The Media Interview

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Can’t imagine how this interviewer felt. Here he is, on live TV, interviewing a man who has suffered a very traumatic surgical error - his testicles were removed by accident. Nothing funny about that. But the interviewer clearly wasn’t prepared for hearing the man’s voice…

I like this idea: The Artists Interview Artists Project. Here’s how it works: an artist submits five questions they would like to ask some other artist, and in turn they must answer five questions which have been submitted by another artist, and all the resulting interviews are posted.

The goal is to generate particularly interesting questions because they’re coming from artists themselves - and in turn get insightful answers. Check out the blog and see if you think it’s working. And I urge the artists out there to participate - you’ll get some good material (if you answer the questions well ) to put on your website.

Anyone else doing something similar in their field?

In a post called The Golden Rule Applies to Media Interviews, on the Schwartz Communications blog, John Moran relates how some clients were brainstorming about which media outlets they’d like to get coverage from, yet they referred to the outlets as “rags”. Moran says that kind of attitude is a mistake, but I think he misses the point of why it’s a mistake, because he goes on to say simply that you need to think about what the media needs - a good story (which is certainly true).

What is important about his “rag” example, I think, is that having general prejudices or preconceptions about the media or a particular media outlet can make you less effective when you’re talking to them. Perhaps there’ll be an edge in your voice as you pitch your story or answer a reporter’s questions, or you’ll read something into their questions that isn’t there - all because, in the back of your mind, you’re thinking “this paper’s a rag” or “they’re a bunch of hacks”.

Negative attitudes are never productive or useful. Ditch them now.

I’m watching Bill Parcells right now, the coach of the Dallas Cowboys, in a live news conference carried on CNN - he’s being asked questions about the apparent attempted suicide of receiver Terrell Owens. He seems genuinely frustrated by being thrust in front of the press and not having any information - keeps having to say “I don’t know” “You know more than I do probably” etc. Tough interview situation.

UPDATE: finally Parcells has given up and just walked out. Pat’s Blog points out that originally the media was told that Parcells would make a statement and not take any questions… instead, Parcells didn’t make a statement and took nothing but questions (and had no answers).

Deadspin has great moment-by-moment blogger coverage of the whole Owens situation.

Stuck for questions during an interview? Why not pick a card from one of those conversation starter games you can buy? Heard the hosts of a CBC radio show do just that the other day. They were doing it for fun of course - BTW it really did start a good thread of the conversation - but it got me thinking about how some of my clients could use those cards.

I always recommend that clients write down questions they might be asked and then think about how they would respond. In the case of authors and artists, interviews can get very personal and it can be difficult to know where the questioning will go. Some of these conversation starters have provocative personal questions which could easily arise in an interview - even better is the fact that you didn’t think up the question, so you can practice giving “off the cuff” answers.

And of course for lazy interviewers, these game cards are ideal…

Aside from the socks, there were far more important media interview lessons to come out of Bill Clinton’s talk with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday (see below for video of the interview).

1. Body language and hand gestures can change the tone of an interview. Yes, the interview did get confrontational, but I think Clinton’s constant jabbing of his finger at Chris Wallace, not just in the air, but at times on Wallace’s leg, increased our perception of confrontation. More importantly, it made us focus on Clinton as the confrontational one. Also, Clinton leaned over a number of times, getting in Wallace’s face; again raising the level of confrontation.

2. Overheated can lead to overstated. Some commentators have suggested that Clinton’s reaction to Wallace’s question about whether Clinton did enough to prevent 9/11 was deliberate, but I don’t see that in the interview. Clinton seems genuinely caught off guard by Wallace, and certainly very angry and frustrated with the line of questioning. The problem with allowing those emotions to take over is that you end up saying things in a way you’ll regret later. The trick is to have the emotional reactions, but redirect them into a complete focus on and a positive passion for what you want to say.

3. Don’t rely on pre-interview agreements. Some people have said that Clinton only agreed to this interview because it primarily would be about his work with the Clinton Global Initiative. Whether that’s true or not, he should have expected the possibility of being asked about other issues - 9/11 in particular because of recent statements Clinton had made claiming that ABC’s 9/11 docu-drama portrayed his administration inaccurately. If you talk to a producer or assistant prior to a live show or a taping, and they tell you what the interviewer will or will not ask, take it with a few grains of salt. They’re probably not intentionally misleading you; things can change in the heat of the interview.

Anyway, have a look at a portion of the Clinton interview and see what you think.

UPDATE: I read several posts the morning of Tuesday September 26, saying that Fox had required YouTube to remove all copies of the Clinton interview for copyright violations. I tried the link above and it still seemed to be working as of late Tuesday. Now I’ve just read that some postings are still visible because they can’t keep up with shutting them all down…

Anyway, if this YouTube clip doesn’t work, you can also go to the Fox site and hope they keep the clip alive for a long time. I’ve linked directly into the popup window to try and save hunting for the clip when it’s not longer the top story.

