The Media Interview

I was just listening to the radio, and the host begins the interview by asking what the author thinks about the issue raised in an interview just before the news break. Time for some quick bridging!!

In this case, at least, there was some connection between the two interviews - one was about parenting and the other was about a possible tax on junk food - and the author did a great job of commenting briefly on the tax, then moving towards the themes in her book. Still, it can be a bit of a shock to be asked about something she had absolutely no preparation for. Since it seemed to be a hot topic with listeners, and there were more media stops that day, she at least had a heads up on it now!

Whether it’s a previous interview or simply a story of the day, hosts will sometimes try to connect everything on their show by one or two themes, so it’s helpful if you’re able to listen to the show before you’re on (or watch in the green room, etc.) or at least have listened to a newscast, read a paper, or browsed a news site earlier in the day. This is short-term interview preparation!

And hosts, please try to make reasonable connections!

Found an interesting point on the University of British Columbia’s media training page:

Don’t tell the reporter your problems. Your casual complaints could end up in a news story.

It’s very easy to get caught up in a conversation with a reporter and mention some internal squabble or something about your working conditions; things you might talk about daily with your colleagues. In the world of “nothing is off the record”, however, these kinds of comments can be blown out of proportion merely by being mentioned in the press or by being described by a journalist in inflammatory terms.

I heard a tantalizing headline on CNN today: a new book says women talk almost three times as much as men. Oh, I could have some fun with that on my blog, I said, and immediately began googling for more details. Turns out I have something very different to blog about: don’t twist the facts to get headlines.

The book is called The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California in San Francisco, and it’s been causing quite a stir since its publication this past August. Here are some provocative blurbs from the cover of the book:

Brizendine reveals the neurological explanations behind why

• A woman uses about 20,000 words per day while a man uses about 7,000

• A woman remembers fights that a man insists never happened

• A teen girl is so obsessed with her looks and talking on the phone

• Thoughts about sex enter a woman’s brain once every couple of days but enter a man’s brain about once every minute

These are ready-made headlines which have been jumped on by the media world-wide, no doubt in part because they seem to confirm perceptions we have about men and women. But what more and more people are asking is: where’s the proof?

Mark Liberman, professor of phonetics at the University of Pennsylvania, has blogged a good deal about his and others’ efforts to answer that question. In two articles here and here, he can find no evidence for the claim that women use almost three times as many words per day. And even following up the sources cited in Brizendine’s book for the claim that “Girls speak faster on average — 250 words per minute versus 125 for typical males,” he found that those sources didn’t actually support the claim.

So it was no surprise when Steven Moss of The Guardian called Brizendine about such discrepancies, she told him

that she has accepted the criticism of the numbers quoted in the book - on both volume of words and rate of speech - and will be deleting them from future editions.

The cautionary tale here is that in the rush to be heard, to be noticed, to be quoted, there’s a danger in over-stating things, getting facts wrong, or even pulling things out of thin air to try and bolster your case. The squeaky wheel generally gets the media grease and the bigger the squeak the better.

Which is not to say that the media is at fault for causing the squeaks, only for reporting them uncritically - it took me 30 seconds online to find out that some of the claims in The Female Brain were flimsy at best. Your job is to make sure your squeaks are valid and don’t over-state the case.

Finally got to watch the second half of the Barbara Walters special 30 Mistakes in 30 Years. Like the first half of this prime-time special it was first and foremost an entertainment show, but there were useful tidbits throughout.

Walters directly addressed the issue of crying in this part of the special, acknowledging that “I have a reputation for making everyone cry”. There’s a great clip of Halle Berry ending her interview with a triumphant ‘Look, no tears!’ and another of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles turning on the waterworks. According to her statistics, though, only a dozen or so of the roughly 300 people she’s interviewed have broken down in tears. If that’s true it does seem surprising, but on reflection I think her reputation is the result of the fact that, early in her career, breaking down in an interview was still relatively rare on American TV so it stood out in people’s minds.

As I mentioned in my first post, some of the “mistakes” she lists are those made by guests, such as #10: “If I say you’re fascinating - please don’t deny it.” Walters proceeds to show a string of clips in which celebrities say “really?”, “I’m not sure why”, etc. She made a similar point about beauty in one of the earlier “mistakes” and in both cases I think she’s being disingenuous. I really don’t know what she’s expecting by asking such questions. I don’t think it’s even a question of false modesty - people simply haven’t any idea how to respond. If you asked them about a specific accomplishment, or even a specific character trait, and they said “it’s nothing” or “I don’t think that’s anything special” then I think it’s reasonable to accuse them of being disingenuous.

