Minister. Perhaps he prepared better for those media appearances. Later on, he may have just decided to “wing it” a little more.

However, one of his best media moments came in his first appearance after he named his first cabinet.

Remember this terrific sound bite when his cabinet was sworn in in the fall of 2015. It had to be the political sound bite of the year in Canada. He knew he was going to get this question and nailed his answer.

I always marvel at the flock of cabinet ministers behind him that day and think about how they almost all left for different reasons. Who would have thought on that sunny autumn afternoon in Ottawa in 2015 that it would have ended this way?

I digress. Back to media moments.

Drink Box Water Bottles Sort of Thing

I really don’t want to pick on Trudeau and kick him when he’s down. Whether you agree with his politics, he did win three elections and represented Canada for almost a decade.

My comments are about how he interacted with the media and perhaps one of his worst moments came when he spoke at a news conference when the government let it be known it would take action against single-use plastics.

Some communications people working for the government picked a beautiful spot in front of a lake to hold the news conference, crossed their fingers and got terrific weather and then the PM couldn’t answer a simple question. I feel bad for them because that's what this news conference will be remembered for.

His people must have cringed when he got a dead simple question and couldn’t answer it.

The lesson learned here is to always be ready for the “you question.” Politicians get them all the time. What are you personally going to do to help solve this problem? It’s a fair question.

Trudeau took thousands of questions. Some he answered well, some he didn’t. In many cases he didn’t answer the question he was asked. All politicians do that, but Trudeau seemed to be a master of the “no answer.”

Come to think of it, that may be his media legacy.