Digital Media Wire has an interesting discussion about whether Fox was wise to pull the YouTube clips. They make some good points in favour of Fox’s stance, but I think in the end they’ll get far more publicity from allowing people to run the clips (all of which have the Fox symbol clearly marked in the lower left and right). Or, Fox and other mainstream media need to make it much simpler for people to access clips like this from the Fox site - instead of that popup “media player”, just run a version of YouTube’s interface - and allow us to embed clips in blogs.

Ok, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to sweat the small stuff, especially if it’s going to distract from the real story or create fodder for critiics; like making sure your pants don’t hike up above your socks.

Sounds silly, I know, but take Bill Clinton’s infamous interview, which aired on Fox this past Sunday. While they lasted no more than a few seconds in total, wide shots showing the former U.S. President’s bare calves got a lot of attention:

What surprised me most about the Clinton meltdown yesterday was that no one told him to pull up his socks. This is a man who never goes anywhere without staff, lots of staff. Was there no one there to see that his pants were hiked up too high and his socks were pulled down too low and the flesh on his legs was showing? [Nora Ephron’s opening lines about the Clinton interview]

Meanwhile, he seems unaware of his own ungainly body. He’s gotten quite fat, and his suits — which he keeps buttoned — don’t fit him properly anymore. He’s sitting with his feet apart and planted on the floor, and the pantlegs get hiked way up so that a wide band of white leg shows above each sock. [post by Ann Althouse]

Clinton, his pant legs hiking above his socks to reveal the flesh of his calves, leaning forward and angrily tapping the papers Wallace held in his lap. [on the blog Rathergate]

Bill Clinton’s bombastic interview, besides being great television, reminded me of….. Socks the cat. (Spare me those pasty white legs!) Yes, Suzanne, you’d think a multi-millionaire jet-setter, so concerned with image, could afford proper socks. [Comment on Free Republic]

Key takeaway or learning from his [Bill Clinton’s] interview this morning, non-partisan:

If you are on national TV, being interviewed, wear over the calf socks.

You heard it here first. [from the blog What Would Dad Say]

UPDATE - Tuesday September 26

Wow, MSNBC actually ran a short segment on Clinton’s exposed leg - even asking the opinions of a guest commentator. There’s a clip of it here [thanks to Think Progress] with lots of comments from blog readers. Here’s a short quote from the MSNBC host:

The former president showing off a little leg during the sitdown with Chris Wallace. We’re going to show you that, and that’s left some — see, there it is, a little glimpse of leg. Well, how does this happen? … I mean — is this a travesty or what?

UPDATE - Wednesday September 27

The CJR Daily blog has a good summary of the media reaction to Clinton’s socks - even calling it SocksGate.

Librarian T. Scott blogging about public speaking and shyness, as well as his media training experience:

[Years ago] I knew that I had a choice — I could let my shyness rule and prevent me from achieving so many of the things that I’d like to accomplish, or I could figure out how to get past it. I couldn’t make myself be not shy, but I could keep it from stopping me.

I was thinking about all of this on Sunday when I was doing the media training session as part of my first MLA Board of Directors meeting…

As a group [librarians], we lean toward the shy end of the spectrum, but we’re at a point in our history where it is critically important that we not let that hold us back. I know that I will never go into a classroom to do a lecture for four students, or into a ballroom to do a presentation for a thousand, without going through at least an hour or two of stomach churning misery beforehand. But that’s not the point. It’s not about me and my comfort level, it’s about getting the job done. And, as shy as I am, if I can do it, anybody can. The first step is recognizing that it is not natural — it’s just acting.

I’ve vented before about spam blogs and how they waste your research time on the net. Usually you can quickly spot them because they’re filled with irrelevant material surrounding the post you were led to by the search engine. But I came across this more sophisticated version the other day:

When I was a parenting teen tipager, I had the fortunate opportunity of being interviewed by Nancy Vittorini for her “Everyday Heroes” column in react magazine. At the time, I was running a national environmental group for parenting teen tips and did about 500 media interviews a year.

Here’s the original text - turns out it’s from an Amazon.com reader book review

When I was a teenager, I had the fortunate opportunity of being interviewed by Nancy Vittorini for her “Everyday Heroes” column in react magazine. At the time, I was running a national environmental group for teens and did about 500 media interviews a year.

What the spam blogger program is doing, of course, is grabbing bits of material from various sites based on a common key word, and then substituting a related keyword or phrase for the original - in this case, the phrase “parenting teen tips” inserted wherever it finds the word “teen”. Then you generate blogs for a whole series of commonly-used keywords, using the same material over and over and hope that people click through the ads before they notice it’s not a legitimate blog.