I found her 8th mistake interesting: “The entire [1990] Warren Beatty interview.” Apparently they taped for 2 hours but could barely get a useable 10 minutes from it because he gave such short answers or no answers at all. This, despite the fact that he had agreed before the interview that he would be willing to answer her questions. At one point in the interview, Walters quotes him as saying:

I would rather ride down the street on a camel nude in a snowstorm backwards than give what is sometimes called an in-depth interview

He acknowledged having said that, and from the short clips she showed, it certainly seemed to be his sentiment.

There was a set of clips showing Walters exclaiming to guest and crew “I’ve got my ending!” and in one of them she says “I was fishing around for an ending.” It’s a good lesson for any guest - whether it’s live, edited, or for print purposes, the interviewer is looking for not only good endings but good quotes, good openings, etc.

Some signs of changing times:

Walters points out that in the early days, the crew was asked to stay silent with their reactions to what guests were saying (in particular, not to laugh) because it was considered distracting. But eventually that gave way to keeping the background sounds, part of the trend during the 90s to open up the “fourth wall”.

Her 14th mistake was “Dancing is fine - stripping is out of the question,” but keeping in mind the 6th - “Predicting the future can be dicey” - and the state of some interview/talk shows today, I wouldn’t think that’s going to be a mistake for much longer…

Power Reporting provides links to thousands of websites for journalists or anyone interested in the media. From research tools to media commentary, you’ll find something of use, and it’s well laid out by subject area.

Not as comprehensive but covering all the basics is Smarter Surfing - a set of links to help journalists make better use of their web time. However, there are reviews of many of the links, which can be helpful in evaluating them.

I always find it useful to read about the job interview process because there are so many similarities with doing a media interview. For example, the dreaded opening question “tell me about…” your business, your book, your art, etc., is exactly like “tell me about yourself” in a job interview.

When faced with such questions, how do you keep from rattling on and on? This article -
‘Tell Me About Yourself’ Doesn’t Mean ‘Tell It All’ - from CareerJournal.com has some good suggestions:

1. Start with the end in sight.

Despite the deceptive phrasing, the directive, “Tell me about yourself,” isn’t a polite request for your life story. What the interviewer wants to know is, “Why should I hire you?” Knowing this, your goal is to craft a convincing statement that will make the interviewer want to know more about you and what you can do for the company.

To prepare, you must develop a response tailored to the specific employer and addressing its interests, goals, and needs. You should revise, refine and rehearse your script until you can deliver it flawlessly — with energy, enthusiasm and confidence.

In the case of a media interview, of course, it’s not the interviewer you’re trying to convince - it’s the audience.

A word of caution about this quote: don’t take this author’s use of the word “script” literally. What you want to revise, refine, and rehearse are your ideas, not a specific set of words or else your clear concise answer is going to sound like it has simply been memorized and spit out.

You’ve been warned:

You don’t put your hands over somebody’s face and mouth when they’re conducting an interview, even it’s for a laugh.

- Kelly Ripa on Live with Regis and Kelly Monday, November 20th referring to an incident on the Friday edition of the show when American Idol Clay Aiken was co-hosting and tried to silence Ripa.

Someone recently emailed to ask if I was related to Roy Plomley, the creator of the long-running BBC radio show Desert Island Discs (his name is often misspelled as Plumley, hence the question). Here’s my answer:

I am not related to Roy Plomley.

Speaking of Roy Plomley, his radio program Desert Island Discs can be used as a variant of the elevator pitch. For those unfamiliar with the program, a guest is asked what music they would want to have with them on a desert island if they were only allowed to bring 8 cds, records, etc. It can be useful to approach media interviews in a similar way: if I’m allowed to make only three points in this interview, what would they be?

How’s that for subtle bridging from the question asked to the answer you want to give?

Thanks to everyone who protested to Fox/Regan Books/News Corporation about the planned OJ Simpson book and TV interview - and congrats to those companies for realizing it was a travesty and for canning the entire project! Here’s a quote posted on TMZ:

News Corporation Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said today, “I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project. We are sorry for any pain this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown-Simpson.”

What do New York Subway drivers have in common with spokespeople? They should both be clear speakers…

Whether it’s an accent, speech impediment, soft-spokenness - whatever - if your job requires clear communication with the public, then part of your job requirement is clear speech. You have to wonder sometimes why a particular person was chosen or hired to speak to the media on behalf of an organization, company, or country. I don’t care how much they know about the topic; if they can’t clearly communicate it, then the message isn’t being delivered.

Of course this applies to anyone doing a media interview - if you’re a small business owner or an author or an artist, you are the “company spokesperson” and you need to make sure you’re able to be understood. Hiring out the job isn’t an option, so get help with your speech.