Communications expert uses sports analysis on 6 News Tim Skubick’s interaction with Gov. Whitmer

LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — A Canadian communications expert’s X post deconstructing an interaction between 6 New Capital Correspondent Tim Skubick and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer from Monday is getting some play online.

Lucas Meyer is a former television reporter and play-by-play announcer, he tells 6 News. Using media language he refers to those instances when politicians, celebrities and others face a group of journalists as a “scrum.”

“It’s honestly sort of silly, but I’ve developed a bit of a knack of these scrum breakdowns since leaving journalism, as along with my reporting experience, I also have a decade of play-by-play experience and I’ve greatly enjoyed fusing the two because there is a sort of strategy to it all,” Meyer says in an email to 6 News. “The moves by the reporters vs. the defense of staff and politicians, the camera angles, etc.”

His feed has interactions with Canadian ministers and media as well as some American political interactions — including a meeting between former Congressman George Santos and reporters . That particular play-by-play kicked off his X by posting an analysis of the play-by-play interactions of politicians and more.

The incident between Whitmer and Skubick caught his eye. In fact, in an X post introducing the video, he calls the interaction a “Veteran Pro chase.”

“In this specific case, it just hit a lot of those notes that make these interactions fun to break down,” he wrote. “You’ve got a reporter in motion trying to get a quote, whether in walk-and-talk or plant action, you’ve got the quick ad hoc scrum set up, the work of the cameras trying to get their closeup/zoom shots, not knowing how much time you have, you’ve got the staffers trying to time when it’s time to pull the plug, all happening in less than a minute. Classic.”

And he gives the Governor a tip of the hat as well in his breakdown. “When there’s a critical and massive political topic developing in real-time, in this case where the stakes domestically cannot get any higher, both at the state level and indeed the national one – you want to be 100% of what you’re going to say and when you’re going to say it,” Meyer wrote.

“You don’t want to risk, for example, getting caught in a comment at one point in the day and then after a set of internal calls and emails, now you’re saying something different later on. For the Democrats, consistency and alignment, from all the potential candidates, big names, and administration, have to be in lockstep. So it’s not a surprise that they took that extra time, got their cards and messages in order and chatted when they decided it was right. And again, once Whitmer delivered the messages she and they wanted to hit, off to the car you go!”

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