Communications Lessons from Hawk Harrelson

White Sox broadcaster Hawk Harrelson announced that, after a limited schedule next season, he will step away from the microphone for good. Sportscasting will be duller in his absence.

If you aren’t familiar with his work calling games for the White Sox, Harrelson hilariously crows unabashedly over home runs, taunts strikeout victims, heckles umpires, and chides errors. A blatant and unapologetic “homer,” Harrelson calls the White Sox the “good guys” and the opponents “bad guys” when giving the scores.

It’s raw, unvarnished, unpracticed, and – best of all – genuine. That makes it a lot of fun, too.

In sports coverage, that kind of fun is literally dying out. The late Dave Niehaus provided thirty years of gravelly-voiced excitement as the Seattle Mariners rose from expansion mediocrity to baseball powerhouse. The New York Yankees’ Phil Rizzuto cheered home runs for 40 years with a giddy “Holy Cow!” Harry Carey would famously bellow the same phrase for his beloved Chicago Cubs.

They are gone now, and baseball misses broadcasters like these. Anyone can give a sanitized account of balls and strikes, outs and hits; few can articulate – and more to the point, organically share – the emotions of a game with the fans.

Baseball fans have company thirsting for authenticity. The world of political communications has a similar problem.

It showed up in the 2016 Presidential race, when the unvarnished Donald Trump lapped more polished, practiced opponents – first in the primary, then in the general election. Bernie Sanders gained more traction in the Democratic primary than most pundits expected with baldly ideological rhetoric calling for wealth redistribution.

The lesson for some observers was that an angry, disengaged electorate wants forceful, blunt language. This has started to show in some issue advocacy campaigns. Primaries for the 2018 mid-term elections will feature candidates more than a few pugnacious, low-rent Trump or Sanders impersonators.

But that takeaway could not be more wrong.

Yes, it’s important for advocacy groups and politicians to show passion for their core issues. Too often, political speech gets tested, spun, and sanitized. The quest to be inoffensive achieves blandness.

Yet, for all the talk about Trump or Sanders tapping into mere anger and disenchantment, the truth is their success goes a little deeper. Their ability to communicate frankly set them apart; each spoke (or tweeted) like someone who felt no need for validation. This comes from a mastery of the “big ideas” of their campaign – their major themes, regardless of what specific policies those themes might take. You might disagree with the stances each took, you might grow impatient with a lack of specific plans or expertise, or you might be offended by the way some ideas were articulated. But there were no back rooms full of focus group audiences helping either Trump or Sanders figure out what to say, or how to spin an issue.

The phenomenon is not new. When the Tea Party rose in the early 2010s, Republican primary candidates started talking openly about representing their districts’ “conservative” beliefs. In recent cycles, Democrats have flaunted their “progressive” bona fides. Buzzwords get shoe-horned into political messages because they test well in polls. But the real trick is to be genuine enough that your voters and would-be supporters know where you stand without having to label yourself.

Whether or not they mean to, politicians and organizations who put on a mask – whether trying to be too careful or too brash – insult their audience’s intelligence. Voters who care enough to look can usually see through the charade, given enough time. If Trump and Sanders represent the Hawk Harrelson wing of political communicators, their 2017 and 2018 impersonators will come off more like Yankees radio announcer John Sterling and his unique, but obviously contrived, catchphrases. They’ll sound staged at best, insincere and fake at worst. Many will lose because of it.

Hawk Harrelson speaks his mind publicly, passionately, and honestly. Maybe cheering a home team’s home run isn’t standard practice among his peers, but it’s how he does it. He isn’t ashamed to enjoy (or agonize over) a baseball game – and let you know exactly how he feels. Even if you aren’t a White Sox fan, you can at least identify with that.

If only more announcers – and politicos – gave their audience so much credit.