The Media Interview

Finally getting a longer-than-a-weekend break. Campsite’s booked. Weather’s great. Off to the store to buy my daughters some Loopy-Doopies (for those of you unfamiliar with “wilderness” camping that translates as Fruit Loops… and they HAVE to be in those little boxes). See you August 1st!

» Presentation Zen - the focus here is on live business presentations, but there’s a lot that’s applicable to your interview style - how you come across, making your point effectively, and lots more.

» Pew Internet & American Life Project - if you need to research social trends involving the internet, this is a great resource.

Everybody’s got a media tips sheet, but Backbone Communications found a great way to stand out from the crowd: offer up some fun but pointed categories of ill-prepared executives:

Name: The 5:15
Description: The executive who does a passing imitation of a runaway train, rattling off interminable answers at breakneck speed.

Name: The O’Reilly
Description: When an overly aggressive subject lambastes the competition or takes the editor’s publication to task for “slanted” coverage (to name just two possible irritants).

Name: The Merv
Description: Named for the fabled, now largely forgotten talk show host renowned for his fawning, this applies to the relentlessly ingratiating interviewee…it can also take the form of mindless, digressive shmoozing.

Name: The Warhol
Description: The executive who repeats several stock phrases over, and over, and over again.

Name: The Martha
Description: The endlessly controlling interviewee who always restates the question and, essentially, conducts her own interview.

Name: The Arnold
Description: Named for the body builder turned movie star turned governor, this describes the executive intent on dominating the interview by force of will and a brutal, unstoppable charm offensive.

Any you’d add to this list?

From May 2006 here’s one person’s perceptions of how the two front-runners in Sweden’s elections came across in the media. This blogger is a writer and communications strategist, which explains some of the detailed analysis, but I think it’s a good articulation of what the average person might be feeling subconsciously and which may also be influencing their voting (buying, approval, or whatever one is hoping to garner from a media appearance).

If you’re looking for an “outspokesperson”, pop singer Pink may be perfect for your media tour:

You’re also known for being outspoken. Have you been warned about this?

At first, but now I’m a lost cause. They had me take etiquette classes and media training and it didn’t work out. I told them that the etiquette class was an insult to my mother and I tried the media training for one day and the guy walked out and said he couldn’t help me.

From a July 16 interview in The Sunday Paper.

I don’t mind being interviewed any more than I mind Viennese waltzing - that is, my response will depend on the agility and grace and attitude and intelligence of the other person. Some do it well, some clumsily, some step on your toes by accident, and some aim for them.

- Margaret Atwood
quoted in The Good Interview

Matthew Stibbe - writer-in-chief at Articulate Marketing and Editor of ModernPilot.com - has a nice summary of what can make a media interview go wrong, from the interviewer’s standpoint and the interviewee’s. What I like about his list is that it’s refreshingly candid (”sometimes after eight or ten interviews I sort of lose the will to live”) and covers several issues you don’t see on other tips lists (boring interviewees, technical interruptions).

Thanks to Scott Baradell at Media Orchard for drawing my attention to Matthew’s blog.

Hosts: are you asking the right sorts of questions? Journalist and writing coach Chip Scanlan has some good examples of how NOT to ask questions on his blog, in an article based on the work of John Sawatsky, a Canadian journalist and teacher .

Used carefully, questions can make the difference between an answer and obfuscation.

Interviewing isn’t an art or a science, [Sawatsky] says.

It’s something in between, closer to a social science. You can make some predictions about an interview but not absolute ones because interviewing involves human beings who don’t always behave in predictable ways. Ask the wrong question, and even a cooperative interview subject may not be able to give you the information you need.

The question is the interviewer’s most useful tool, but reporters ask too many questions (one-third to one-half, Sawatsky estimates) that suppress, rather than produce, information.

Scanlon uses detailed examples from a Washington press conference to illustrate these points. Must reading for interviewers, and useful for interviewees to try an avoid getting stymied by a poorly worded question.

For more about John Sawatsky, see the American Journalism Review article from 2000 entitled The Question Man.

TV producer and host Deborah Boland offers up a few interview tips on Krishna De’s Biz Growth News blog.

Posted another testimonial to my wife’s website today and it struck me how many times Kim’s clients rave about her enthusiasm for their book/product/business (and she’s fortunate that she can choose to take on only projects for which she really is enthusiastic). It’s one of the things that makes her a great publicist; that enthusiasm comes out in her media pitches and it often helps increase her clients’ enthusiasm during interviews.

No matter how passionate we are about our work, we can always use some rejuvenation (the more so the longer we’ve been at it ). Do you have ways of refreshing your enthusiasm if you make your own media pitches? What about before each interview, especially during a hectic media tour?